August 8, 2006

In the time it takes you to read this article, there will be 10 to 15 unintended pregnancies in the United States. Improved access to emergency contraception could have prevented half of them.

Instead, hundreds of thousands of unplanned pregnancies end in abortion every year. You would think that opponents of abortion would embrace emergency contraception. But you would be wrong.

Many in the anti-abortion movement are up in arms over the Food and Drug Administration's recent announcement that it will consider over-the-counter status for the "Plan B" emergency contraception for those 18 and older.

Their concerns are often cloaked in rhetoric about the health and well-being of women, especially adolescents. Yet leading medical groups -- from the American Medical Association to the American Academy of Pediatrics to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists -- strongly advocate over-the-counter status for emergency contraception, even for teenagers.

The American Medical Association notes that widespread access to emergency contraception could prevent as many as 1.7 million unintended pregnancies and 800,000 abortions each year.

Until now, the Bush administration has allowed pressure from the far right to trump science and common sense, and the Food and Drug Administration has dragged its feet for more than three years on non-prescription status for Plan B.

Finally, on July 31, the FDA announced that it would meet with Plan B's manufacturers to amend its application, in particular by increasing the age for over-the-counter sales from 16 to 18.

The far right, upon hearing the news, launched a new campaign of distortions against emergency contraception. Let's separate fact from fiction.

Fiction: Emergency contraception will encourage "increased sexual promiscuity," according to an Aug. 2 e-mail alert from Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati.

Fact: More than 15,000 pages of clinical data from some 40 studies were submitted to the FDA with the application for non-prescription status for Plan B. The FDA's expert advisory panels rejected this allegation. As Dr. Vivian Dickerson, past president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, notes: "EC (Emergency contraception) does not increase promiscuity among teenaged women."

Fiction: Sexually transmitted diseases "skyrocketed" in countries allowing non-prescription emergency contraception, according to Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, an influential religious right group.

Fact: Improved access to EC "either decreases sexually transmitted diseases or has no effect on them," according to Jonathan Klein, chair of the National Committee on Adolescence for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Fiction: Non-prescription Plan B will increase use among women who have not been screened for potentially life-threatening complications, according to the arch-conservative Family Research Council.

Fact: Studies have shown that young women can use Plan B "effectively and safely without health care provider intervention," according to the American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement on emergency contraception.

Fiction: Emergency contraception is an abortifacient that can "snuff out the life of a newly conceived human being," warns the American Life League in a recent Action Alert.

Fact: Emergency contraception, which should be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, "cannot terminate an established pregnancy," according to the American Medical Association policy advocating non-prescription status.

Ask yourself: If your daughter, girlfriend or sister were unexpectedly pregnant, would you turn to the religious right or your doctor for medical advice?

The FDA's decisions should be based on medicine, not religious extremism.

Doctors, not ideologues, should set our country's medical policies.

Barbara Miner is a journalist specializing in social policy issues. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.