"Morning after Pill" does not induce ABORTION--Ignore the Science.

[IChing]

Plan B: Ignore the Science?


It's science versus politics once again in the widening fight over the "morning after" pill known as Plan B, with medical researchers this week citing studies showing the drug does not induce abortions, as is commonly thought. Abortion politics have repeatedly haunted discussions of so-called emergency contraception such as Plan B. It's often referred to in news stories and by anti-abortion groups as an abortion pill, and pro-life advocates have unleashed a campaign against it in the United States that has reverberated through the ranks of the Federal Drug Administration and more than a dozen state legislatures.


Scientists say the hubbub is hogwash because studies have shown that the progestin hormone in Plan B prevents ovulation but does not affect a fertilized egg, and therefore cannot be considered abortion.

"People mix up emergency contraception with abortion, and it is really inaccurate," said Regine Sitruk-Ware, executive director of product research and development at The Population Council, a nonprofit that conducts research on reproductive science, including birth control and abortion procedures. "Political opponents of abortion want to prevent access to emergency contraception on the basis that it may prevent implantation, and therefore would be a sort of early abortive. This is not the case.">>>>>>snip

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,67432,00.html?tw=rss.TEK

[Kagemusha]

1. It's silly to describe this 'misunderstanding' as a 'mistake'.

It's deliberate, it's elementary propaganda. Control the language and you control the mind.

[CTyankee]

2. Right

My local PP still has a prochoice opponant with a sign that says that abortion causes breast cancer. Loony toons.

[silverweb]

6. Straight from BushCo

They're not so much loonytoons as downright evil. They know exactly what they're doing!

http://democrats.reform.house.gov/features/politics_and_science/example_breast_cancer.htm

[Warpy]

9. It certainly is, and fundy pharmacists KNOW THIS.

They're willing to be deceitful, to LIE, in order to deny women appropriate health care and protection from needing an abortion, which is what Plan B does.

These men are not Christians. Christians treat other people (even women) the way they want to be treated. Christians don't lie. Christians who hate abortion don't do things which will cause women to seek abortion more often.

Know your enemy.

[rodeodance]

28. you are certainly right--this effort is deliverate

[silverweb]

3. Ye gods, I hate those people!

They will twist and distort facts to suit their purpose. They will try to block scientific evidence. They will lie, cheat, and kill to have their way and impose it on all others. And for what???

:grr:

[AlCzervik]

4. Conception for them begins at the thought of screwing around.

[silverweb]

8. Of course.

That doesn't make me understand their motives any better, though.

:shrug:

[sonicx]

5. anti-choicers know this, but they lie anyway.

[IChing]

7. It's just too much science. I don't understand?

The group,that wrote the report claims no political or advocacy ties, issued a report on Wednesday summarizing Plan B scientific research that it says proves the drug prevents ovulation but doesn't cause abortion.
Prevents ovulation and does not affect the fertilized egg.

[rodeodance]

10. Bushco has most of the media & the Right parroting his lies--and

hearing it over and over-people believe it. I so tire of it.
Two or 3 times the FDA has delayed a decision on Plan B.

[IChing]

11. Lester Crawford is a hack

Controversy over Plan B began in 2004 when the FDA refused, in a rare move against the recommendation of its scientific advisers, to approve the drug as an over-the-counter medication. Lester Crawford, who was acting director of the agency at the time, is now President Bush's choice for permanent director. But the agency's refusal to allow over-the-counter access to Plan B under Crawford's leadership has led Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York) and Patty Murray (D-Washington) to try to block the nomination. They accuse Crawford and the FDA of being motivated by ideology instead of science.

[rodeodance]

27. abortion is traditionally defined as expelling the fetus-the embryo--which

is fertalized. you can have an abortion if no fertalization occurs. The Right is re-defining what abortion IS.

[killbotfactory]

12. It's about controlling bodies, no life or abortion

These freaks don't want people to have sex unless they are married.
And if someone goes and has sex, they want them to pay the price as much as possible. Pregnancy, std's, etc. It's part of your "punishment" for premarital sex.

[Erika]

13. You're exactly right. Control the sheeple.

Control the minds and information as they turn this country into a fascist theocracy.

[Shallah Kali]

23. yep. to them nonmarital sex is worse than murder

No fate is too horrible for people who don't follow their rules.

[sharman]

14. What about birth control?

Awhile ago, the fundie pharmacists started refusing to dispense birth control pills, claiming that while the pill usually prevents ovulation, sometimes ovulation does occur, and in that event, the pill prevents pregnancy by interfering with implantation. In other words, 'abortion'.

Do you happen to know whether that is true or not? I did a quick google search, and concluded that it was true.

Now, it's risky, but I started using that as a good fact in the war against the fundies. If you are going to oppose first trimester abortion and morning after pill because you think human life begins at conception, then you have to oppose birth control pills too.

If the fundies go after birth control pills, I'd think sane America, maybe even Big Pharma, would wake up fast.

I'd like to push this in their faces--hey, are they on god's side or not? And while we're at it, why aren't they bombing fertility clinics? Thousands of fertilized eggs get destroyed in fertility clinics.

It's scary, but the more you make them put their crazy scary agenda on the table, the better chance to stop them before our country is destroyed.

[Maat]

15. I agree.

And I don't care if it interferes with implantation or not. At that point, we are talking about an EGG (maybe a few cells). Eliminating the possibility of pregnancy is certainly better than bringing an unwanted child into the world to be abandoned, abused or neglected.

50% of fertilized eggs do not successfully implant anyway; are they going to start blaming women for THAT?

By far the vast majority of children get taken into protective custody (saved from abandonment or further abuse or neglect) when they are older than infants. Do the Religious Wrongies plan to adopt children by the boatload or what?

Hypocrites. Shameful. Just shameful.

[IChing]

16. My new bible science class I teach

Says that life begins before life, or somewhere in the intelligent design of things.

[depakid]

29. LOL!

That's about the long and short of it....

[sonicx]

17. Most doctors consider abortion to be AFTER implantation.

That's how the FDA defines it. ECs, OTOH, prevent pregnancy and are not abortion bills.

[noamnety]

30. The irony there

is that statistically the pill lowers your chances of expelling a fertilized egg.

Yes, if you are on the pill, it is possible to have a fertilized egg, which then fails to implant. But much more commonly, it will prevent fertilization to begin with. Whereas if you don't take the pill at all, your chances of having a fertilized egg increase dramatically - as do your chances then of having that fertilized egg wash out without implantation.

If the talibangelists really considered a nonimplanted fertilized egg to be a tragic loss of human life, they would be pushing to have everyone go on the pill to prevent it.

[insane_cratic_gal]

18. Stops the Chicken implanting!

I want a bummer stick that says "It's not a choice, It's a Chicken!"

[daleo]

19. They just don't like sex.

People who are hung up about sex are easier to control and manipulate.

[IChing]

20. Good Cartoon

[pauliedangerously]

21. Once upon a time...

It was asserted that life began at birth. Today's popular assertion is that life begins at conception. I guess the next step is going to be the proposition that life begins at ejaculation. I can see the headlines now: "Teenager Gets Ten Years for Nocturnal Emission."

[R Hickey]

25. News headlines in our future: Socks clog nation's evidence rooms.

If the Moonie-con's have their way, in a few years the GOP will pass a law against masturbation. It will probably be passed the same way the recent health care bill was passed, in the dead of night, while most of our lusty citizens are whooping it up in their beds, the un-lucky ones either sleeping or masturbating.

Congress will probably call their new law the "Emission Prohibition Act." Most likely even some Democrats will end up voting for it, perhaps after Senator Frist diagnoses them as a bunch of compulsive masturbaters.

To enforce the new law, cell phone cameras will be surgically attached or super-glued to citizen's belly buttons, focused downward, with the picture electronically piped into the data processors of the "National Anti-Masturbatory Task Force."

The new "NAMTF" will send it's "task forces" out collect starchy socks, inflated plastic sex dolls and other physical evidence for the trials. Amerika's prison population will become engorged with new members.

"Stiff Socks get Stiff Sentencing" may become NAMTF's slogan, or maybe "Three Strokes and Your Out," or perhaps their slogan will be something more uplifting, like "Bring Every Sperm to Term."

Once the evils of masturbation have been conquered, and the "Masturbation War" won, I think I smell an "Anti-Fart" bill in the wind.

[Tux]

31. In the Torah

God kills a guy for pulling out and letting the "seed" drop on the ground. It's mostly for sanitation like most Jewish laws but fundies take it as sperm is sacred and must be put into a married woman.

[burrowowl]

22. So if you have already ovulated

and a sperm enters the egg, you SOL!?
If you are going to ovulate in the next few days a sperm survives then you might be in luck!?!?

[truthisfreedom]

24. the facts: the fundie-lovers want to be winger swingers... f*ck whomever

they want while controlling everyone else's sexuality. it's not a double-standard... it's all about "we are in control, we do whatever we want, and you will do what we say no matter what the truth is, because we can dredge up more corporate money than God himself. suckers."

you learn exactly what bullying is when you're very young. no matter how many layers of self-serving moralistic paint they slap on this bullsh*t, it's pure bullying, plain and simple.

[unblock]

26. where in the bible does it mention sperm and eggs?

fascinating, isn't it, how fundies are happy to embrace science when it teaches them something that enables them to be MORE restrictive of womens' rights.

the only way that use a morning-after pill could be determined, even theoretically, to have led to an actual so-called abortion, would be through the use of scientific tests and tools. you would have to locate and identify a clump of cells as genetically human. all this depends on science not remotely available when the bible was written.

if it weren't for science, no one would know that this was even an issue.


but the idea that science may shed light on how god might have created the universe, oh, no, that's sacrilege!

[adolfo]

32. shhhh

Don't tell the fundies that warm beer or spanish malta drink can induce an abortion or they will ban it!!