Witness the conservative reaction to the ongoing FDA/emergency contraception ordeal:
After resisting for years feminists determined to make high-dosagesteroids available to women and girls without a prescription, it seems that the Bush Administration is about to cave in to political pressure and make the morning-after pill (MAP) accessible over the counter to those over 18.
Glad that the Bush administration is finally willing to cave to that political pressure on an issue that they should have absolutely no say over. This should be the FDA’s call, and the FDA should operate independent of partisan politics. But it’s nice to see an admission that on this issue, they certainly aren’t.
Not only will this result in the deaths of more unborn children since MAP often acts after conception,
Wrong, it works the same way that birth control does. It may, in a small minority of cases, prevent a fertilized egg from implanting, but the latest studies suggest that it doesn’t even do that.
but it will seriously harm the health of women and girls who will use the now-easy-to-get MAP repeatedly.
And there’s no evidence that repeated use is harmful. However, the vast majority of women and girls will not be repeat users. The morning-after pill is already available without a doctor’s visit in a handful of states, and there haven’t been any of these serious health problems that the author mentions. Nor have there been issues of widespread serial use.
Anyone over 18 will be able to walk into a grocery store or pharmacy and buy MAP any time he or she pleases, no questions asked. Can anyone doubt that many young women will end up using MAP over and over?
Well, yeah. This may come as a shock to some conservative commentators, but women — even young women — are not usually complete idiots. And at the very least, they’re rational actors, and they probably don’t want to go through the stress of getting the morning-after pill repeatedly. It’s a whole lot easier just to go on birth control.
The FDA’s experts warned of serious health consequences from such use, but could not provide solid examples since there have been no studies of repeated MAP use. No one knows what the repeated dosing with these powerful steroids might do to women’s bodies. Many women, particularly college co-eds, are likely about to find out.
Because “college co-eds” are huge sluts!
If history is any guide, disastrous health effects won’t make any difference once MAP is distributed over the counter. After all, the Clinton Administration rushed the prescription-only approval of the abortion pill, RU-486, and with its fatal side effects, it has been killing mothers at ten times the rate that surgical abortion does. Yet feminists and other so-called women’s advocates don’t want RU-486’s approval revoked.
And interestingly, childbirth has been killing women at more than 10 times the rate of surgical abortion, and certainly more than RU-486. Let’s ban it.
The debate over OTC MAP continues to be surrounded by obvious lies. Once is that MAP is contraception, not abortion. But scientists agree that MAP often stops an already-conceived child from implanting, making it something other than contraception—and something that kills.
Besides the fact that scientists don’t actually agree on this, this is exactly what the birth control pill does. But I suppose that’s a homicide drug too, right?
Yet another lie is that MAP will only be accessible to adult women over the counter. Anyone possessing passing familiarity with American society knows that young teenagers have easy access to cigarettes and alcohol, which are supposed to be sold only to adults. Why should anyone think MAP will be different?
Would the answer, then, be to ban cigarettes and alcohol because teenagers may have access to them?
I look forward to his campaign to make cigarettes and alcohol only available with a doctor’s presecription.