I’m getting pretty tired of medical professionals treating women like they are completely brainless.
Did you hear? We women are all set.
There’s a new “Morning After” pill in town. It has a futuristic name—ellaOne—and if we ladies are lucky enough, it will be approved as over the counter “emergency contraception” that can be used for up to five days after unprotected sex.
Only problem is, it’s not contraception at all.
This new pill contains a drug that is chemically similar to another drug known as RU-486, the infamous “abortion pill” that is prescribed to induce abortion in pregnancies up to two months’ gestation.
Naturally, it comes with all the same risks to women’s health as RU-486—excessive bleeding, infection, and sometimes even death. But this is women’s health care we’re talking about ... we’re not concerned with life-threatening side effects.
The worst part, though, are the lies some are trying to sell about what this pill even does. EllaOne works by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. It does not prevent pregnancy. It ends it. That’s abortion, not contraception.
Any doctor without an agenda could tell you that:
“‘This is a thinly-veiled attempt to get an abortion drug over-the-counter,’ said Dr. Donna Harrison, president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. ‘Because fertilization of egg and sperm can only be prevented within 24 hours of intercourse, Harrison says, any emergency contraceptive that is effective five days after sex has to work by preventing the fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus which. If one believes pregnancy begins with fertilization, that would be considered abortion.’”
Unfortunately, many doctors are defending this new drug’s status as a contraceptive. Because they do have an agenda. One that requires them going so far as to re-define pregnancy:
“But according to Dr. Lauren Streicher, clinical instructor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern Medical School, thinking that emergency contraception is equivalent to an abortion “is a big misconception.” It takes five to seven days for the fertilized egg to implant in the uterus and begin to grow, she says. She argues that if one interrupts the process before this implantation takes place, pregnancy never begins.”
Did you catch who this woman is? A clinical instructor in Obstetrics and Gynecology. And she’d have us believe she doesn’t know what the word “pregnant” means.
In their zeal to get over-the-counter approval for ellaOne, abortion advocates are re-defining contraception and abortion. Medical professionals specializing in women’s reproductive health care are pretending they have no idea when pregnancy begins.
And I thought we backward religious types were supposed to be the ones who opposed science.
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My mom called me the other day saying that she saw a commercial that said asking about the commercial she saw stating that this pill was not an abortifacient. I hadn’t researched it but I could still figure out that they were redefining pregnancy. That is so horrible. I’m glad to see an article confirming what I thought. Thanks.
Maybe there is another motive here: I’m thinking about what comes out of the wallets of the women who pay for the pills.
There are COMMERCIALS for this? (I rarely watch TV, so I’ve missed that.) Very scary.
Of course the profit motive here is huge, no doubt about it. But so is the motive to have so-called “consequence-free sexual behavior.”
Contact the Catholic Health Association and ask why they published a paper from her in support of the use of this medication as part of Plan B to “help” women who come into Catholic hospitals after a sexual assault. They’ve taken the newsletter offline after I e-mailed them pointing out that morning after pills were a violation of Church doctrine. They, of course, pointed to this doctor’s understanding of “science” to explain why the Church is wrong and why this drug won’t have any affect on a pregnancy.
PLEASE READERS, BE CORRECTLY INFORMED THAT THE NEW MORNING AFTER PILL AND THE RU486 PILL ARE CHEMICALLY COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DRUGS WITH ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SIDE EFFECTS. They are not even close to being the same drug or in the same drug family. The two that are somewhat similar in chemical composition are the new morning after pill and most birth control pills. I feel it is irresponsible for a writer to publish a blog with such egregious errors; please be better informed before you write.
Anything to not face consequences of what risky behavior, no accountability at all. Just a pill and its gone, as if it never existed. These same people would get all sad about a litter of puppies or kittens that were abandoned. I just pray for those who never had a chance at life.
@Cheryl: Dr. Donna Harrison, president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that ellaOne IS chemically similar to RU-486—in the article published by ABC News linked in this blog post.
http://belowthewaist.org/2010/01/thinking-ethically-about-emergency-contraception /#1more-236 Has an article by Dron Hamel, Ph.D. that purports to demonstrate how ethical Plan B is. If you go to www.chausa.or you’ll find all references to it marked under construction.
Fr. Michael D. Place. STF, is the CEO. He heads the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, in St. Louis. His e-mail address is mplace@chausa.org
The Archdiocese is blessed with twovery strong pro-life biships, the Archbishop,Robert J. Carlson, and Bishop Robert Hermann. You can access their site online and express your concerns.
Cheryl Bachman’s comment that, “THE NEW MORNING AFTER PILL AND THE RU486 PILL ARE CHEMICALLY COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DRUGS WITH ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SIDE EFFECTS” demonstrates that one can scream at straining out the gnat while still swallowing the camel. Arguing about the side effects of one drug over another in this case is a total distraction. The purpose of an antibiotic is to kill microorganisms and the purpose of a ‘morning after’ pill is to induce an abortion. Staying focused is very important.
Re: post from Cheryl - ON “Chemically different” -
PLEASE READERS, BE CORRECTLY INFORMED THAT RAT POISON AND BULLETS ARE CHEMICALLY DIFFERENT SUBSTANCES WITH ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SIDE EFFECTS. They are not even close to being the same substance or in the same family of materials. The two that are somewhat similar in composition and effect are knives and bullets. I feel it is irresponsible for a writer to publish a blog with such egregious errors; please be better informed before you write such alarmist articles comparing rat poison and bullets just because they will both kill you.
Please. This isn’t about How it does what it does, it is about What it does.
The few times I have seen this commercial was during Bridezilla’s and other wedding shows. It shows women waking up in bed alone. It also mentions that the pill is not an abortifacient. How many times a month can young girls take this drug and not put their future at risk for all sorts of maladies?
If women are not in-tuned enough with their bodies to know that they can only become pregnant a few days a month, then society and parents have done her a great disservice. So easy to pop a pill rather that root out the basic problem which is lack of chastity.
The idea that emergency contraception is not abortion is taught systematically to health professionals, which is why we see our health leaders promoting this position. I am currently a nursing student. My pharmacology text reads, “Does Plan B cause abortion? NO. Plan B will not terminate an existing pregnancy…Recall that pregnancy is defined as implantation of a fertilized egg, and that implantation occurs 5 to 7 days after ovulation.” (Richard Lehne, Pharmacology edition 7, 2010, p 747) The trouble is, I don’t “recall” that definition of pregnancy. In fact, this is the first time in my course work that the issue has come up. So I’m supposed to think I’ve acknowledged this as fact. Unless I’m an informed Catholic or citizen, I’ll take it for fact. The question is, what can be done to change this situation? Any ideas?
If I may also add, the text cited in my previous post also reads: “Clearly, if emergency contraception were used widely, most abortions and unwanted births could be avoided.”
This is completely ridiculous. Even medical dictionaries define pregnancy as the time from conception to birth, not implantation. The justifications of Dr. Streicher are a continuation of the pro-death attempt to simply change definitions in medicine and ignore medical fact in order to further their own cause. We are taught that we should be practicing ‘Evidence Based Medicine.’ But when you see things like this, you know that, ‘evidence’ equals whatever these people want it to be. But when a pro-life doc attempts to practice EMB, we are told we are wrong, even when we have the data and information to back up our decisions.
http://catholicmedstudent.blogspot.com/2010/02/redefining-pregnancy-to-justify.html
A top pro-life doctor confirms this is an abrotion drug - http://www.lifenews.com/int1446.html
The justification for re-defining pregnancy to start at implantation stems from the fact that the obstetrician has two patients: the mother and the baby. The pregnancy is about the woman’s body, embryo/fetal growth is about the baby.
It is a ridiculous use of semantics to hide the reality of abortion.
(I am speaking as a labor and delivery nurse with 20 years experience at NMH.)
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