Visit the Photo Place

Bush, religious right shouldn't meddle in women's health issues

Bush, religious right play politics with drug decision

Date published: 4/23/2004

YOU HAVE TO at least credit the Bush administration for its consistency. Once again it's pandering to the religious right, and once again that comes at the expense of women's reproductive health and freedom.

The issue this time is whether to allow emergency contraception--often called the "morning-after pill"--to be sold over the counter.

Now available by prescription, the contraceptive is highly effective in preventing pregnancy (it does not end a pregnancy) if taken within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse. It is most effective if taken within 24 hours after intercourse.

But getting a prescription written and filled can be difficult during weekends when, research shows, most unprotected sex occurs. And finding a doctor to write a prescription can be a major challenge for all the women in this country with poor access to medical care.

To make matters worse, a number of pharmacists, citing religious convictions, have refused to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception. Moreover, many hospitals--especially Catholic ones--do not offer emergency contraception to survivors of sexual assault.

So reproductive-health advocates were understandably happy in December when 23 of 27 members of a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted to recommend making emergency contraception available without a prescription.

If this were any other type of drug, the FDA already would have heeded that recommendation and declared the treatment fit to be sold over the counter. After all, the drug does what it's supposed to--the reduction of risk of pregnancy after treatment is about 85 percent--and it's safe. As two FDA advisory panel members noted recently in an editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine, thousands of women in numerous countries have been treated in safety studies, and evidence shows that even if the contraception is used repeatedly, the effects are minimal, consisting mostly of menstrual irregularities.

But in the minds of the life-begins-at-conception zealots, emergency contraception causes abortions, because it occasionally prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. The Web site of the Stafford-based American Life League--which refers to a fertilized egg as a "tiny baby boy or girl"--asserts that the morning-after pill can cause a "chemical abortion."

Follow us on

Date published: 4/23/2004