Abortion Qualms on Morning-After Pill May Be Unfounded
Labels inside every box of morning-after pills, drugs widely used to prevent pregnancy after sex, say they may work by blocking fertilized eggs from implanting in a woman’s uterus. Respected medical authorities, including the National Institutes of Health and the Mayo Clinic, have said the same thing on their Web sites.
Such descriptions have become kindling in the fiery debate over abortion and contraception. Based on the belief that a fertilized egg is a person, some religious groups and conservative politicians say disrupting a fertilized egg’s ability to attach to the uterus is abortion, “the moral equivalent of homicide,” as Dr. Donna Harrison, who directs research for the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, put it. Mitt Romney recently called emergency contraceptives “abortive pills.” And two former Republican presidential candidates, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, have made similar statements.
But an examination by The New York Times has found that, the federally approved labels and medical Web sites do not reflect what the science shows. Studies have not established that emergency contraceptive pills prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb, leading scientists say. Rather, the pills delay ovulation, the release of eggs from ovaries that occurs before eggs are fertilized, and some pills also thicken cervical mucus so sperm have trouble swimming.
It turns out that the politically charged debate over morning-after pills and abortion, a divisive issue in this election year, is probably rooted in outdated or incorrect scientific guesses about how the pills work. Because they block creation of fertilized eggs, they would not meet abortion opponents’ definition of abortion-inducing drugs. In contrast, RU-486 is an abortion pill because it destroys implanted embryos, terminating pregnancies.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/health/research/morning-after-pills-dont-block-implantation-science-suggests.html?_r=2&smid=tw-share
This is interesting.
However, those who oppose any type of morning after pill will just adjust what they are outraged about. They will change from the 'prevention of the fertilized egg from being implanted' to something else.
= new reply since forum marked as read
It isn't typically used that way, but it is actually more effective than the pill. All RU-486 (mifepristone) does is act as a catalyst to induce periods and that's not far from what usually happens anyway, essentially a miscarriage but a normal period is often one as well, just one that goes unnoticed. Mifepristone can be used as "the pill" to prevent ovulation, and I'm not sure how that fits into the wingnut propaganda, but I think the real issue here is an effort to suppress the rights of women. The GOP will never outlaw physical abortion because it's one of their hot button issues (Jesus, guns, abortion, taxes, etc.)
But they have made inroads into the "barefoot and pregnant but not worth as much as a man" status for women that they seem beholden to. I can't imagine why any woman, or minority for that matter, would ever vote these assholes into office. Yeah, the Declaration of Independence says "all men are created equal", but that's only if they're men and white with the GOP. For the record, I'm a white guy with a wife and three daughters of breeding age. And yeah, this shit pisses me off.
