Debate on selling morning after pill over the counter

[ringmastery]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/12/health/12PILL.html?hp

Proponents say over-the-counter approval would make the pills easy to obtain. Many women still do not know about them, and those who do usually do not have prescriptions if they need it.

Opponents say the over-the-counter rule would be an invitation to medical nightmares, with some people, particularly teenagers, using the pills repeatedly and not telling anyone even if they have complications. The safety of repeated use has not been well studied.

Also, opponents say, women opposed to abortion who believe that pregnancy begins at fertilization may not realize they may be preventing an egg from implanting.

Among the groups in favor of selling the pills without prescriptions are the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and Planned Parenthood.

Opponents include the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Concerned Women for America and 44 members of Congress, including the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, who asked the members of the F.D.A. advisory committee to vote no on the over-the-counter application. One large anti-abortion group, the National Right to Life Committee, has not taken a position.

[Megrim]

1. Josef Mengele would be proud

Think of it. Mass marketing of death. As with every piece of legislation having unspeakable ramifications, we should put this one up for referendum to those who would be most affected. Oh, that's right. The unborn can't vote.

[Mountainman]

4. The unborn as you call it are not persons

You may have the belief that is is mass murder but you have no right to force you belief on the women of the world.

It is none of you business what a woman does with this pill.

Get off your almighty ivory tower

on edit:

What are you prepared to do if all these unborn are born and their parents can't get health care insurance or can't get paid a living wage?

Do you only care about the unborn's welfare or do you care about everyone's welfare?

[Megrim]

6. And you have no right to force your belief

on those not yet born. And who are you to say the unborn are not human beings?
I have adopted four kids, so there isn't a damn thing you're going to tell me about compassion for children.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Although I respect your beliefs

I do not share them, and here's why: I think this pill should be made available to victims of rape. I'm sorry, but I don't think a woman should have to bear the child of the monster who raped her-it would be like reliving the nightmare for nine months and beyond.

My hat's off to you, however, for adopting four children. You are a pro-life person who walks her talk, and that's good. The people I have problems with are pro-lifers who don't adopt or (if they can't adopt, and I realize many can't) don't financially contribute to orphanages, etc.

[Megrim]

26. Thank you for a rational evenhanded response

Not really that common this morning

[spooky3]

12. I've alerted the mods.

[Megrim]

25. Nice thoughtful rebuttal

to my points.

[Malva Zebrina]

20. those not yet born that this over the counter pill would prevent from

being "born". Hundreds of them are flushed down the toilet monthly in a natural process of abortion. I suppose that we should try to retrieve the monthly product of menses, baptize it , and bury it in sacred ground because it was "born"? The assumption that this is an unborn anything is specious. It is a clump of cells with "potential" to be born in nine months. Any egg, any one of the in vitro eggs held in labs, any sperm for that matter is a "potential" That is a slippery slope you have cited when you maintain this is an "unborn" child.


"Unborn child" affected by this pill. Fertilised egg



Blastocyst

[Megrim]

27. The only difference between a fetus and a five year old

is that they are different stages of development. And that is IT. They are both human beings

[LeahMira]

23. Then ask ...

I have adopted four kids, so there isn't a damn thing you're going to tell me about compassion for children.

Research has been conducted with adults who were adopted. It shows that adoptees have stress rates higher in anxiety than prisoners of war (Reynolds, Levy, Eisnitz: 1977), and one-third of them state that they would have chosen not to be born
if they had to be adopted again (Campbell, Lee and Silverman, Patti: 1981).

And you have no right to force your belief on those not yet born.

Sometimes it helps to ask the ones that did get born what their beliefs are on the subject.

[Megrim]

29. Yeah, you're right

I guess we should have left those four kids back in Romanian where they were in an orphanage damn near salvation, extremely developmentally delayed, and in one case with a severe disability. They would have fared so much better in the life they were destined for; probably street people of Piatra Neamt.

[OhioStateProgressive]

24. they have to be born to be people(nt)

[calimary]

32. No more than you have the right to force your belief on me.

I applaud you for adopting. That's WAY more than a lot of anti-choice people do (who not only don't bother to adopt, but also are the first to aggitate AGAINST any programs that help single mothers and poor families and underfed kids).

But please - don't advocate locking away an option for another sister who legitimately wants/needs it. It's up to the individual woman! It will ALWAYS be up to the individual woman. Sorry, but I just can't shake that view. I was pro-choice before I became a mom, and both my pregnancies (difficult and both shortened because my toxemia approached life-threatening status) made me even more ardently pro-choice. And, for that matter, I happen to believe that life exists in the egg and the sperm, as living cells, independent of any union. Life doesn't "begin" at conception. Those zygotes were NOT dead before they united.

Perhaps such a pill should be by prescription to guard against misuse. But perhaps, also, those irresponsible teens that many here worry about, should not be prevented from adequate and REALISTIC (NOT Bible-oriented) sex education in schools by self-styled religious body-snatchers. It happens to prevent a lot of this from happening, to begin with.

on edit -

And by the way, dear friend (and I mean NO SARCASM HERE!!!), I myself am adopted. And for me, it's been both good AND bad. Good in that yes I wound up in a great home. Bad in that I will go through life never knowing who I really am. (And I've tried. My state - of adoption, anyway - is a closed state.)

[Mountainman]

34. I'm not forcing my belief I am upholding the law

And you still haven't said what you would do with the welfare of the living. Adoption is commendable but do you support social justice for everyone?

[Booberdawg]

7. This pill prevents fertilization

Thus, no conception ever occurs, ergo, there is no argument that a life ever begins. It's like another version of the birth control pill.

[Malva Zebrina]

18. Picture of the "unborn"

Blastocyst--6day

[tsipple]

22. And ~Half of These Never Make It

It's incredibly common for blastocysts to be naturally discarded for myriad reasons.

Which makes birth of a healthy infant with ten fingers and ten toes all the more miraculous.

Note that the other choice here is that women have more drug-based and surgical abortions. So, yeah, if the safety supports it, and if women have the medical information they need, I think selling the "morning after" pill over-the-counter is a good idea that might reduce abortions.

[Anaxamander]

28. "The unborn can't vote."

Surprise: Not only can't they vote, they can't exist as living beings without the mother.

[VelmaD]

31. So then you support voting rights...

for all children regardless of age then? That is the implication of what you said.

And I notice you lcompletely left out the actual already-born human being - you know - the woman - who is affected by this. :eyes:

[izzie]

2. This must be a stong pill so I think a doctor needs to give it.

Prescription sounds right.

[Rainbowreflect]

3. My understanding is that this is just a strong birth control pill.

I would save wommen time, money and stress. I think it should be OTC.

[izzie]

19. OK but at first BC were badly tested and then put out.

Lets think it over and see if it will be OK. It does not hurt to test it another 2 years or so.I did not know it was really just BC pills really. The birth control taken now is very mild to the ones that first came out and they were said to make alot of women very ill. In fact in the 60's the Navy hospitals would not give them out.

[gkdmaths]

5. Ya know,

I dont really have a problem with this.

But it would be a better idea to make the pill cheap and OTC first.

[Killarney]

8. Bad idea

I am pro-choice and I think availability of the morning-after pill is important. However, it is necessary to be given by a doctor. Women have died from complications of taking the morning-after pill. Women (especially young women) need to be given implicit instructions from a doctor when taking this. Women who attempt to take the pill after 7 weeks of pregnancy can face horrible problems (partial abortion, hemmorrhage, complications, etc). Women with pre-existing conditions are at a higher rate of having complications: those with blood-clotting disorders could bleed to death, those who are heavy-smokers could have heart trouble and even a heart attack. They need to be told what is normal and what is not normal (too much bleeding, etc.).

If it was available OTC, I would be very afraid the more women would die of improper use and of complications that they weren't looking for and that would give the pro-lifers ammunition to get rid of the pill altogether. It needs to be given by a doctor.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. You have made some very important points

If this pill does indeed have a lot of complications, a doctor's advice should be sought. Again, my only exception would be in the case of rape. I had a relative who was brutally raped and became pregnant. She had an abortion (she is severely physically handicapped), but she would have been spared more trauma and physcial complications if the morning after pill had been available.

[Killarney]

11. I'm sorry to hear about that. :(

Did she go to the emergency room after the rape? I've been told that all women who go to emergency rooms after rapes are offered the morning-after pill (unless it is a religious hospital).

[TorchTheWitch]

14. good point

It's a mega dose of birth control pills. It's dangerous in many cases and needs to be given only by a prescription. It's also only recommended for use in the first 72 hours from when sex occured. Taking it after that time period is not only not very effective but dangerous. I can see teenagers buying this over the counter after being pregnant for a couple months or more... SCARY.

You can already get them anonmously through Planned Parenthood just like the pill, so no reason to make them available over the counter.

[Malva Zebrina]

21. most who take "the pill"

are aware of how to dose those same pills for morning after purposes. I assume many in the teenage population is also taking birth control pills and have no real reason to buy it over the counter.

[SheilaT]

13. Isn't this available

in other countries over the counter? What's been the experience there?

The notion that women who believe life begins at conception would not realize that they're preventing conception, well, anyone who is that confused has my sympathy about their confusion, but that's not a reason to stop other women from access to this method of birth control. Isn't the whole point of the pro-choice position that women are responsible themselves for their own bodies and choices?

And while I think well of anyone who adopts four children, that does not give anyone the high moral ground to dictate to women that they not be allowed to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy.

Every time I read about requirements that women wait 24 hours before having a surgical abortion, I think it would be a good idea to make men wait 24 hours before having sex. There are always two people involved in getting a women pregnant (more if she's gang-raped) and I'm constantly outraged that women get to bear the blame, the responsibility, and the child.

[Booberdawg]

15. Now there's a thought

I think it would be a good idea to make men wait 24 hours before having sex

[ringmastery]

16. I thought elders had something going there

Why she got ostracized for advocating the only known 100% safe form of sex is beyond me.

[Booberdawg]

17. Because Republican are uptight about sex

:eyes:

[TorchTheWitch]

33. it is not

and should not be used as a method of birth control. The purpose of the morning after pill is for situations where the condom breaks, etc. It's an alternative to a possible abortion, not a method of birth control. I know a few women who have used it in situations where the condom broke or fell off, etc. and it is seriously an unpleasant experience. The morning after pill regime ramps up the normal side effects of the regular birth control pill many many times. It's a few days of serious suffering of nausea, vomiting, severe depression, unconrollable crying jags, major skin breakouts... it's nasty. I only knew of one woman that had more mild symptoms that weren't that bad, but it's not anything anyone in their right mind would subject themselves to every time they had sex around the "danger zone" of their cycle. That kind of mega dosing is terrible for the body on a regular basis, which is why it isn't prescribed as a birth control method.

[beyurslf]

30. This is the RU 486 pill, right?

This should probably still be a prescription medication.