Abortion Politics Really About Controlling Women?


UPDATE: This story also covered by Wired, Pill Exposes FDA Rift.

The "morning after pill" doesn't cause abortions--it prevents fertilization, as all studies show. So presumably, all the anti-choice advocates should be fine with it. But, I guess it makes too good a wedge issue to abandon. For purely political reasons, severed from all sense and science, the administration's bound and gagged FDA has finally rejected Plan B, as Risa describes (at Cosmic Variance):

[...] the FDA has decided to indefinitely postpone approval of Plan B, the so-called “morning after pill”, aka emergency contraception (EC). From the NYT article:


“For more than a year, federal drug officials have insisted that their repeated delays in deciding whether to approve over-the-counter sales of a morning-after contraceptive have nothing to do with abortion politics. Among veterans of the battles over drug approvals here, it is hard to find anyone who believes them.”

The most recent study on EC (which, for those who are unaware, is just a high dose of normal birth control pills: sometimes with estrogen and progestin, sometimes just progestin) suggests that in the majority of cases, it prevents pregnancy by inhibiting ovulation or fertilization (ie, just like normal birth control pills) — and not by preventing implantation. There is no evidence that EC can effect an implanted fertilized egg in any way; it cannot abort it and it does not seem to harm it. Much of the hubbub is also about whether girls under the age of 18 can understand how to use the drug properly; there is also no evidence that 16 and 17 year olds can’t understand how to take a few pills, or any evidence of stronger adverse effects on girls under 18 — except, of course, for the fact that then they might not be sufficiently punished for having sex.

These facts make it pretty clear that at least for the bulk of the anti-abortion movement, it’s not about saving babies, it’s about controling women. If you want to prevent abortions, over the counter emergency contraception is a proven, excellent way to do it. If you want to prevent women from controlling their own lives, not so good. (Note: Amanda at Pandagon makes this same point better and snarkier…)


Posted: Thu - September 1, 2005 at 10:02 AM          

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