Politics
Tuesday April 22, 2003
COMPANY WANTS TO SELL 'MORNING AFTER PILL' OVER THE COUNTER
But Plan B drug is still an abortifacient, not a contraceptive
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WASHINGTON, April 22, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A company that sells a brand of an abortifacient morning-after pill wants authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to offer the pill over the counter without a prescription, claiming that it is merely another option for contraception.
The company, Women's Capital Corp. (WCC), based in Washington, claims that their Plan B version, made by Gedeon Richter Ltd. of Hungary, is different from Mifepristone RU-486, which induces a miscarriage at any time after conception. By contrast, says Sharon Camp, founder and chief executive of WCC, Plan B uses progestin, a hormone used in contraceptive pills, to interfere with ovulation or prevent fertilization. "We believe that removing the prescription requirement is critical to giving women timely access to back-up birth control," Camp says -- clearly stating that the pills are contraceptive in intent.
However, according to a standard embryology textbook, "Postcoital birth control pills ('morning after pills') may be prescribed in an emergency (e.g., following sexual abuse). Ovarian hormones (estrogen) taken in large doses within 72 hours after sexual intercourse usually prevent implantation of the blastocyst, probably by altering tubal motility, interfering with corpus luteum function, or causing abnormal changes in the endometrium. These hormones prevent implantation, not fertilization. Consequently, they should not be called contraceptive pills. Conception occurs but the blastocyst does not implant. It would be more appropriate to call them 'contraimplantation pills'. Because the term "abortion" refers to a premature stoppage of a pregnancy, the term 'abortion' could be applied to such an early termination of pregnancy." (See The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998, 6th ed.), Chapter 2, a textbook by Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, under #5, p.532)
For newswire coverage:
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=2599188
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