WASHINGTON, D.C., December 4, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Faced with the news that the morning-after pill may not work for most women, Planned Parenthood rolled out a replacement: a one-two combination of abortifacient contraceptive methods covered by ObamaCare.
Earlier this month a European pharmaceutical company announced that Plan B, the only form of “emergency contraception” available over-the-counter in the United States, begins to lose its effectiveness if women weigh 166 pounds or more. The average American woman weighs 166 pounds.
In keeping with studies around the world, so-called “emergency contraception” failed to reduce the rate of pregnancies. Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, acknowledged, “The unintended pregnancy rate hasn’t changed at all.”
Not to be deterred Planned Parenthood, the nation's leading abortion provider, unveiled what some are now calling “Plan C”: Paragard (a copper IUD, which also acts an abortifacient) and Ella, sometimes called the “week-after pill.”
Last Monday, Planned Parenthood tweeted:
Need EC? If you weigh more than 176 pounds, using Ella or getting an IUD inserted is a better option than Plan B One-Step or Next Choice.
— Planned Parenthood (@PPFAQ) November 25, 2013
Around the same time, the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts launched its “EC4U” campaign, promoting various drugs and devices that are taken after sexual contact.
All are capable of inducing abortion, and the IUD has been associated with toxic shock, permanent infertility, and even death.
Paragard IUDs can inflame the lining of the uterus, making implantation of a newly conceived child impossible and inducing an early abortion.
Ella (the brand name of ulipristal acetate) acts as a progestin-blocker, which can prevent an egg from being released – or prevent a newly conceived child from implanting in the uterine wall.
Planned Parenthood has disputed the notion that these methods cause an abortion. But Father Shenan Boquet, president of Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews.com, the abortion industry is trying to “deliberately mislead women about how these drugs and devices work.”
“Planned Parenthood’s position that the copper IUD Paragard and the drugs Plan B and ella do not cause abortions is a deception based on semantics,” he told LifeSiteNews. “They define pregnancy as occurring only after implantation, not when sperm meets egg and a new human life is created.”
“The embryocidal natures of ella and the IUD are well known in the scientific and medical communities, but too often this information is hidden from women,” he added. “All word games aside, these products terminate innocent human life.”
His words echoed those of the Catholic bishops when the FDA approved Ella for prescription use in August 2010. “Millions of American women, even those willing to use a contraceptive to prevent fertilization in various circumstances, would personally never choose to have an abortion,” said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo at the time. “They would be ill served by a misleading campaign to present Ulipristal simply as a ‘contraceptive.’”
Unborn children are not the devices' only victims. Implanting IUDs has cost women their lives. A 40-year-old wife, Nicole Lee Stein Caruso, died in April 2011 after the botched implantation of an IUD, according to her widowed husband.
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Others suffer less life-threatening but still serious side effects. Feminist author Alice Myerhoff wrote that a copper IUD gave her toxic shock. Additional side effects include anemia, severe menstrual pain, backaches, cramping, pain during sex, discharge, and expelling the IUD from the body. Women under the age of 20 or who have never been pregnant are most at risk of expelling the device.
Although the Mayo Clinic reports that “less than 1 percent of women who use ParaGard will get pregnant in the first year of typical use,” some women – including a writer at RH Reality Check – have shared their stories of being impregnated while using the Paragard IUD.
The Mayo Clinic notes, “If you do conceive while using ParaGard, you're at higher risk of an ectopic pregnancy,” which leads to miscarriage.
The greatest hindrance to IUD use has not been potential side effects but cost. The price of intrauterine devices range from $400-$1,000. But that's an obstacle Dr. Nucatola is confident President Obama will remove.
“We’re hoping the Affordable Care Act,” otherwise known as ObamaCare, “will take care of that for us,” she said.
Thanks to the law's controversial HHS mandate, health insurance companies must provide Ella and IUD implantation, including Paragard, to all women of child-bearing age with no co-pay.
In that, Planned Parenthood seems to see a new business model.
“Plan B always will have its place,” Dr. Danielle Roncari, medical director of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said in a press release. “But I think providers are starting to realize that Ella may be a more preferred pill option for women — and I think that’s where we’re heading at Planned Parenthood.”
But pro-life activists say that's the wrong direction for women, taxpayers, and unborn children.
“Authentic and compassionate health care for women should not involve potentially dangerous drugs and the insertion of foreign devices designed to destroy a woman’s fertility,” Fr. Boquet told LifeSiteNews. “No matter the situation, this ‘solution’ promoted by Planned Parenthood and others fails to treat women with the dignity and care they deserve.”