Rand Paul has said he had no objection to using the morning after pill as a form of “birth control.”
The junior U.S. senator from Kentucky and likely 2016 presidential hopeful responded to a question on the topic yesterday at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.
A woman asked, “If life starts at conception, should medicine that prevents conception like Plan B be legal?”
Paul replied, “I am not opposed to birth control, That's basically what Plan B is.”
“Plan B is taking two birth control pills in the morning and two in the evening, and I am not opposed to that,” he continued.
After the event, he seemed to tie his remarks to the Republican plan to embrace birth control on the campaign stump. “Plan B is taking birth control,” he elaborated. “I am not against birth control, and I don't know many Republicans who would be indicating that they are against birth control.”
But abundant evidence shows Plan B may work to prevent a newly conceived baby from implanting in the uterus, causing an early abortion.
As a doctor, “Rand Paul likely knows that the most likely effect of the high-dose Levonorgestrel-only contraceptive 'Plan B' is abortifacient,” Krista Thomas, communications manager of Human Life International (HLI) told LifeSiteNews. “Though it also has potential effects of thickening of the cervical mucus and prevention of ovulation, let’s face it, this drug is designed to be taken after sex, so the likelihood of these effects stopping pregnancy is very low.”
“Early abortions are its primary, and perhaps only, effect,” she said.
One of the world's leading authorities on the morning after pill – Dr. James Trussell, the director of Princeton’s Office of Population Research – has said that women must be told of the potential for abortion as part of ethical treatment. “To make an informed choice, women must know that [emergency contraceptive pills]…prevent pregnancy primarily by delaying or inhibiting ovulation and inhibiting fertilization, but may at times inhibit implantation of a fertilized egg in the endometrium,” he wrote.
That was further confirmed by a 2014 report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute that found all forms of emergency contraception, as well as the IUD, can cause an early abortion.
Instead, Thomas said the abortion industry has muddied the waters about the impact and effect of so-called “emergency contraception,” like Plan B.
“The abortion industry giants including Planned Parenthood have done an incredible job misrepresenting what these hormonal contraceptive devices and drugs really do to unborn babies at their earliest stage, and also how destructive these are for women’s health,” she told LifeSiteNews.
Paul's comments in the early Republican primary state came just days after a poor showing in the annual Values Voters Summit straw poll, where Paul tied for fifth place with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
But Thomas told LifeSiteNews that embracing abortion-inducing drugs is wrong morally and politically.
“It would probably be a better long term strategy for those who feel threatened by the nonsensical 'war on women' charge to go on offense and ask why” the abortion lobby is so “condescending towards women and uncaring about their health.”
Millions of women, she said, “really don’t appreciate being reduced to” the single issues of abortion and contraception access, “and we are not being heard from right now.”
Click “like” if you are PRO-LIFE!
Paul worked with the National Pro-Life Alliance to introduce the Life at Conception Act into the Senate last March. Later that month, he appeared to foresee “thousands of exceptions” to any pro-life law that would pass, a statement his office later clarified with LifeSiteNews.
He has also said that traditional marriage is not a defining issue for Republicans, and members of the GOP can “agree to disagree.”