News

Wednesday June 16, 2010


The New Morning-After Pill … Another Killer

Commentary by Judie Brown, President, American Life League

June 16, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The disinformation campaign about the effects of various birth control pills and how they work began years ago. American Life League has testified against birth control pills on many occasions, most recently in 2003 when we pointed out the dangers inherent in taking the morning-after pill off prescription-only status and making it an over-the-counter drug. Our testimony to the federal Food and Drug Administration fell on deaf ears. In 2006, the pill was given OTC status for women 18 years of age and older. Last year, the FDA announced that women over 17 could buy it without a prescription.

Now there is another twist in the story. Once again, the FDA is poised to redefine the length of time that applies to the term “morning after.” This time, it will focus on the latest pill allegedly effective for “five days after sex.”

EllaOne is said to be more effective than Plan B, which is currently the only morning-after pill marketed in the USA. Plan B can kill a preborn child if his life has already begun but he has not yet implanted in his mother’s womb.

According to the manufacturer’s press release “ellaOne has been shown to have sustained efficacy and has thus been approved for use up to five days after unprotected intercourse, without compromising the safety or tolerability profile of levonorgestrel.” Levonorgestrel is the chemical America knows as Plan B.

USA Today explains to readers that ulipristal (ellaOne), like levonorgestrel, “work[s] by inhibiting ovulation.” However, the compound is known to attack the human embryonic child prior to implantation and thus deny him life by thinning the wall of the uterus. Thus, like its “chemical cousin,” ellaOne will also abort preborn babies.

It is fortunate for the preborn in this particular case, at least, that a cry has already arisen within the pro-life community. Leaders are pointing out that this pill is so similar to RU-486 that it could be described as the junior abortion pill. Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America told the Washington Post: “With ulipristal, women will be enticed to buy a poorly tested abortion drug, unaware of its medical risks, under the guise that it’s a morning-after pill.”

Donna Harrison, president of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Jeanne Monahan, of the Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, agree with Wright. They argue that, at the very least, women seeking such chemicals should be told that the pill, once ingested, could kill a preborn child.

The fact is that after more than 43 years of lying to women about how various birth control chemicals work, the FDA, short of having a moral revival or emergence of properly-formed conscience within its ranks, is not going to be any more honest now than it has been in the past.

For this very reason, each pro-life organization should come to grips with the truth about chemical birth control and publicly expose the facts. It is not just morning-after pills or the infamous mifepristone (RU-486) that cause preborn children to die, but every single one of the so-called birth-control pills.

Long ago, ALL began using the label “recreational drug” to define pharmaceuticals that allegedly permit men and women to frolic without paying the price of bearing a child. This latest pill is no different. They all can kill people, period.

Such pills do not treat a medical condition; they permit promiscuity.

Let’s get it right.