quote: Conservative opponents of a rule change that would make the "morning after" contraceptive pill available on drugstore shelves without a prescription are conducting an aggressive campaign to dissuade the Food and Drug Administration from going ahead.
Although an FDA advisory panel recommended the switch to over-the-counter status by a 24 to 3 vote in December, officials acknowledged they are treating the application to change the status of the medication, sold as "Plan B," as a controversial and high-priority matter.
Proponents of the switch said they are very concerned about the progress of the agency review, especially after learning that the final decision will be made in the office of Commissioner Mark McClellan -- rather than by the scientific reviewers who usually rule on such applications. Taking a drug application issue to the commissioner's office is unusual, though not unprecedented.
The FDA has also sent a flurry of last-minute questions to the drug's manufacturer, Barr Laboratories, with many of them involving issues raised last month in a letter sent by 49 members of Congress to President Bush.
The letter, authored by Rep. David Joseph Weldon (R-Fla.), urged the president to keep the morning-after pill's by-prescription-only status because wider use could result in more sexual promiscuity and venereal disease. Advocates of the switch say the science shows nothing of the kind and have said that a vote against the pill would constitute a major FDA capitulation to political pressure.
quote: While acknowledging that wider use of Plan B could reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions, opponents say there is not enough information on how that change would effect the sexual behavior of teenagers. "There is a great potential that the easy availability of Plan B will contribute to unsafe sexual practices and the future spread of [sexually transmitted diseases] and HIV-AIDS among adolescents," Weldon said during a news conference last month.
In other words, there is a segment of the population that appears to believe that the best way to enforce morality is to make sure that the worst possible consequences of your behavior are not prevented. What's next, actually releasing STDs in the water supply?
I also like the use of 'the children' as a way to prevent other adults from having easy access to a prophylactic.
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posted
Is it really so terrible that someone might need to go to their doctor to get this? Their not suggesting it be made illegal (well, some are), just that you go to the doctor to get it.
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posted
[edit: possible moral ambiguity in my statement]
I have no problem with people facing the consequences of their actions, but this is absurd. This is forcing the rest of the country to face the consequences of the morality of the few. Banning access to any substance is wrong. This is another reason to abolish the FDA.
posted
Except that what if your doctor can't see you in time, or what if teenagers don't want to tell their parents?
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posted
I have no moral problem with the morning after pill.
But I DO worry that if it is over the counter, people might try to use them to give themselves an abortion after implantation. I'm no doctor, but I think that COULD have some serious side effects, like severe bleeding.
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posted
It induces part of your body to unattach the life that is clinging to it and shed it. We are talking blood and muscle spasms. This is a RETURN to do-it-yourself abortions. Isn't one of the arguments for Roe vs. Wade - that at least such a traumatic event for the body is under the supervision of a doctor?
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posted
I might object if they start selling them in 5-gallon buckets at CostCo.
But I think making them OTC is a good idea. I doubt many women are going to use the pill as a replacement for a condom. Unless they happen to enjoy vomiting.
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posted
The reason I don't have a problem with the morning after pill, is that a large number of fertilized eggs don't implant anyway. Forty percent, if the Nova special I saw when I was pregnant is any indication. If those numbers are correct, I have probably flushed quite a few potential children, without even knowing it. If ever fertilized egg has a soul, then god/nature/the universe is a wastrel.
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posted
So the morning after pill prevents implantation? It doesn't abort a fetus that has already implanted?
Also, I've heard that taking this pill is similar to taking a large dose of birth control pills. Is that true?
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posted
Of course some teenagers won't tell their parents. Why is that a reason to give teenagers an easier way out?
After all, some teenagers picked up for vandalism and shoplifting may hurt themselves while in police cudtody; should we make those things legal so that teenagers won't hurt themselves?
I'm still pretty new here, but I'm sure the abortion issue has been argued many times. Isn't that what this boils down to? When life begins? The worth of a potential child relative to the convenience of his or her mother?
From what I've read about the morning after pill and other pills like it that are super-doses of hormones (I do apologize, I don't have any online sources), teenegers who don't realize when they're fertile also (surprise) don't know how far along they really are when they're pregnant.
So teenage girls will have a chemically induced abortion without medical supervision. It produces days of cramping and heavy bleeding, and I know at least one teenage girl has died from the effects of a pill like this.
I thought that making abortion legal was to make it safe, to protect women from the dangerous effects of unsafe abortions. Pills like these don't sound very safe or harmless.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
It is my understanding that the morning after pill causes a woman to begin her period. Therefore, if unprotected sex happened say, the night before, then a woman, by taking a pill the morning after would take the pill and her period would begin, preventing the possibility of any fertilized egg in her system from remaining and attaching itself to the uterus.
If I am wrong in the above description, please feel free to correct me.
Personally, I feel this is a very interesting debate in that it has the ability to completely replace the abortion issue in society.
Posts: 995 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
If you don't think some girls are going to get seven of these to last them through spring break, then you don't know girls. Or guys who will give them to girls instead of a condom. If girls are stupid enough to be having sex a the age of 11, 14, and even 17, they are stupid enough to misuse the technology. If it makes them throw up, how are they going to know it was the pill and not the peach schnapps?
P.S. Z, three of some kind of BCP do work. A doctor would help with that before there was a morning after pill.
I think if people are having sex they should be in a relationship with a doctor, to be screened for cervical cancer if nothing else. I can't believe guys aren't more worried about it as well. They can't catch it, but being a carrier and watching every woman you love die slowly and painfully has to be a bummer.
posted
From what I understand, pills like these are prescribed for use within two weeks of fertilization, but if taken afterwards, can trigger a miscarraige.
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posted
Yes, as a matter of fact, some doctors actually had issued prescriptions of birth control pills with instructions on how to take them as a morning-after pill. It's all in the dosage and the timing of taking the hormones.
But the birth control pill is NOT over the counter, even though it is generally much less risky. That's why I don't think it should be over the counter-- it just seems too easy for someone to accidentally bleed to death.
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posted
If you think that killing a fertilized egg is abortion, then I don't know what to tell you. As Olivet mentioned, that's a lot of dead children.
The information that I'm googling indicates that there is either 'no risk' to the fetus or a very small risk.
I don't like weighing the consequences of the morning after pill in terms of teenagers. If that's an issue, we can just make the MAP something you card for. Problem solved.
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posted
I think you should have to present an ACT or SAT score showing you aren't an idiot, if you want to ID people. Of course, this would have the unfortunate side effect... I'll let you draw your own conclusion.
But anyway, I think people who are old enough to have sex are old enough to be seeing a doctor. That is the message I think would be best for folks. That's my morality (as far as this issue goes) and I don't apologize for foisting on on everyone.
Since I'm last I'll just edit to add that if girls can get in their heads that sex is an important health issue and not just something all animals do, it would be better for them. It's also kind of annoying that women who never have sex are subjected to yearly pap smears even though their risks are much lower (though not non-existent, but every three years would be fine). We have had the lower morality foisted on our bodies long enough.
posted
I'd need to do some research, but this is not a happily-generally safe drug. It can cause serious damage if used incorrectly and outside the appropriate window. It's a morning after pill, but like Olivia said, if someone used it when they were one month pregnant instead, they could put themselves in serious danger.
If something is safe only when the directions are strictly followed, then that's not safe enough.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
When Slash and I implement our "mandatory aerosolized birth control" plan, we'll give you a job analyzing applications for child bearing, pooka.
Start stocking up on red ink and rubber stamps reading "denied!!!".
The more exclamation points the better.
[edit: Subjected to yearly pap smears? They force you to get them? That's not right.]
posted
And, incidentally, it wouldn't replace the abortion issue at all.
Even if MAPs were widely available and cheap, there would still be some women who would complain that is wasn't free, it wasn't available enough, etc., etc.
After all, the ease with which a woman can get a first-trimester abortion hasn't nullified the apparent need for and right to late-term abortions and partial-birth abortions.
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quote:In other words, there is a segment of the population that appears to believe that the best way to enforce morality is to make sure that the worst possible consequences of your behavior are not prevented.
It DOES sound pretty absurd doesn't it?
But keep in mind - there's a whole philosophy based on that principle: Free market capitalism. It says stuff like "If we ensure that the jobless recieve few benefits, more people will work."
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Aerosolized BC? I think universal snippage is much better. Also, the breeding herds wouldn't have to be contained in a separate biosphere. [end dystopian megalomaniac musings]
Yes, a woman who has never had sex will not be believed and will have that which she is saving for marriage be pried into with metal instruments. She is supposed to go to the doctor yearly for this express purpose.
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There should be a branch of law enforcement for this. Only instead of guns, the officers could carry those little gag flowers that pin to your lapel and have them squirt poison.
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quote:Yes, a woman who has never had sex will not be believed and will have that which she is saving for marriage be pried into with metal instruments. She is supposed to go to the doctor yearly for this express purpose.
Uhhh.... yeah. So, why would a woman who's never had sex and feels perfectly healthy have an annual checkup? Is there anything out there that requires one to? I mean, I never had them until I started taking BC, and that is only because they won't give me the meds without it. Otherwise, I just wouldn't go.
Isn't it a woman's choice to have an exam? Of any kind? Or is there a segment of the population that is forced to get checkups regularly?
quote: It is my understanding that the morning after pill causes a woman to begin her period. Therefore, if unprotected sex happened say, the night before, then a woman, by taking a pill the morning after would take the pill and her period would begin, preventing the possibility of any fertilized egg in her system from remaining and attaching itself to the uterus.
Yes, and if the egg is already implanted, causing a woman's period to begin will flush the fetus out.
quote: Kat, as far as I know, that is not true. The morning after pill does not cause abortions.
In answer to this I would like to quote a page I found in a link on morningafterpill.org.
quote: Taking it a step further, if one could say that a woman "conceives" only when a "fertilized ovum" implants in her uterine wall, then destruction of the embryo between fertilization and implantation logically could be labeled "contra-ceptive"—at least in a world where semantics trumps reality. And so, obligingly, the leadership of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) redefined conception in 1965. This word play has allowed some to argue that the abortifacient actions of drugs and intrauterine devices (IUDs) before implantation do not cause abortions.
You define abortion as expelling the fetus, I'm guessing. Does it only count as abortion if the fetus has implanted already? What happens between fertilization and implantation that I'm not aware of? Medically, there is no proof that an embryo is somehow more real after implantation. It's just as much an embryo before implantation.
quote: "If we ensure that the jobless recieve few benefits, more people will work."
*sigh of contentment*
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Then see a doctor the next morning. Better inconvenienced and awkward than dead. Better pregnant than dead.
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posted
PSI, most people don't normally call a fertilized egg a fetus. No. Again, dunno what to tell people if they think a fertilized egg is a child.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Isn't it a woman's choice to have an exam? Of any kind? Or is there a segment of the population that is forced to get checkups regularly?
It's standard practice to start having annual check-ups when you become sexually active. Some doctors assume that if you are put on birth control (regardless of the reason for being put on it) you are now going to be sexually active and, therefore, need to have annual exams. I had this problem when I was a teenager. My doctor decided it would be good to put me on birth control to help to regulate my hormones. He sent me to an OB-GYN to do so. The OB-GYN tried to force me to then start having anual exams, even though I made it very clear to her that I was not sexually active and was not going to be for some time. I really had to fight her over it.
Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Stupidity #1: Having sex at random. (See, no preparation involved. Either you didn't care or weren't planning on hooking up. Either way, if you were already in a sexual relationship you would have most likely been using contraception.)
Stupidity #2: Too embarrassed (?) to go to the doctor. Proof you know the action above was stupid.
Therefore, using logic, I have deduced that the OTC MAP is 99% designed for the stupid, or girls who don't want their parents to know they're sleeping around. Sounds like a stupid reason to make something legal.
edit to add:
quote: PSI, most people don't normally call a fertilized egg a fetus. No. Again, dunno what to tell people if they think a fertilized egg is a child.
Most people can be wrong. I'm not talking about the morality of abortion right now. I'm talking about the fact that there is no medical difference WITHIN the embryo ITSELF to prove that there is something more special about an implanted embryo than a non-implanted one. The only difference is that it's getting it's nutrition from the placenta.
posted
Hmm... That's an interesting topic. Anyone want to start a thread on exactly where they think the immortality of the soul begins for humans? Independent of the subject of abortion?
Possibly the reason I'm finding this so interesting is that I've been reading a lot of Darwin and Tennyson recently, and it's been a subject at the fringes of my mind, so to speak.
[ February 20, 2004, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: Book ]
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posted
I honestly don't know all that much about the effects of the morning after pill, so maybe I'm off base here, but doesn't it have greater effects and higher risks than most over the counter stuff? I'm not all that interested in the "but then people will have more sex" arguments. I'm a little afraid that people are pushing for this to become freely available are interested in pushing an agenda and not looking t the medical consequences of allowing access to this without consulting a doctor.
Like I said, I really don't know much of anything about the pill itself except that it's like a super-dose of regular birth control pills. I just hope the criteria for making it available over the counter are medically valid.
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posted
Ayelar: But some women are way more at risk for serious problems and need to get checked for that anyways or else, you know, live in fear of some kind of unpleasant thing growing on an ovary, or something.
Posts: 9057 | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
According to this, there is NO IMPACT on an implanted fetus. If you're too late, you're too late. No impact is defined as:
quote:No increase in Spontaneous Abortion rate No increase in birth defects No increase in Ectopic Pregnancy No Teratogenic or other toxic effects
So, this whole "people will try to use it to abort and inadvertently hurt their fetus" argument is washed up.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Yeah, but if you have no reason to believe that you're in a high-risk category, and you're not sexually active, why do it? pooka makes it sound like all women are forced to, against their will, but that hasn't been my experience at all. But then, I don't go see regular doctors, either. *shrug*
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
If you're too late, there's no impact on the FETUS. No one in this thread made that argument. However, there possible side effects on the woman:
posted
(Okay, chart's right. It confusingly lists this as those occurring to less than 5% of patients, but that's incorrect. This is percent of all women who used Plan B) Here we go:
quote: Nausea 23.1
Abdominal pain 17.6
Fatigue 16.9
Headache 16.8
Heavier menstrual bleeding 13.8
Lighter menstrual bleeding 12.5
Dizziness 11.2
Breast tenderness 10.7
Other complaints 9.7
Vomiting 5.6
Diarrhea 5.0
I'm sorry, but I'm just not going to worry about heavier menstral bleeding. Exercising differently in a given month makes me bleed different amounts.
posted
Plan B, the pill under consideration, is Levongesterel. The above possible side effects are those for Levongesterel.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Suneun, I question (a bit) the slant of the page you linked to. In the Indications it listed unprotected sex LAST, after sexual assault and failure of birth control method, which probably TOGETHER make up a tiny percent of the women who use this method. Why would they do that?
If someone can explain to me how the MAP can flush out the lining of the uterus, and yet present no danger to an implanted fetus, I'd like to hear it.
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posted
This isn't your opinion, Sunuen. Whether or not something is medically safe when taken in the most likely matter isn't a question of morality.
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) have the doctor following you 24/7, that's not going to do much good, Kat.
