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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Morning-after pill battle continues amid politics, religion

David Goldstein Knight Ridder

WASHINGTON – Before the banning of over-the-counter sales of the “morning-after” pill became news again last week, a Leawood, Kan., woman had felt the fallout firsthand.

The 36-year-old divorced mother had tried to obtain the pill from her physician’s office earlier this month but was refused because of the doctor’s religious beliefs.

“I cannot prescribe anything because it would prevent the implantation of a potentially fertilized egg,” she said the doctor told her.

“I got off the phone, and I was shaking,” said the woman, who because of the personal nature of her story asked not to be named.

Emergency contraceptives have a 72-hour window of effectiveness. But the sooner they’re taken, the better, and the clock was ticking.

Frantic, she called a friend who advised her to go to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic, where she received the drug, known as Plan B.

Her effort to quickly obtain a morning-after pill underscored how the Plan B debate has become a proxy fight over abortion. It’s another collision of politics and religion, similar to the disagreements over stem cells and the end-of-life issues raised by the Terri Schiavo case.

About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended and half of those result in abortion, according to the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.

Plan B’s supporters, including a large body of medical experts, claim that wider, easier, over-the-counter distribution could help reduce those numbers.

Anti-abortion religious conservatives dispute those claims and call Plan B a health risk, particularly to young teenage girls. They also cite a study last January in The Journal of the American Medical Association that showed easy access to emergency contraceptives did not drop the unintended pregnancy rate.

Pia de Solenni, director of life and women’s issues at the conservative Family Research Council, said that Plan B was not necessarily tantamount to abortion but could be when it prevented the embryo from implanting in the uterus.

“This is a very politically loaded issue,” said Cynthia Daniels, a Rutgers University political science professor who has written about fetal rights. “If women can get access to pregnancy prevention over the counter without the approval of pharmacists or physicians, let alone judges or legislators, that really changes the balance of power.

“The right-to-life movement is very aware of that; that’s why it’s fighting so hard.”

Plan B contains high doses of the hormone used in birth control pills and is meant for one-time use. It blocks ovulation and possibly fertilization and implantation, according to Barr Laboratories Inc., the manufacturer. Medical experts said that it wouldn’t work if you were already pregnant.

Nearly 1.2 million prescriptions for Plan B were filled over the past 12 months, according to the manufacturer.

Opponents of abortion view the drug largely through the same lens. When the Bush administration in 2004 was weighing whether to permit Plan B to be sold over-the-counter, religious conservatives strongly lobbied against it.

“The conservative climate in our country is making it harder and harder for women,” the Leawood woman said. “Church and state is become less and less separate.”