Posted on 11/28/2008 11:28:57 AM PST by wagglebee
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new national survey shows the Plan B drug, as known as the morning after pill, is more available across the United States following a 2006 FDA decision to sell it to adults over the counter. However, anecdotal stats from other places where it is readily available show it not reducing abortions.
Dr. Rebekah Gee of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine conducted the study, which involved surveys of pharmacies in Atlanta, Boston, and Philadelphia in 2005 and again in 2007.
Some 1,087 pharmacies participated in the first round of surveys while 795 were involved in the second.
Overall, according to a Reuters report, Gee found that 23 percent of the pharmacies in the 2005 survey were unable to dispense the Plan B drug, which can cause an abortion post-conception, within 24 hours of a request. That number dropped to 8 percent in 2007.
The survey also found four percent of pharmacists refused to dispense the drug in 2005 but that number fell to two percent in 2007.
The numbers of refusal and of failures to dispense the drug in 24 hours fell in all three of the metropolitan areas Gee surveyed.
However, greater access to the morning after pill drug doesn't mean a reduction in abortions as pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood claim will happen.
Its own annual report shows that abortions are on the rise at Planned Parenthood of Western Washington despite Washington state’s Take Charge pilot program.
Take Charge is a Medicaid section 1115 Waiver program initiated in 2001 to provide free contraceptives to low-income women not already covered under Medicaid. It was originally funded for five years in 2001, then extended for three more years, and comes up for renewal in 2009.
Despite the taxpayer-funded contraception and birth control, the PPWW annual report indicates abortions actually rose 16 percent from 7,790 in 2006 to 9,059 in 2007.
Meanwhile, the number of abortions has increased 17 percent in Sweden from 2000 to 2007 despite sales of the morning after pill increasing during the same time period.
The morning after pill became a drug that could be sold over the counter in Sweden in 2001 and abortion advocates touted non-prescription sales in the United States as a panacea for reducing abortions. In that time, sales of the drug tripled in the nation's capital and doubled nationwide, but abortions increased.
Also, in May, Scotland officials noted that the number of abortions rose for the third straight year despite a heavy push for women to use the morning after pill.
Abortions in Scotland rose four percent according to a report from the British national health service and now number 13,703.
Not only is the increased promoting of the morning after pill resulting in more abortions, not less, the number of women having repeat abortions is increasing as well.
Abortion advocates have claimed higher use of the Plan B drug through over the counter sales will result in a drop in unintended pregnancies and fewer abortions. However, research and reports show that's not happening.
Dr. Joseph Stanford, associate professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine, says studies he and fellow researchers have done show a lower effectiveness rate than the 89 percent Barr Laboratories claims.
"We did more a precise meta-analysis that shows it's effective only 72 percent of the time, and even that number is optimistic," he indicated.
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Could you please do us all a favor and correct the year that the FDA approved the Plan B Abortion Pill for over the counter sales?
While I am not an expert on the Life and Abortion issues I refuse to believe that an FDA under the Presidency of George W. Bush would approve an Abortion Pill to be sold in a pharmacy without a prescription.
This must have been something done by the President-Elect, not the current President.
They need the money it provides. Killing innocent children is a lucrative business.
It makes sense though. The safer people feel about sex, the more sex they have. The culture of contraception reinforces the belief that sex is disconnected from pregnancy and that pregnancy is a mistake, akin to an STD. In reality, the purpose of sex is pregnancy.
You would be wrong in that assumption.
Wow, thanks for that link from back in 2006 when President Bush approved the Abortion Pill of Over the Counter Sales.
Interestingly, that thread from 2006 only had 66 Replies. I would have thought for sure that a Republican President enacting the Strongest Pro Abortion government act since Roe v. Wade would have garnered more replies on Free Republic.
If it had been a Democratic President that approved selling the Abortion Pill Over the Counter their would have been at least 1000 posts on that thread.
Interesting......
There were multiple threads, that’s part of the reason. I just picked two.
Do a keyword search for “planb”:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/planb/index?more=4568318
Okay thanks.
However, there still appears to be a disconnection for many Freepers between a Plan B Abortion and an Abortion procedure at an Abortion clinic.
I wonder why that is?
Do people really think it is okay to kill a baby 24 hours after conception but not a month after conception?
One obvious difference is that a woman having an abortion knows she’s pregnant, while a woman buying Plan B only knows she had sex. The use of Plan B is more closely related to the use of common hormonal contraceptives, which *may* prevent ovulation, *may* inhibit contraception, or *may* cause failure of implantation (abortion). Or may not do any of these things, since some women using these drugs still have babies.
More to the point of the article, I don’t think these results are surprising. Correct use of contraceptives is the exception, not the norm. Why should Plan B be any different? If a woman can’t be bothered to take a pill every day (funny how people with serious medical conditions seem to manage it ...), why would anyone expect her to take the trouble to purchase Plan B and use it in a timely manner, avoiding all negative interactions with other drugs, etc.?
To summarize, people engaging in foolish and irresponsible sexual activity are also extremely likely to be foolish and irresponsible in general. More abortions and unwanted births are the obvious outcome.
Oh, so there is a difference between murdering a baby (abortion clinic) and taking actions necessary to murder a baby by taking a pill (Abortion Pill)?
As for me, I believe life begins at the moment of conception and the murder of a baby takes place when a woman walks into an abortion clinic to kill her baby, if she takes an Abortion pill to murder her baby or if she takes a “birth control” pill that may cause failure of implantation of a baby.
Life is absolute.
There’s no difference in intention, but a woman who takes Plan B *may not be pregnant, by any definition*. Do you understand this? Maybe she wasn’t ovulating. Maybe she’s infertile. Maybe the man had a low sperm count. She might not be pregnant. Do you understand this? Women don’t conceive every time they have sex ... not even me.
Yes, I fully understand what you are saying.
You are saying that it is okay to take an action that may murder a baby.
Oh, bleepin FReep. What is it with people’s reading comprehension?
No, I’m not saying it’s “okay.” I’m saying that, if a woman is not pregnant, it’s different from when she is. Without conception, there can’t be abortion. Understand?
Have you ever been pregnant? Believe me, it’s different from not being pregnant.
Yes, I understand that most women who take the Plan B Pill are not in fact pregnant. However, their intent when taking the Plan B Pill is to kill that baby if by chance they are pregnant.
It would be like randomly firing a bullet into a crowded theater, the bullet may hit someone in the head and kill them or it may be harmless and hit no one.
Yes, I agree. I was thinking it was like giving your husband citric acid, thinking it would kill him. There’s no question that there’s an intention to do harm, if there’s anyone to do harm TO. That’s the only reason to take it.
And the odds of precipitating an early abortion are higher with Plan B than with the steady use of contraceptive pills - first, because the woman is more likely to ovulate without the continuous supply of progestin, and second, because an ovulating woman is more likely to have sex. The “Urge to Merge” is very powerful, or I wouldn’t be expecting my 9th baby.
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