News » March 29, 2006

Contraception in the Crosshairs

By Phoebe Connelly

In March, Wal-Mart announced that it would carry Emergency Contraception (EC)—commercially sold as Plan B—for the first time in the seven years that the drug has been on the market. Reproductive rights activists around the nation lauded the decision both as a step forward for women’s access to reproductive technology and a victory for activists fighting Wal-Mart’s retrograde social policies. However, the victory is only partial, because while Wal-Mart now stocks EC, it, along with many other companies, does not require its pharmacists to dispense it.

Across the nation, pharmacists have come out as “conscientious objectors,” refusing to dispense EC, and in some cases, any contraception, to women who come in with a prescription. “If you really understand what the science of emergency contraception is,” says Destiny Lopez, head of the Institute for Reproductive Health Access’ “Back up Your Birth Control” campaign, which works to promote awareness of and access to EC, “you’re essentially opposing birth control.”

Plan B, the only commercial form of EC currently available, contains a high dose of one the hormones—progestin—found in birth control pills. As such, it prevents ovulation and fertilization. If taken within 72 hours, it can reduce the chance of pregnancy by 89 percent. That’s where the problem with pharmacists comes in.

First, consider the time it takes to get ahold of a doctor or get an appointment. For a woman without insurance or a primary care physician, this can take days. Factor in transportation, securing last-minute childcare or obtaining time off work. Having overcome these hurdles, a woman could still be told to travel elsewhere to get her prescription filled. Soon the hours when EC is most effective have passed.

“It’s a time-sensitive method: a woman needs to get it as soon as possible in order for it to be most effective,” says Lopez. “Often, women living in rural areas only have one pharmacist they can go to in their communities.”

Last November, Walgreens pharmacist John Menges refused to comply with an Illinois regulation requiring pharmacists to dispense EC. He is now out of a job, having refused a job transfer 30 miles across state lines to Missouri. “It just hurts,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “But I’m not going to compromise my beliefs.”

Menges is representative of a growing segment of the pro-life movement that opposes contraception outright. “The right-to-life movement claims that the most commonly used forms of birth-control—the pill, the patch, the IUD, aren’t contraception—they’re abortion,” says Cristina Page, author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America. “And they’re using the same exact techniques that won the abortion debate to attack the family planning techniques that most Americans use.”

“Conscientious objectors” are being backed and promoted by groups like Pharmacists for Life, whose underlying goal is to undermine women’s access to birth control altogether. And the Bush administration, along with state politicians around the nation, is right there with them.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has come out against birth control. “I don’t think it’s a healthy thing for our country,” he said in 2005. Matt Blunt, the Republican governor of Missouri, conflates EC with abortion and has made decreasing access to EC a legislative priority for 2006. And the U.S. Senate is currently considering the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act (HIMMAA), a bill introduced by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) that would override state laws requiring health insurance companies to cover contraceptive costs.

There’s another front to this battle—making EC available over the counter. In 2005 the FDA bowed to political pressure and used a “pocket veto” to table consideration of this issue. Susan Wood, then-director of the Office for Women’s Health resigned, saying, “I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled.”

The fight has been picked up by members of Congress. Last summer Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) blocked the confirmation of Lester Crawford for FDA commissioner until a promise was made by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt to reconsider Plan B for over-the-counter sales—a promise he reneged on. While careful to confine their comments to the scientific rigour of the FDA, the two are continuing the fight. They answered Bush’s mid-March nomination of Andrew Von Eschenbach to head the FDA with their intention to hold up the nomination until the FDA has ruled on Plan B.

Speaking to the press, Clinton declared, “We want the science to decide, not the ideology.”

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• Reader Comments

  Abortion involves either preventing a fertilized egg from implanting or removing it afterwards. As opposed to such birth control techniques as using a condom (or anal/oral sex, for that matter), which prevents fertilization from taking place.

  While one may be on either side of the issue, one ought to know the difference. . .

  It is interesting to consider whether the state should *force* pharmacists to dispense products they believe are harmful. Perhaps we could just ship off the ladies who get pregnant to Iraq, where they might be able to lose the baby for their country?

  Posted by wolf on Mar 29, 2006 at 4:43 PM

  What about condoms can they still be sold?  Any conscieous objectors to those? Don’t they prevent pregancy? Is thismore about controlling woman?
  borderlines

  Posted by borderlines on Mar 29, 2006 at 8:52 PM

  I don’t think anyone in the US is serously proposing to ban birth control (such as condoms), just abortion (such as Plan B - really a terrific name). Mostly since they see abortion as a way to kill a baby, not a way to free a lady.

  Posted by wolf on Mar 29, 2006 at 9:38 PM

  Wolf,

  Plan B doesn’t prevent a zygote from implanting in the uterous but prevents or obstructs ovulation and thus fertilization. Read the Article above!  Your neanderthal lies (and murderous suggestions that pregnant women wanting birth control be shipped to Iraq to be killed) reveal the true nature of the “right to life” movement’s hypocracy!  They don’t value life at all. They just want to control women!  It is also obvious that they don’t value human lives that actually exist, just fetuses as a way of inhibiting reproductive rights and spreading their patriarchial agenda.  Demented morans like Rick Santorum hate birth control because he knows that family planning will reduce the Republican voting population by giving po’ small town folk some options over unplanned, unwanted pregnancies.  Besides, is a zygote really a human being. Maybe to a mindless fanatic.  To me the thousands of innocent civilians of Fallujah who were slaughtered by US marines, many as they tried to flee, were human lives as well.  I guess the “pro-life” movement doesn’t care to defend them since doing so wouldn’t further the cause of repressing US women or any other reactionary agenda.

  Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 29, 2006 at 10:19 PM

  cabdriverinchicago - um, are you at all familar with “sarcasm”?

  I find your views of those who hold opinons different from your own (on this subject) to be rather naive. You might try asking more questions and offering your own a bit less - this technique can be quite illuminating.

  Or if this is a bit much for you we can just stick with

  pro-abortion - good
  pro-life - bad

  (Sarcasm again)

  Posted by wolf on Mar 29, 2006 at 10:45 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 26 posts.

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