Morons On The "Morning-After" Pill
Tenderheaded fundamentalists contend that the "morning after" pill will cause an upsurge in unprotected sex and (gasp!) promiscuity! Once again, sigh (remember the Schiavo case?), science has the last word. British data shows making the pills available OTC didn't change women's contraceptive usage:
For example, the proportion using emergency contraception once per year was 6.5 percent, 6.3 percent and 5.6 percent during each period. The proportion using emergency contraception more than once was 2.0 percent, 1.5 percent and 1.7 percent.The only apparent change over time was in the places where women procured emergency contraception. The proportions obtaining the morning-after pill from a pharmacy increased from zero in 2000 to 19.7 percent in 2001 and 32.6 percent in 2002. During the same periods, fewer women obtained emergency contraception from a general practitioner or a family planning clinic.
"The sharp rise in the proportion of women buying emergency hormonal contraception over the counter indicates that many women prefer this way of obtaining it," Marston and her colleagues maintain. Easier access is likely to have prevented more pregnancies, they add.
"Given the apparent absences of negative consequences, and the fact that many women clearly prefer to buy emergency hormonal contraception over the counter," the team concludes, "our study supports the case for lifting the ban on over-the-counter sales of emergency hormonal contraception in the United States and other countries."
Sorry, you might first need to lift a few of the religious nutters out of office. It turns out, though, that some states are defying the primitive-thinking, moron feds. PS I have about five packs of "morning-after" pills, all bought OTC in France, and I haven't used one of them since I've bought them. But better safe than extremely inconvenienced in America, where you're treated, not like an adult woman, in charge of your own body, but a blithering idiot who must go to the doctor's office (kind of counterproductive if it takes you weeks or months to get an appointment -- or, at the very least, a multi-hour wait in urgent-care for a pregnancy test)...instead of going to the pharmacy and saying, "Hey there, I'll take some of those." PS I believe they were about 11 euros in France -- far less than the price in the US of involving the doctor needlessly!
PS The pharmacist in France did come to the counter when the clerk told him I was buying more than one: "Madame, these are not to be used as regular birth control!" I told him I knew -- but I live in a Puritan country, so I was buying them for myself and my friends -- just in case.
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