Related articles and links |  1 of 7

Note: This is the second Weblog posted on Thursday, August 24. The first highlighted religious freedom in Malaysia, a church attack in India, a horrible story of a church member's expulsion in Mississippi, and many other stories.

1. Plan B goes over the counter
After today's FDA ruling, the morning-after pill Plan B will be available without a prescription, but only with proof that the buyer is 18 or older. While the pill may prevent a fertilized ovum from implanting in the uterus, the pill is not (though it is often confused with) an abortion pill like RU-486. Notably, the pill has no effect on an implanted embryo. Religious conservatives say the age restriction isn't good enough.

"The FDA has sacrificed women's health in the name of politics," says Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. The press release does not say how women's health will be endangered by the pill, but the organization does have a backgrounder on the subject, and last month it said the drug can encourage sexual abuse and says long-term effects have not been studied.

Focus on the Family has not yet issued a press release on the FDA's approval, but on Tuesday criticized Bush's support for over-the-counter (OTC) status. "Selling this drug over the counter to any adult who wants to buy it virtually guarantees that it will end up in the hands of teenage girls without their parents' knowledge or their doctor's supervision," Focus's Carrie Gordon Earll said in a press release. "Over-the-counter status for Plan B—regardless of the age requirement—is an invitation for adult men to pressure underage girls to have sex with the promise of an easily accessible magic pill to prevent or abort a pregnancy."

"The FDA has overstepped its authority in this decision," Concerned Women for America says in a press release that draws parallels between the FDA's handling of Plan B and its handling of RU-486. "This decision allows anyone over 18 to purchase the drug without a prescription, thereby making the drug accessible to minors who can easily obtain the drug from those meeting the age requirement."

I'm not taking a position on OTC status for Plan B. But I do find it interesting that so many press releases (Focus and the Christian Medical Association being exceptions, as of course is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) aren't talking about the implantation issue. Most of the arguments are based on how OTC status would make the drug available to minors, which could encourage sexual activity. That may be true, but the argument would be just as true for other forms of contraception. You don't need a prescription for condoms, for example, and you don't have to be 18, either. And while you do need a prescription to get the Pill, you don't have to be 18, and you generally don't need parental consent.

Even the implantation issue doesn't differ much between Plan B and the Pill—which isn't a surprise, given that they're just different doses of the same drug. There's argument over how much the Pill affects implantation, but both Plan B and the Pill are designed primarily to stop fertilization, with preventing implantation as a secondary effect. And far more women are currently on the Pill than are likely to use Plan B.

So why do these pro-life groups have so much to say about Plan B but so little to say about the Pill?

2. Embryonic stem-cell research without destroying the embryo
Given that it's on almost every front page this morning, one might think that the news about coaxing stem cells from embryos without destroying the embryos would be a bigger story than OTC Plan B. Two reasons why not: Very few pro-lifers are talking about it (no comments yet from the organizations named above), and those that are aren't happy.  "I have three preliminary words in response: Ba Low Nee," says Wesley J. Smith on his blog. C. Ben Mitchell over at The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity calls it "ethical smoke and mirrors." A CBHD press release explains, "The method of extracting cells from the embryo is similar to the procedure used for preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which has ethical problems of its own. The long-term effects of removing a cell or cells from an early embryo are unknown; it is likely some embryos will not even survive the procedure. In addition, it is widely believed that a single cell of a very early embryo may be capable of becoming a new embryo itself." White House spokesman Emily Lawrimore tells The New York Times, "Any use of human embryos for research purposes raises serious ethical questions. This technique does not resolve those concerns." Leon Kass says, "I do not think that this is the sought-for, morally unproblematic and practically useful approach we need." Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the process may still harm the embryo and "raises more ethical questions than it answers." The embryos, he said, are "still being treated as a means to an end, even if you're not destroying them." Over at National Review Online, Kathryn Jean Lopez notes that the embryos in the experiment actually were destroyed, but that the paper argues for a "proof of concept" that, in theory, destruction may not be the result in the future. Still, Lopez says, "that leading stem-cell scientists are looking to solve the embryo-destruction problem is terrific and should be praised."

next page... |  1 of 7

share this page

August (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50