Christianity Today

Albert Mohler is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Many of the arguments Christian and pro-family groups use against Plan B sound like some of the same arguments used against the Pill. What kinds of consequences do you expect the Plan B drug will have in terms of sexual behavior and sexual ethics? Is this another "Pill" waiting to happen in terms of its likely effect on sexual behavior?

Well I think we already have anecdotal information, even in the form of a recent New York Times story, suggesting that many persons will see Plan B as another way of facilitating extramarital sex—that it just, once again, removes sex from its context in marriage with the horizon of child-bearing all the way back to nothing more than a casual encounter, which can be made "safe" from risk of pregnancy by the taking of a pill, even after the act. So there is a real moral issue here. By any estimation, the Pill, in all of its forms, has led to a radical transformation of America's moral landscape. It has facilitated extramarital and premarital sex on a scale unprecedented in human history. And thus we should only expect, realistically, that any enlargement of the options related to the Pill, will lead to a further loosening of the tie between intercourse and child-bearing—procreation.

The other issue that links this together is the possible abortifacient affect when it comes to the Pill itself but especially to Plan B. It is difficult to imagine Plan B works as anything other than an abortifacient, in general terms, preventing the successful implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterine wall, so that being the case, there is a common concern as related not to just the question of birth control ...

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