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Morning-After Pill
Justice Dept. to Appeal Ruling Against Age Limits for Morning-After Pill
The Department of Justice said Wednesday that it would appeal a federal judge¹s order to make the most common morning-after pill available without a prescription for all ages.
In a scathing opinion handed down three weeks ago, Judge Edward R. Korman of the Eastern District of New York said the Obama administration had put politics before science in restricting access to the drug.
The Justice Department’s decision to appeal was likely based not only on the substance of the judge’s ruling, but also the precedent the ruling would set in countermanding an order by a White House cabinet member, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/health/us-will-appeal-order-on-morning-after-pill.html?emc=na
Its all a mess. It sure is! And its shocking to think that my mother married at the age of 13, had 10 children and was married for over 50 years to the same person. And we treat our teens today like they are infants, demanding no responsibility whatsoever. Man oh man have things ever changed.
Wow, there are a lot of interesting comments on this subject.
I think this is all a very complex issue and so much of it was noted above. I am however for the "morning after pill" just as I also am for the right for a woman to be able to have an abortion provided by a trained professional. I hate the idea of something like this pill being abused, and I think that it will be abused to some extent.
I know a woman who has had 7 abortions. She utilized the local clinic and available funding provided by supporters of the clinic to be her birth control device. (I am also very surprised that the clinic kept performing the procedure and consequently paying for them.)
Regardless of any education on the subject, you are going to have people who abuse this. I don't know what that says about society in general, bit it looks a bit bleak. Education only goes so far. Are the schools doing enough, and is it really their job? Educations at home regarding things like birth control, what kind of education are they getting at home?
I feel if you have someone offering the education from home who has also been a user and abuser of the system/drug/whatever, you are probably likely to get someone who advocates for having sex because of the pill, its availability, and its low cost in comparison to an abortion.
I don't know. In order to educate, the ones needing the education have to be willing to receive and accept the education, otherwise they feel as if you are blowing sand up their hind ends. Its all a mess...
I think this is all a very complex issue and so much of it was noted above. I am however for the "morning after pill" just as I also am for the right for a woman to be able to have an abortion provided by a trained professional. I hate the idea of something like this pill being abused, and I think that it will be abused to some extent.
I know a woman who has had 7 abortions. She utilized the local clinic and available funding provided by supporters of the clinic to be her birth control device. (I am also very surprised that the clinic kept performing the procedure and consequently paying for them.)
Regardless of any education on the subject, you are going to have people who abuse this. I don't know what that says about society in general, bit it looks a bit bleak. Education only goes so far. Are the schools doing enough, and is it really their job? Educations at home regarding things like birth control, what kind of education are they getting at home?
I feel if you have someone offering the education from home who has also been a user and abuser of the system/drug/whatever, you are probably likely to get someone who advocates for having sex because of the pill, its availability, and its low cost in comparison to an abortion.
I don't know. In order to educate, the ones needing the education have to be willing to receive and accept the education, otherwise they feel as if you are blowing sand up their hind ends. Its all a mess...
How many 15 year olds are also responsible enough to read and understand all the directions and use it properly? What if they take it and then have unprotected sex again the next night and then go and take it again, etc.? This isn't like taking an aspirin. There's the increase risk of heart attack or stroke if overdosed on just as in the case of birth control pills. I know when I was taking birth control pills it also warned of increased risk when you smoke and lots of teens smoke. Also, there are risks of blood clots. Every person's body is different and that's why I think anyone who takes drugs like these should be under a doctor's care.
I don't think they've done enough research on the effects of this on teenagers since their bodies are still growing and are different than adults. I don't even think they've done enough research on giving birth control pills to teens for the same reason. I've heard it can increase the risk of breast cancer even more in young girls.
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It is a good point. However, the morning after pill should never be used as a form of birth control just a one time deal after the fact. I know a young woman who was raped and the very next day got the pill so she would never have to face the possibility of a pregnancy.
On the other hand, it is true that most young people are not going to read about the potential problems and side effects of these potent drugs so in a way the easy availability puts them at risk.
What desrt stated,
"To me it boils down to a lack of education. If we are unwilling or too squeamish to teach our children family planning *before* puberty, then we are going to have to abide with the consequences and the ever more convoluted bandaid solutions to the root cause problem." rings so true.
We may not be comfortable talking to pre adolescents about sex and reproduction and all the consequences but if we don't they will grow up with the ideas of gurgling babies, baby showers and dressed up little dolls they can parade about. Believe me I have seen way too may kids with kids treating them like little pets, as status symbols and convincing themselves they have accomplished something because they could have a baby.
I have made a lot of mistakes in raising my daughter so openly and liberally and sometimes I wish I could go back and tighten up that ship, but thankfully as much as she loves kids, she never thought her own self worth was somehow tied to bearing children. Thankfully she has been far more proactive in that area of controlling her body. Still, I have always worried what the hormones in her birth control pills were doing to her growing body. It still really scares me.
Awesome post.
Thank you
Thank you
To me it boils down to a lack of education. If we are unwilling or too squeamish to teach our children family planning *before* puberty, then we are going to have to abide with the consequences and the ever more convoluted bandaid solutions to the root cause problem.
El: if you believe this generation is inordinately selfish and self-indulgent, then educate them in terms they understand. It's extraordinarily diffucult to get an education, a decent job, and *all the goodies that go along with it* if you spend your time changing diapers and your 'baby daddy' is trying to support you on a minimum wage job. When I say 'family panning' I mean everything from biology to economics.
We have a much broader and deeper problem with a society that wants to treat teens and twenty-somethings like children. The whole drawn out adolescence that has become our societal norm engenders weakness. Teenage girls in Israel have walked the perimeter of their Kibbutz (carrying automatic weapons) as part of their duty to a caise greater than their own personal needs. Scandavian kids probably know more about ovulation, implantation, and other fertility topics than the average American adult .
If you use the TV (internet) as a babysitter and your public schools like daycare, the results are predictable.
If you want to make a change, take an interest in what is being taught in your schools, and teach your children at home either a set of spiritual/moral values or, at the very least, teach them they have a resonsibility not to spread STDs and a global responsibility not to overpopulate the planet to the point it's uninhabitable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTVdh5UVUXk
El: if you believe this generation is inordinately selfish and self-indulgent, then educate them in terms they understand. It's extraordinarily diffucult to get an education, a decent job, and *all the goodies that go along with it* if you spend your time changing diapers and your 'baby daddy' is trying to support you on a minimum wage job. When I say 'family panning' I mean everything from biology to economics.
We have a much broader and deeper problem with a society that wants to treat teens and twenty-somethings like children. The whole drawn out adolescence that has become our societal norm engenders weakness. Teenage girls in Israel have walked the perimeter of their Kibbutz (carrying automatic weapons) as part of their duty to a caise greater than their own personal needs. Scandavian kids probably know more about ovulation, implantation, and other fertility topics than the average American adult .
If you use the TV (internet) as a babysitter and your public schools like daycare, the results are predictable.
If you want to make a change, take an interest in what is being taught in your schools, and teach your children at home either a set of spiritual/moral values or, at the very least, teach them they have a resonsibility not to spread STDs and a global responsibility not to overpopulate the planet to the point it's uninhabitable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTVdh5UVUXk
"What 15 or younger girl is really mature enough or ready for sex? I've seen studies after studies that say how damaging it can be for girls to have sex too young because they just aren't capable of handling such a huge responsibility, or emotionally are ready for that."
Probably not many, but they're doing it anyway. Of course, we know it's not good for girls to have sex at too young ages, but since they're going to do it, they might as well have the means to protect themselves.
Probably not many, but they're doing it anyway. Of course, we know it's not good for girls to have sex at too young ages, but since they're going to do it, they might as well have the means to protect themselves.
I have a lot of concerns about this. For one thing, we as parents are responsible for our kids until they're 18. They can't even go into an R rated movie at 15 but they can buy this drug over the counter? That confuses me too because you have to get birth control pills through a pharmacy because of the risks involved and it's my understanding these pills also have risks involved as they are similar to a birth control pill with a high dose of hormones. You have to be 18 to buy cigarettes and 21 for alcohol. You can't join the military until you're 18. Your parents are responsible for you until you're 18 but yet we have no say in our child taking a powerful drug? What 15 or younger girl is really mature enough or ready for sex? I've seen studies after studies that say how damaging it can be for girls to have sex too young because they just aren't capable of handling such a huge responsibility, or emotionally are ready for that.
How many 15 year olds are also responsible enough to read and understand all the directions and use it properly? What if they take it and then have unprotected sex again the next night and then go and take it again, etc.? This isn't like taking an aspirin. There's the increase risk of heart attack or stroke if overdosed on just as in the case of birth control pills. I know when I was taking birth control pills it also warned of increased risk when you smoke and lots of teens smoke. Also, there are risks of blood clots. Every person's body is different and that's why I think anyone who takes drugs like these should be under a doctor's care.
I don't think they've done enough research on the effects of this on teenagers since their bodies are still growing and are different than adults. I don't even think they've done enough research on giving birth control pills to teens for the same reason. I've heard it can increase the risk of breast cancer even more in young girls.
I also worry that this is just one more way for abusers and child slavery to fly under the radar because young girls won't have to go to a clinic, where alarm bells may go off. Now they can just go to Walmart.
And they're considering lowering the age even more? Why would they want to do that? Again, then we'd have abusers making 11 or 12 year old girls buy these pills so they can keep abusing them and no one would see the warning signs because these girls would never go to a hospital or clinic. Does that make sense?
In my state they said the age of sexual consent was 16, but now these pills are for 15 and they're pushing to have it lowered? How would abusers ever get caught then if they're abusing little girls? Am I making sense here?
I just see so many warning flags with this.
How many 15 year olds are also responsible enough to read and understand all the directions and use it properly? What if they take it and then have unprotected sex again the next night and then go and take it again, etc.? This isn't like taking an aspirin. There's the increase risk of heart attack or stroke if overdosed on just as in the case of birth control pills. I know when I was taking birth control pills it also warned of increased risk when you smoke and lots of teens smoke. Also, there are risks of blood clots. Every person's body is different and that's why I think anyone who takes drugs like these should be under a doctor's care.
I don't think they've done enough research on the effects of this on teenagers since their bodies are still growing and are different than adults. I don't even think they've done enough research on giving birth control pills to teens for the same reason. I've heard it can increase the risk of breast cancer even more in young girls.
I also worry that this is just one more way for abusers and child slavery to fly under the radar because young girls won't have to go to a clinic, where alarm bells may go off. Now they can just go to Walmart.
And they're considering lowering the age even more? Why would they want to do that? Again, then we'd have abusers making 11 or 12 year old girls buy these pills so they can keep abusing them and no one would see the warning signs because these girls would never go to a hospital or clinic. Does that make sense?
In my state they said the age of sexual consent was 16, but now these pills are for 15 and they're pushing to have it lowered? How would abusers ever get caught then if they're abusing little girls? Am I making sense here?
I just see so many warning flags with this.
Not really. They both keep pregnancy from happening... Both are a form of birth control as I see it. At least it was in my day!
A condom protects against STD's, whereas the "morning after" pill does not.
Condoms & the "morning after" pill are vastly different.
Condoms & the "morning after" pill are vastly different.
What scientists on both sides of the debate agree on with confidence is that one of the effects of the pills is that they can delay ovulation up to five days after sex, so sperm would not be able to fertilize any eggs. But, many proponents of removing the "abortion" definition from the pill's description claim that is all they do.
Studies since 2002 have said that Plan B cannot prevent implantation, and a 2005 memorandum by the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research recognized that the pills main function was to prevent ovulation - but added that it could not exclude the chance that it may stop implantation "in a small percentage of women."
However, a 2007 study showed that Plan B did not prevent eggs from attaching to cells in the uterus. The eggs were collected from a fertility clinic that would have discarded the specimens otherwise. Other studies in 2007, 2009 and 2010 in Australia and Chile showed that the morning-after pill was only effective in women who had not ovulated. The rate of women of pregnancy for women who had ovulated already and used Plan B was the same rate as people who hadn't used the pill at all.
Dr. Kristina Gemzell-Danielsson, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who participated in World Health Organization studies leading to FDA approval of the morning-after pill, told the New York Times that the implantation explanation was included in the labels because scientists thought it made the medication seem more effective.
"We've been saying that all along. It's an important distinction that the morning-after type pills prevent pregnancy by stopping ovulation so there is no fertilization," Dr. Jim Breeden, President of The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told CNN. "I think it doesn't go away because there was some uncertainty many, many years ago as to how the method actually worked, so there was speculation that it might have impacted implantation. But nobody knew that- there was no research that showed that."
However, a pro-life doctor with the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told the New York Times of a study done by the European Medicines Agency (the European FDA) that showed that the lining of the uterus was altered in animals that took Plan B. Pro-choice opponents dismissed the study, saying that the dosage was much higher that what is given to humans.
The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) did not comment on whether or not they would change the definition on their website, but both the National Institute of Health and the New York Times have removed any references that may insinuate that morning-after pills prevent implantation. Mayo Clinic has also said they will change their definition if the FDA decides to do so.
The morning-after pills are not to be confused with other medications that are specifically used to terminate pregnancy, like RU-486, which does detach implanted embryos effectively destroying them. For comparison, the dosage of RU-486's active ingredient that removes implantation is 20 times higher than what is found in an Ella pill, a type of morning-after pill, the New York Times reported.
Studies since 2002 have said that Plan B cannot prevent implantation, and a 2005 memorandum by the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research recognized that the pills main function was to prevent ovulation - but added that it could not exclude the chance that it may stop implantation "in a small percentage of women."
However, a 2007 study showed that Plan B did not prevent eggs from attaching to cells in the uterus. The eggs were collected from a fertility clinic that would have discarded the specimens otherwise. Other studies in 2007, 2009 and 2010 in Australia and Chile showed that the morning-after pill was only effective in women who had not ovulated. The rate of women of pregnancy for women who had ovulated already and used Plan B was the same rate as people who hadn't used the pill at all.
Dr. Kristina Gemzell-Danielsson, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who participated in World Health Organization studies leading to FDA approval of the morning-after pill, told the New York Times that the implantation explanation was included in the labels because scientists thought it made the medication seem more effective.
"We've been saying that all along. It's an important distinction that the morning-after type pills prevent pregnancy by stopping ovulation so there is no fertilization," Dr. Jim Breeden, President of The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told CNN. "I think it doesn't go away because there was some uncertainty many, many years ago as to how the method actually worked, so there was speculation that it might have impacted implantation. But nobody knew that- there was no research that showed that."
However, a pro-life doctor with the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told the New York Times of a study done by the European Medicines Agency (the European FDA) that showed that the lining of the uterus was altered in animals that took Plan B. Pro-choice opponents dismissed the study, saying that the dosage was much higher that what is given to humans.
The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) did not comment on whether or not they would change the definition on their website, but both the National Institute of Health and the New York Times have removed any references that may insinuate that morning-after pills prevent implantation. Mayo Clinic has also said they will change their definition if the FDA decides to do so.
The morning-after pills are not to be confused with other medications that are specifically used to terminate pregnancy, like RU-486, which does detach implanted embryos effectively destroying them. For comparison, the dosage of RU-486's active ingredient that removes implantation is 20 times higher than what is found in an Ella pill, a type of morning-after pill, the New York Times reported.
They're going to think more about pleasure, than about safety & responsibility.
They already do, which is why we are looking at these kinds of measures in the first place. And how many years have "the guys" been carrying condoms in the wallet on the chance they might get lucky?
They already do, which is why we are looking at these kinds of measures in the first place. And how many years have "the guys" been carrying condoms in the wallet on the chance they might get lucky?
The "ME" generation (generation of entitlement) will abuse this, as they do everything else.
I'm with Vance. They're going to think more about pleasure, than about safety & responsibility.
Over-the-counter abortion pills... GREAT IDEA guys!
I'm with Vance. They're going to think more about pleasure, than about safety & responsibility.
Over-the-counter abortion pills... GREAT IDEA guys!
This is not good. When you make this available to kids (14, 15, 16) yrs old. They are going to think more about pleasure then safety. I believe this will cause a spike in STD's.
Education needs to come with this morning after pill. Deterence should come with this morning after pill. And I dare say, religion talk should come with this moring after pill for kids.
Education needs to come with this morning after pill. Deterence should come with this morning after pill. And I dare say, religion talk should come with this moring after pill for kids.
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Herpes sores blister, then burst, scab and heal.
Herpes spreads by oral, vaginal and anal sex.
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