Reacting to today’s expected announcement from the Food and Drug Administration on whether or not the emergency contraceptive, Plan B, will be available to anyone simply by purchasing it off store shelves, Rita Diller, national director of American Life League’s STOPP effort, issued the following statement:

The FDA is once again contemplating putting so-called emergency contraception (EC) on pharmacy shelves, where it would be accessible to very young girls, and to those who may be sexually abusing those girls.

Not only are the drugs dangerous for those who consume them, but the so-called emergency contraceptives can kill an already-conceived human person in its earliest stages.  One of the actions of EC is to alter the endometrium, making it hostile to implantation, resulting in the death of the newly-conceived child.

Currently, Plan B is available without a prescription to those as young as 17 years of age.  Now the manufacturer has asked the FDA to drop the age restriction, making the powerful steroidal hormones available to anyone who can pick the bottle off the shelf, without prescription and without guidance in taking the drugs.

The pharmaceutical company cites a study saying that between 72 and 96 percent of girls ages 12 to 17 understood the proposed package label well enough to use the drug “safely and effectively” on their own.  That means that as many as 28 percent were not able to use the drug “safely and effectively” on their own. While oral contraceptives still require a prescription and medical supervision, emergency contraception, which contains mega-doses of oral contraceptives, would be available at any time for any reason to any and all takers.

The active ingredient in Plan B is levonorgestrel. Well-documented adverse side effects of the drug include depression, hypertension, ovarian cysts and upper respiratory infections.

While these risks are multiplied with increased use, efficacy in preventing pregnancy decreases with increased use. Yet, the advocates of the morning after pill promote its increased, frequent, and repeated use by attempting to place it on open shelves where it is accessible to all.  The wholesale promotion by the profiteers is undercut by solid evidence, and warnings advising women and physicians to limit usage, or to not use it at all.