The "morning after" pill and the abortion rate.

Ottawa -- In June, 2004, Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada, welcomed the recently legalized access to "emergency contraception" (the morning after pill--MAP) without a prescription. He stated, "... it's better to prevent unwanted pregnancy than to have an abortion".

Comment

This statement ignores the scientific fact that a human being comes into existence at the fertilization of an ovum by a sperm, and that an embryo is aborted by the MAP that prevents implantation of the embryo in the uterus. It also ignores the fact that easy access to the MAP has been demonstrated not to lessen the rate of surgical abortions.

A study was published in the journal Contraception, volume 69, issue 5, May, 2004, pp. 361-366. This study, the largest of its kind, showed that when 18,000 young sexually active young women in Lothian, Scotland, were given free supplies of the MAR there was an increase in its use and also in its early, and therefore more effective use. There was, however, no lessening of the surgical abortion rate. The MAP used was a combination of tablets of ethinylestradiol and levonorgestrel.

The news editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, June 22, 2004, went so far as to state that Statistics Canada figures show that use of the MAP could prevent 106,418 of the approximately 109,500 surgical abortions that are performed each year in Canada! Because the MAP does not in fact lower the incidence of surgical abortion, and because it frequently causes chemical abortion, it is highly probable that easy access to the MAP actually increases the overall rate of abortion.