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Moral judgements out of place on day-after pill
The Sydney Morning Herald ^ | July 1 2003 | Mia Freedman

Posted on 06/30/2003 8:46:17 AM PDT by presidio9

Young women are in trouble again. After being admonished several months ago for not having enough babies, now the focus has been placed on young women behaving badly. Apparently we're having more sex and engaging in more hedonistic behaviour.

This conservative attitude has found a new outlet; the legislation that will, it is hoped, make the morning-after pill, Postinor-2, available over the counter.

But what are the facts? Why is it so important to make access to Postinor-2 easier for women of all ages? And why has this debate had a disturbing subtext of moral judgement about women's sexuality?

This is not just a one-night-stand pill. This issue is not about promiscuity. It is purely about preventing unwanted pregnancies and preventing more women from having to undergo abortions after a contraceptive accident.

Cosmopolitan launched a campaign to agitate for this legislation in February after readers complained they had experienced difficulty in securing a prescription. They told us of humiliating lectures by doctors, some of whom refused to issue a prescription on moral grounds. They also complained of having to pay for a consultation as well as the cost of the pill.

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There is no question that everyone at risk of falling pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted infection should use condoms all the time. But condoms are only 95 per cent effective: in five out of every 100 sexual encounters, they break. They don't just break during one-night-stands. Condoms break during monogamous relationships - and marital sex.

So what do those five women do? According to the opponents of this legislation, they should make an appointment with their doctor and have a thorough conversation about all the potential risks they've exposed themselves to.

Here's where it starts to go wrong. Contraceptive failures and accidents frequently happen at weekends, on holidays or other times when a visit to your own doctor is impossible. Even if it's during the week, have you tried making an urgent appointment with your GP lately? If you are lucky enough to secure one, it's highly likely that your doctor won't bulk-bill and you'll have to pay.

Women seeking the morning-after pill have a 72-hour window (from the time of the contraceptive failure) in which to take it. The sooner it's taken, the more effective it is. Yes, there are potential health issues other than pregnancy that need to be addressed after unprotected sex, such as possible STD infection. Why not provide a pamphlet with every pill that informs women of these risks and outlines other tests to have?

To suggest that making Postinor-2 more easily available will encourage women to be more promiscuous is as absurd as suggesting that selling condoms in supermarkets will do the same.

Similarly, the argument that women will become more careless and less likely to use contraception is flawed. Just ask any woman who has ever had to take the morning-after pill and she will assure you it's not pleasant. Apart from the high cost - about $20 for one use - the side effects invariably include severe nausea over a 24-hour period.

In a perfect world, unprotected sex would never happen. Condoms would never break and sexually active people would never make bad decisions. But since people are far from perfect, why would we not seek to help women avoid more unplanned pregnancies and unwanted abortions?

When asked about his position on this issue, the Liberal minister Tony Abbott pointed to Australia's declining fertility rate and stated that he was not in favour of anything that would reduce it further. Is that really the way we want to increase the Australian population? By denying women the ability to control their fertility? I'm sure making condoms available by prescription would have a similar effect but since they are the only form of over-the-counter contraception men can control, it would never happen.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: ecp

1 posted on 06/30/2003 8:46:17 AM PDT by presidio9
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Comment #2 Removed by Moderator

To: presidio9
It's my understanding that this drug prevents implantation, not conception.

That said, I would far prefer that unwanted pregnancies be terminated this way than on a more developed fetus later on. I am not sure I want our government (the Aussies aren't in my area of civic responsibility)forbidding the prescription of a drug that terminates pregnancy before it is viable. I know if I was in an emergency room with a raped friend or young woman, I would not want said friend lectured if she wanted to be sure her rapist's baby wouldn't be growing in her, changing her life forever.

But I don't get being willing to commit casual infanticide on one's DH's baby, even just "the morning after," on the grounds of not upsetting "family planning." Good grief. Unless it's a horrible, horrible marriage--in which case, why not value yourself enough to get out? Why take it out on a little one?
3 posted on 06/30/2003 9:00:45 AM PDT by ChemistCat (Transformers look just as good by morning light as they did the night before.)
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To: presidio9
Moral judgements out of place . . .

This is the creed of the Left these days. But, not surprisingly, they don't really adhere to it. When the "moral judgments" concern things other people do--especially conservatives--they issue the most vicious condemnations and demand that everyone else join them.

4 posted on 06/30/2003 9:01:30 AM PDT by madprof98
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To: madprof98
BTW, the author is an editor of Cosmopolitan. Go figure...
5 posted on 06/30/2003 9:03:12 AM PDT by presidio9 (RUN AL, RUN!!!)
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To: presidio9
More contraception has resulted in more, not fewer, abortions. The morning-after pill will simply lead to even more of the same behavior that leads to more STDs, more broken marriages, more screwed-up lives, more illegitimate children, more child abuse, more feminist hatred of men, and more abortions.

Morning-after pills do cause pre-implantation abortions, the killing of an individual human person, although they do so at a very early stage. But we have seen the dangers of allowing exceptions to the rule that human life should be protected. All life should, and could, be legally protected. And morning-after pills won't solve any problems, they will only add to them. Far from being a substitute for later surgical abortions, they will simply encourage behavior patterns that will take us further down the slippery slope of the death culture.

Saying that pre-implant babies aren't really human is like the 19th-century attitude that blacks aren't REALLY human, so it's OK if we make slaves of them as long as we carefully refrain from doing it to anybody else. If anything, such an attitude will result in dehumanizing the practioners in other areas of their thinking.
6 posted on 06/30/2003 10:00:32 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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