Should the ‘Morning After’ Pill Be Available to All Ages?
Although man is a political animal, most doctors like to believe that they are not primarily motivated by politics. But the difficulty, or impossibility, of avoiding politics altogether was illustrated by a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine about the decision of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius not to allow the over-the-counter sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill to women and girls of all ages, only to those over 17 years. Girls under that age will need a prescription.
This was against the recommendation of the FDA’s committee that the contraceptive should be available over-the-counter to everyone of whatever age, with no questions asked. The editorial accused the secretary of playing politics and of disregarding science.
That the secretary was making a political decision is certain; what is not certain is that she or anyone else could make a non-political decision, for facts do not compel policies as if, once enunciated, there was no choice to be made — though, of course, facts (one may hope) do affect policy decisions.
“First, the facts,” says the editorial magisterially, if a little condescendingly, as if bringing enlightenment to the benighted. But, as the on-line commentary that the editorial provoked demonstrated, facts do not always speak for themselves, nor is there universal agreement about which facts are relevant, conclusive, or even best-described.
“The best available evidence,” we are told, “indicates that it [the morning-after pill] prevents pregnancy largely by delaying or preventing ovulation, but prevention of implantation cannot be ruled out. [It] does not cause abortion…” But, according to a doctor from Fredericksburg, Virginia, “since life begins at conception, abortion involves the termination of the embryo from the moment of conception”; and therefore, if he is right, the morning-after-pill acts, sometimes at least, as an abortiofacient. And this would be so irrespective of one’s attitude to abortion.
The fact that we may even need to hand out morning-after pills to 10 and 11 year old girls is more alarming than callous.
Headline is misleading. As the article notes, it is available to even those under 17, they just are required to have a prescription. The article asks if this is a hardship, perhaps it is, but it is also a safety measure and reasonable for children under the age of 17 to have the added safety measure.
Health and Human Services should have nothing to do with “morning after” pills
or anything else regarding girls of any age. Parents, doctors, religeous mentors only have a right to make such decisions. Close that and other bureaucracies costing too much and doing nothing useful. The very concept of reducing the consequences of actions is abhorent. Thanks for the information,
my anger has improved my heartrate !!
These pills should not be available at all, especially under health insurance of government programs.
They’re not essential, not treatment for any disease, they’re the ultimate luxury item: a license to have sex without thinking about the consequences.
I’ll make an exception for rape victims, where the cost should be covered from the same funding that covers psychiatric treatment for rape victims, recovered from the rapist if ever caught and convicted.
The baby does not deserve to die for the crime of its father via “The Morning After” pill. That child is not an exception.
“The idea of handing out morning-after pills to 10 and 11 year olds with no questions asked seems callous and unfeeling. On the other hand, so does forcing them to go through with pregnancy or abortion because of delayed access to the pill. People can disagree on the matter without being moral monsters.”
If you are giving any kind of morning-after pills to 10-year-olds, your society is in serious trouble. Just think about that. Kids not even going through puberty and they are getting pregnant? Where is this happening and who are the parents letting this happen? It isn’t acceptable for us to just throw up our hands and say, “Oh well, kids will be kids.” No, this is very, very, wrong. And if a parent allows a kid to become pregnant at 10, then the state should look into whether or not that child should stay with that parent. If a kid at 10 decides to get pregnant, then that child needs to undergo some mental evaluations as well. And the boy who got her pregnant needs to be arrested and brought to court, if for anything else just to scare the living daylights out of him to make him think twice about doing it again. There are also laws for statutory rape in this country and they should be enforced. Now. If word gets around to young boys that you WILL be prosecuted for this and end up in jail, they may think twice before doing it.
The KIDS need to be taught that this isn’t acceptable behavior and if groups like the ACLU decide to fight this, to defend the “rights” of the kids to get pregnant at 10 (something I’d like to see), then the ACLU can defend the right for girls to have abortions at 10, it can defend the right for kids to take contraception at 10, or it can defend the rights of kids to have a baby at 10 or 11, assuming the kid doesn’t want to abort the child. And nobody seems to be talking about what the medical consequences on the girl would be if she did have the baby, let alone had an abortion, at this young age.
We need to start drawing some lines in the sand here. Ten and 11-year-old kids should not be having sex, let alone be getting pregnant or even need a pill like this. If we as parents, and our society in general, is not willing to draw a line here, then we really are finished as a society. Forget about being morally bankrupt. Soon we will be having to hand out contraception to 5-year-olds. Why not? If a society as depraved as ours sees nothing wrong with a 10-year-old getting pregnant, why should we have any rules at all? I don’t mind being called a “moral monster” here. I think the idiots who see nothing wrong with this are the real monsters, not looking out for the welfare of young kids and willing to allow immature little kids to make decisions they certainly are not capable of making. Shame on them if they think there is nothing wrong with this. Shame on them.
Well stated, I second these comments. America must face reality. Scientists do science. Policy makers make policy. Moral teachers teach morals. Financial experts consider who pays. And legislators make laws. Deal with it.
There are many post doctoral aspects of this drug, but the essence centers on personal behavior. Is it OK for a ten year old to have sex? If not, who is responsible to care and prevent her (or him) from this misconduct? Who pays for their mistakes (other than themselves)? What authority role should government play in young lives which have been abandoned by lousy parents? Can we sanction adults who fail their basic responsibilities? And some thing anathema to liberals: can morality be the basis of laws and regulations, or is “anything goes” our societal axiom (and thus the taxpayer must fund it)?
It is an inescapable fact that babies having babies is lethal to themselves and our society. Thus if this conduct becomes a sizable fraction of our national mores, the concept of being an American is degraded. Ergo we citizens can silence those who willfully obstruct common decency.
Deal with it.
Thirded.
This is insanity. The morning after pill will become a placebo for parental responsibility. “Here take these, see how much I care for you little girl?” The callousness will be the absence of teaching ones children how to assess the gravity of one’s choices.
It’s be far more callous not to. After all, only a single human being is directly affected by the morning after pill.
It prevents a question of whether any later action is murder, since the morning after pill cannot be.
Wrong. The “morning after pill” prevents implantation of an egg that has already been fertilized and that has begun embryonic development. It is an abortifacient, and as such, it DOES affect more than one person.
THIS is the legacy of a government that made abortion so easily available that it became the commonest form of birth control.
Oops…wrong link! Should have been this:
http://1389blog.com/2012/01/26/abortion-and-the-pro-life-movement-in-serbia/
Of course the morning after pill should not be available to girls or boys under 17 over the counter. However, like most things in life they they should be made aware of it so parents can buy it for them if they want or get someone old enough as I did when I was young to buy liquor for me as in my state it was 21 before one could drink.
Oh and maybe hand them out on prom night – lol
Here Here,
Hayek actually has something to say about this. He won a Nobel Prize for showing how information gets lost in central planning. His 1974 lecture about ‘The Pretense of Science’ is spot on here. Any government decision about children should favor empowering parents, who each know much more about the details of their own children than any group of scientists and policy experts. Of course, this doesn’t help the child of absentee parents. But any help from them shouldn’t be at the cost of disempowering parents in general, which is precisely what the original plan did.
Are you implying that it’s okay to hand-out birth-control to minorities, the poor and folks with low I.Q.s?
How very Margaret Sanger of you.
What on *earth* are you talking about? Quoting Hayek and saying the government should stay out of parental decisions about children makes me Margaret Sanger. Nice.
My sincere apologies for the mix-up. My reply was meant for “Flaming Liberal”.
Also, now that I’m at the subject again, I think ‘the morning after pill’ would make it great for incest and kiddy diddlers.
Also (again), what kind of parent endorses having their child popping a morning after pill? Oh, that’s right! The same parent that let’s their daughter have boys ‘sleep over’. The same parent that allows ‘alcohol and pot’ used by their teens. The same parent who doesn’t care if their child is literate
Sibelius has also declared war on any Catholic institution in the New American World State that rejects her abortion/contraceptive culture. Sibelius is presently preparing a list of penalties to any group or person who publicly do not bend the knee to her god president and his followers. Under Obama the god president and Sibelius the abortion provider champion the country that they rule is doomed to become that which it is rapidly becoming, a land where life is cheap and decided by the government and the culture of death as it was named by the late John Paul II.
What war is this? Is she preventing pedophilia by the priests? Is she going after the criminal class of Cardinals, Bishops, and Pope’s who look the other way as their priests diddle little boys and girls? Does the Pope go after the priest who rape nuns in Africa and S America where they get shuffled away like they did in the US until exposed? So what war you talking about?
Actually the incidence of predatory sexual abuse is MUCH higher in public schools and in various State Run “children’s protective services,” hospitals, and health care facilities than it ever was/is in the Catholic church. Other denominations have as high or higher incidence as well. And there are always the lies… Not saying there wasn’t, the incidence of homosexual predators in positions of control over the formation of the priesthood is well established and documented.
As to destroying the Catholic Healthcare system… yes it is a goal since it is in direct competition with state-run or state controlled facilities. For centuries, these facilities were run WITHOUT state financing, it was done before, we can do it again once more. But if you make it illegal to have a separate healthcare system… how else will the state control you? If you have options there is still freedom from total state control.
You’ve chosen a displayed name of “Specifics please” and then you come out with “Is she [Sebelius?] going after the criminal class of Cardinals, Bishops, and Pope’s who look the other way as their priests diddle little boys and girls? Does the Pope go after the priest who rape nuns in Africa and S America where they get shuffled away like they did in the US until exposed?”
Could you cite actual instances of any of these actions you mention? How about telling us about a specific episode when Cardinals, Bishops, and the Pope “look[ed] the other way as their priests diddled little boys and girls” and explaining what you mean by “looking the other way”? How about telling us what priest (or priests) raped nuns in Africa and South America and got shuffled away?
It’s clear you detest Catholics, but perhaps you should choose a more accurate display name, such as “Catholic hater”.
Yes, she denied funding to the most successful (by far) anti-human trafficking organization in the nation because it was Catholic- and didn’t offer a “full range” of health services (i.e. abortion & contraceptive services). Never mind the rather obvious fact that if people aren’t taken out of the slave trade in the first place the possible health care they receive is a rather moot point… Which is why I’m kind of surprised she ruled as she did regarding the morning after pill.
The idea of access to the morning after pill for 10 or 11 year old girls seems a secondary concern…the more pressing problem would have to be the socio-economic condition of most of these girls. Unemployment is statistically near 100% in this age group. How, without checking with their parents, are they supposed to afford the $50 dollar cost. It seems particularly inhumane to expect them to have to save the money they receive in their birthday card (or whatever celebrated occasion) as a hedge against that sexual encounter that accidentally happened during that most vulnerable portion of their ovulation cycle. Shouldn’t we be talking about economic independence of this group, and their financial ability to access these types of therapies before we get on to the question of actual access.
Quite right; in order to ensure that all girls between ten and seventeen have lawful access to morning-after pills, no matter how poor they may be, governments should provide an allowance of, say, $50 a week, to every girl just in case.
Exactly.
Most Caucasoid females don’t start menses until 12-13 years of age.
This is spear-headed towards minority females who start menses much earlier (some as early as 8 years of age).
That being said, just because a girl grows breasts and begins menstruation, that does NOT mean that she wants ‘sexy times’! Most females are horrified little girls when they get their periods and they are NOT thinking of anything going ‘in there’.
The most salient fact in this issue came from France; “Furthermore, wrote a doctor from France, despite relatively easy access to the pill in his country, and its cheapness in the rest of Europe, “unintended pregnancies among adolescents have reached alarming rates,”.” The translation is the morning after pill is ineffective with adolescents, and I suspect only marginally effective with adults. Timing is everything! To take the pill first thing in the morning (immediately after sex is probably better)it must be on hand. To be on hand it must be purchased before hand. Planning and execution two things many people are really bad at. An argument over when an ineffective drug should be available is nonsense. Incidentally, teen pregnancy in the US is on the decline. Somebody is doing something right, what that might be would good to know.
No, the morning-after pill is pretty effective. It has been around for decades and is, for example, a routine part of the treatment of a rape victim. The main side effect is nausea.
What I think the French fellow hasn’t picked up on is what is cause and what is effect. When irresponsible sexual behavior is tolerated and expected, then that’s what’s going to happen. The girls don’t avoid pregnancy because they aren’t motivated to do so. The same attitude that has made birth control easily available has also taken away the motivation to use it.
Time and again, studies in the US show that the main driver in avoiding unwanted pregnancy is motivation, not access. In the past, the most powerful motivator has been censure and shame. That’s been utterly replaced with acceptance of “lifestyle choices” and support for bad-decision making. But no amount of nonjudgmental thinking can erase the fact that poverty is inextricably linked with having children out of wedlock. Period. And it’ll be a cold day in hell before HHS starts requiring that healthcare and social service entities must teach that getting married, staying married and not having children out of wedlock are the three surest paths to avoiding poverty that are more or less attainable by all people, regardless of social status.
The crux of this is the issue of who is in control: Parents or the State.
FOr the government to create law that allows adolescents access to the morning-after pill with no questions asked means that the government believes it knows better than the parents what’s best for the child.
To those on the left, pregnancy is just another STD that they dont need their children “burdened” with….
You can’t give a 10 year girl ANYTHING for menstrual cramping. A 15 year old is NOT ALLOWED to have on her to take as needed, prescription medication for an infection, but… some stranger can give an abortifacient to my child, without a medical license and I can’t say anything about it? I can’t even know about it?
One would think that giving the pill to anyone under the age of consent would be considered Obstruction of Justice as that is destruction of evidence of an act of statutory rape (which is a felony). Of course, this is the same government that routinely relies on prison snitches, confidential informants who are hardened criminals actively involved in criminal enterprises and the like, so YMMV on the rule of law here…
Just because you say, “I’m not a moral monster,” doesn’t make it true.
Maybe the doctor is not a moral monster. However, his support for a monstrous policy is a clear sign of his serious moral deficit.
The morning after pill: Because no one should be “punished” with a baby.
Chiming in with #12 Mike T here:
If a 10, 11, 12 year-old girl is pregnant, there is something VERY WRONG going on in her life. Almost always, the man who impregnated her is at least 20 or so; it’s not a case of two preteens fooling around. If he is allowed to get her Plan B or force her to be subject to any other form of abortion, he’s destroying the evidence (aka “someone’s grandchild”) so that he can continue to rape her until she stops looking like a child, or she commits suicide, or Oh! maybe she’s just emotionally scarred for life! Parental consent laws enable me to find out if a criminal is molesting my daughter, no matter who it is.
Exactly!
“Should the ‘Morning After’ Pill Be Available to All Ages?” is the same as saying “Should we allow all ages to murder?” Age is not the issue, murder is. Consequently, the “morning after” pill should be outlawed and all doctors who prescribe it should be prosecuted as accomplices to murder or at least attempted murder.
First, why don’t we just let people make up their own minds on these issues? Their acts are on their heads argue as you will.
Second, let’s say you have more unwanted carried to term. Do you who want to interfere want to pay for the results of your actions in making this course of action necessary?
I believe such decisions should not be casual and are frequently cause for regret, no matter the course taken.
The sooner we get out of the judgment business the better, and any decisions reached should be based on reason debate and not judicial fiat.
Want to? Not particularly, but I will provided that the parents meet me half-way.
‘First, why don’t we just let people make up their own minds on these issues? Their acts are on their heads argue as you will.’
Yes, their acts are on their own heads, and the choice that is made determines the life or death of another.
If the choice(for death) is made outside of the womb, it is criminal(i.e. someone going into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and killing a baby in an incubator).
If the choice is made in the womb(i.e. using chemicals to eliminate a zygote, which by the way,is an unique individual, not the mom or the dad) it is choice.
“First, why don’t we just let people make up their own minds on these issues? Their acts are on their heads argue as you will.” There is of course a huge debate going on about abortion in general. But here, today, we’re talking about a pregnant child whose parents don’t know she’s pregnant. A man has molested this child, and some people want to help him hide that his molestation has resulted in an unborn child; if this baby is allowed to develop, there will be DNA evidence against the molester.
So, which “people” are you talking about who should make up their own minds? The child molester? The 12-year-old girl? The girl’s parents, I hope; you know, her legal guardians. Even if the parents decide to allow the girl to have an abortion, they can contact the police so that the fetal tissue can be used against the child molester. I hope not, since I’m pro-life, but it is currently the law of the land.
Bob, the fact that we aren’t in the judgment business is what has led to the problem in the first place. Social taboos are often shortcuts for the reasoned debate of which you speak, especially among this age group. We can explain all the compelling socioeconomic advantages of delaying sex and childbearing until adulthood until the cows come home- it doesn’t have half the impact of knowing that kind of behavior is just unacceptable to your peers, parents and society at large.
The fact is young people might not just obey social taboos. Have you heard of the 1960s? I believe in keeping sex within marriage. Yet I don’t believe that we will stop teens from doing it though just by telling them it’s wrong. Decades ago youth were prepared to take the shortcut through the majority opinion of the community they lived in. Now it’s different.
This is not far from the arrogant moms who think that all teens secretly like “boundaries”, no matter how restrictive, and “being looked after” until they are 18 and magically learn responsibility- or the day they send their condescending parents’ illusions crashing down by getting emancipated.I feel very lucky to have grown up outside the US.
Here’s another issue: putting that many hormones into a child that age could be fatal. Birth control pills are known to cause strokes, and Plan B is a much greater dose than a typical birth control pill.
This, this, this. It’s *irresponsible* to put these pills in the hands of children without a medical screening. But their proponents don’t care about the health and safety of girls nearly as much as they care about forcing their moral views on society.
The answer is hell no! No need to read the rest of the story.
Theodore,
I have a followup question;
If we do start handing this pill to girls of all ages and it is found the “the best evidence” is WRONG, and there are some really nasty side effects; Who will have thier shirt, pants, and skin sued off in the Class Action Suit that follows…
1) The Health and Human Services Bureaucrats
2) The New England Journal of Medicine Editors
3) The Pharmacies that sell the pill
4) The Pharmacutical Manufacturer of the pill
Please get back with me on this, as it will determine where the Trial Lawers will position themselves on this issue.
There have indeed been fatalities – women bleeding to death. But the discussion (even in this thread!) has a false starting point that “it’s clean ‘n’ safe, so what do we do with it?”
Should Roissy DC aka “heartiste” the ‘poon hound’ be available to all ages online?
I’m getting REALLY sick and tired of BOTH sexes taking ZERO responsibility for their genital actions. It’s retarded.
When I was growing up I was TERRIFIED of the idea of catching a disease or getting pregnant before marriage! I would have remained a virgin until I was married if it hadn’t been for the [married with two children] creep who raped me when I was 17!
Until BOTH women and MEN are ‘slut shamed’, this type of crap is going to keep on keepin’ on.
Men have gotten by with being reckless crotch hounds for way longer than women and now women have the means to be crotch hounds too via abortions/morning after pill/condoms, the ‘pill’/etc. ad NOZ.
GROSS!
People. STOP F*CKING! It isn’t that GREAT!
YUCK.
A major part of it is the entertainment industry. They are selling sex to people (and kids!) the way they sell soda pop and tennis shoes. “All the cool people have this, what’s wrong with you?”
And the “what’s wrong with you?” line runs deep. It’s an incessant drumbeat. There isn’t a show on TV that won’t put its characters in bed. Not one. Really? We can’t just solve a crime in this 40-minute show, or do the dramatic heart transplant? We REALLY have to know about the characters’ sex lives? And they HAVE to be promiscuous?
Everyone knows that to hold the reins of the culture is to create normality, and they disingenuously claim, “No! We’re just holding a mirror up to society.” BS. They’re CREATING society and they know it.
Did you see just yesterday, absolute astonishment that Tim Gunn is abstinent? (news story said “celibate” but they’re idiots)
Exactly, RKae!
The Marxists are in full throttle mode with the “entertainment industry”.
What is the ‘program’? What does it ‘stand for’? It’s all about tearing the ‘family’ apart and telling women and men that ‘humping like feral, disease spreading animals’ is ‘A-OKAY’ without nary a ‘consequence’ based in a non-REALITY on the backs of people who ARE responsible and who do NOT live like the aforementioned lowest of lows.
When human dignity sinks to the lowest common denominator, we are in deep doo-doo and the full-on Commie indoctrination is complete.
Meanwhile, the Superior ‘Elites’ can stay in their gated communities far from the ‘fray’ whilst they watch from afar as their destructive policies come to hellish fruition.
Did you see just yesterday, absolute astonishment that Tim Gunn is abstinent? (news story said “celibate” but they’re idiots).
Sorry, twitchy fingers over here.
Shouldn’t he be ‘dead’ by now with all that going without sex stuff? lol!
Has his dick fallen off? Have his balls turned to stone?
Ridiculous!
I don’t know if I’d call it “slut shamed”, but when my sister and I were in our teens, our mother made liberal use of blood-curdling threats to keep us from lousing up our lives with idiot sex. And no, I don’t mean “I’ll beat the crap out of you!” threats. Things like “If you ever get knocked up, I’m going to sell the house, take all the money, and just disappear and leave you on your own.” MUCH more terrifying, striking right at the roots of our need for security and safety. I visualized myself living in a cardboard box under an overpass – what would I eat? How would I keep warm? Where would I go to the bathroom? Children worry about these things. Once I grew up, I realized my mom would NEVER have really done something like that; it was just a scary story, but we believed her! But it did what it had to do: keep us safe during the dangerous years, before we were able to look after ourselves. If my mom went along with this soft-soap, “Oh, I’ll support you no matter what you do!” garbage, we could have easily ended up with screwed up lives.
I suspect that Mrs. Sebelius’ decision was motivated more by fear of Planned Parenthood losing business than for our childrens’ morality. The FDA, perhaps more familiar with the numbers, has no such fear.
Destroying the national morality is, of course, an important component of this Administration’s policy…because they believe in “freedom” (right along
with the freedom to be taxed into poverty to pay for a national debt they’ve brought to a point where it is dead even with our GNP, and the freedom to see our jobs sent to Brazil while Canada’s oil goes to China).
When did we begin to make wrecking childhood a national priority? Why is it
important that we encourage our children, at every opportunity, to believe that promiscuity is just fine, and should be made as easy as possible?
Encouraging teenage sexual activity increases pregnancies, which increases abortions, which increase the risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer, not to mention the quadrupled risk of not being able to carry a child to term in adulthood.
To encourage teenage promiscuity is to encourage venereal disease. Where do you
think the herpes epidemic in our schools comes from? It also encourages a life
of heartbreak, discouragement and jadedness, as one irresponsible slob after another takes advantage of the national mandate that girls need to “stop being
prudes,” only to then run off to pollinate the next propagandized little flower.
The girl is supposed to learn that, “that’s the way it is.” News flash: That isn’t the way it needs to be!
I am old enough to remember when this was a moral nation. “Boring,” say the
kitschy-culturalists. But, strangely, everything worked. And alomst everyONE did, before we took lazy self-indulgence as our national ethic, with Italy’s
“become a whore eary” policy being called “enlightened” by our conservative
columnists!
Want to know what’s wrong with the country? Look how we live. Look what our values are. And, in the area of morality. look how few we have left.
Maybe it’s time we rejected adolescence as our cultural model, and decided to grow up.
I’m confused. There’s no “right” for me to serve my 20 year old daughter a glass of wine in my home on a special occasion; there’s no “right” for high school students (weeks from graduation) on field trips to carry OTC medicine (heaven forbid a student give a fellow student suffering from a headache an aspirin), and yet there’s advocacy to give prepubescent girls the “right” to buy abortion pills. Have we all gone mad?
10-11 year olds are hardly adolescent.
It’s just another attempt by certain people of a liberal pursuasion to sexualize children independent of their parents wishes by making abortifacients available to them without their parents knowledge, much less approval. It also helps shield child molesters who get them pregnant, by eliminating the need for parents to get ahold of the drug.
The real problem is that if you take three groups of women, give one the pill to keep handy, let one get it over the counter, and require the third to have a prescription — well, yes, you will see a different level of use. What you will not see is differing numbers of pregnancies or abortions.
What the morning-after pill gives is permission to be sloppy. The easier the access, the less care they took about the possibility of pregnancy the night before.
This may explain why its introduction correlates to an increase in STD transmittal.