Morning After Pill Expert Admits It Doesn’t Reduce Pregnancy or Abortion Rates
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 6, 2005
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A leading expert on the morning after pill admitted at a National Press Club forum today that "real world" experience of easy access to the drug has not reduced the numbers of pregnancies or abortions.
Kirsten Moore, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Technologies Project, there is no evidence that easy access to the morning-after pill reduces pregnancies or abortions, as pro-abortion groups have claimed.
The claim has been a rallying point for abortion advocates who want the FDA to approve the drug, which sometimes causes an abortion, for over the counter sale and wants mandates forcing pharmacists to fill prescriptions for it.
"I think it’s an honest question, the experts had estimated that we would see a drop by up to half in the rates of unintended pregnancy and the rates of abortion. And in fact in the real world we’re not seeing that," Moore said.
Moore indicated she doesn’t see across the board increases in pregnancy or abortion rates either and added that "where we see the increases, correlation does not equal causation."
Wendy Wright, the executive vice-president of Concerned Women for America, said Moore’s admission that the Plan B drugs don’t reduce abortion or pregnancy rates "knocks the legs out from the hard-charging coalition intent on making this drug as easy to get as toothpaste."
"The claim that pregnancies and abortions would reduce by half is based not on science or fact, but ‘faith’ with no substance in reality," Wright explained.
Advocates for Plan B have based their claim on a hypothesis asserted by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood. Yet studies, including one by a Planned Parenthood medical director in San Francisco, find the morning after pill does not reduce abortion and pregnancy rates the way AGI claimed.
In fact, Wright explained, the studies she’s seen show an increase in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases, which the drug is not intended to prevent.
"The FDA rightly decided to decline over-the-counter access for Plan B based on a lack of evidence that it could be used safely by adolescents. The FDA should not be pressured by congressmen and abortion activists whose primary argument has no basis in facts," Wright concluded.
Related web sites:
Concerned Women for America – https://www.cwfa.org
