Wednesday, June 6, 2012
A response to the NYT on abortifacients
This story in the NYT contends that, FDA labels notwithstanding, "morning-after pills" might not, in fact, cause abortions, and notes the relevance of this contention to the arguments and lawsuits regarding the HHS preventive-services mandate. Here is a response by Donna Harrison, an obstetrician-gynecologist in southwestern Michigan and director of research and public policy for the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2012/06/a-response-to-the-nyt-on-abortifacients.html
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This is a topic that has interested me for a very long time, so I was pleased to see the article in the Times. It is extraordinarily difficult to find good information by searching the web because, quite frankly, almost all you run into is pro-life propaganda. I acknowledge my biases, but a response in the National Review by someone from the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists strongly implying that the Times article is deliberately deceptive ("allows for clever confusion") is less than I think I reasonably had a right to hope for. This is a matter of science, after all. Couldn't we have a response made up of scientific facts without personal sniping and accusations of bad faith and baby killing?* Maybe Donna Harrison has all the facts on her side, but her attitude is off-putting and makes someone not already on her side wonder if she's not just as biased (or deceitful) as the people she criticizes. These kind of debates are so polarized and polarizing that someone looking for reliable scientific information without bias or polemics is pretty much resigned to having contempt for both sides and giving up in despair.
By the way, can this be factual: "In point of fact, any drug which can act to prevent pregnancy after a woman has ovulated must have some post-fertilization effect." Most web sites that give information about emergency contraception say that one effect may be to make the mucus in the womb thicker, thus making it more difficult for the sperm to reach the egg. I am no expert on the minute-by-minute process of ovulation, intercourse, sperm travel, and fertilization, but from the little I know it doesn't seem factual to say emergency contraception after ovulation must necessarily work after fertilization rather than before.
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*"And, because some physicians and scientists stubbornly adhere to the principles of Hippocratic medicine, and refuse to give a drug which will kill one of their patients (the human embryo), and may harm the other (the mother) the controversy will not go away. "