{"id":6488,"date":"2005-06-20T12:16:37","date_gmt":"2005-06-20T12:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/06\/the-argument-over-plan-b.html"},"modified":"2005-06-20T12:16:37","modified_gmt":"2005-06-20T12:16:37","slug":"the-argument-over-plan-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/06\/the-argument-over-plan-b.html","title":{"rendered":"The argument over Plan B"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists seeking to dispel the abortifacient impression<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Amid a heated national debate over emergency contraception, some scientists are marshaling evidence to challenge the belief that the "morning-after pill" is equivalent to abortion.<\/p>\n

Abortion opponents object to the pills, saying they work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg in the womb and thus destroy an early embryo. Some pharmacists are refusing on moral grounds to dispense emergency contraception.<\/p>\n

But the scientists say there is no scientific evidence the pills prevent implantation–and considerable evidence they work mainly by blocking the release of an egg from the woman’s ovary, so no embryo is formed.<\/p>\n

"The pervasive myth out there is that emergency contraception is an abortifacient," said Dr. David Archer, director of clinical research at the Contraceptive Research and Development Program of Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.<\/p>\n

"But there’s no evidence scientifically that that’s true."<\/p>\n

For one thing, Archer points out, emergency contraception generally doesn’t work if taken after a woman has ovulated.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, no one can prove that the pill doesn’t interfere with implantation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists seeking to dispel the abortifacient impression Amid a heated national debate over emergency contraception, some scientists are marshaling evidence to challenge the belief that the "morning-after pill" is equivalent to abortion. Abortion opponents object to the pills, saying they work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg in the womb and thus destroy an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe argument over Plan B - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/06\/the-argument-over-plan-b.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The argument over Plan B - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scientists seeking to dispel the abortifacient impression Amid a heated national debate over emergency contraception, some scientists are marshaling evidence to challenge the belief that the "morning-after pill" is equivalent to abortion. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}