FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
US Senate Bill Targets Conscience Rights of Pharmacists Regarding Plan B®
Special to PFLI E-News– 16 July 2016 – The Board of Directors of the Catholic Medical Association (CMA), the largest association of Catholic physicians and healthcare professionals in the United States, recently called upon the American Public Health Association (APHA) and all other medical and pharmaceutical associations to oppose Senate Bill S 2960 (“Access to Birth Control Act”). S 2960 is yet the the latest Congressional attempt to deny the rights of conscience for those laboring in the pharmacy and medical professions with respect to abortifacients masquerading as so-called “contraceptives”.
The Senate bill, although referring broadly to all “FDA-Approved Contraception,” [sic] was drafted specifically to address Plan B (levonorgestrel emergency abortion or LNG-EA) due to the conscientious refusal of many pharmacists to dispense or make a prompt referral for Plan B to a customer seeking the drug. Plan B works primarily by acting as a chemical abortifacient after a woman has conceived a new baby.
Among the provisions of S 2960 which, if violated, would trigger civil fines of up to $1,000 per day, is the requirement that pharmacy employees do not “intentionally misrepresent or deceive customers about the availability of contraception or its mechanism of action” (emphasis added), what may yet be another thought crime by the Regime and a pro-death Congress.
PFLI finds this provision fraught with irony: It is those promoting mandatory access to Plan B who frequently rely on misrepresentation and deception. A statement by APHA urging the passage of legislation like S 2960, makes this claim: “Recent research has shown that emergency contraception [sic] works primarily by inhibiting ovulation or interfering with fertilization” (end note 18). This parallels the fake and junk science promoted by Planned Parenthood, as one example, on its website. #PPSellsBabyParts is the largest domestic terrorist group, bragging that it extinguishes over 350,000 American lives annually by surgical abortion and another 1.4 million via chemical abortifacients, such as Plan B.
To the contrary, recent studies on the effectiveness and/or mechanisms of action (MOA) of LNG-EA, analyzed in numerous comprehensive literature reviews[i], have demonstrated that when LNG-EA is administered during the fertile period and before ovulation, it inhibits ovulation in <15% of subjects (as noted via ultrasound), and has no obvious detrimental action on sperm flow or function when given prior to ovulation. As noted by recent animal research, moreover, Plan B does not appear to cause dysfunctional ovulation.ii
It has become clear, therefore, that Plan B’s so-called “effectiveness” in preventing clinical pregnancy (i.e., implantation ex post facto fertilization/creation of a new baby) when ingested during the fertile period and before ovulation is due predominantly to post-fertilization MOAs, ones that result in the death of new human lives.
The evidence pointing to probable post-fertilization MOAs is now so compelling that the CMA Board of Directors issued a Position Paper—“Statement on Emergency Contraception in Cases of Rape” (September 14, 2015)—urging Catholic hospitals to discontinue administering LNG-EA to victims of rape, in accordance with the widely adopted “Peoria protocol”:
[W]e may never know the exact mechanisms by which LNG-E[A] acts; however, we conclude that LNG-E[A] is a poor anovulant through most of the fertile window. Proposing that the ovum is not capable of being fertilized is a weak argument. There is no in vivo test to determine whether fertilization has taken place, so we should err on the side of life. Studies have also demonstrated that, unless given at very high doses, LNG-E[A] has no effect on cervical mucus, sperm motility, or the ability of sperm to fertilize the ovum.17 We conclude that LNG-E[A] does not prevent ovulation and fertilization when given during the fertile window, and therefore its administration prior to ovulation in cases of rape is not morally licit. Thus, the Peoria protocol cannot be safely followed, because LNG-E[A] cannot be given prior to ovulation without having a possible post-fertilization effect on a new human life.
CMA maintains it upholds the right of women and their pharmaciststo receive the most current medical evidence available, evidence which now strongly supports the assertion that Plan B’s method of action has a high potential for ending the lives of very young humans when given prior to ovulation. The Board, therefore, urges medical and pharmaceutical associations, as well as members of Congress, to study the literature cited in end note 1 below and to uphold the conscience rights and religious freedom of healthcare and pharmaceutical professionals.
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Pharmacists For Life International, Inc (PFLI) is the only international pharmacy professional association that is exclusively and 100% total protection pro-life, without exceptions or compromise on principle. PFLI is located in the US, Canada and all across the globe. It was founded in May 1984 in Cleveland, OH and continues to maintain its international HQ in the Columbus, OH area.
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[i]
Peck, R., W. Rella, J. Tudela, J. Aznar, and B. Mozzanega, 2016. Does levonorgestrel emergency contraceptive have a post-fertilization effect? A review of its mechanism of action. Linacre Quarterly 83(1): 35-51.
ii Borman SM, Chaffin CL, Schwinof KM, Stouffer RL, Zelinski-Wooten MB. 2004. Progesterone promotes oocyte maturation, but not ovulation, in nonhuman primate follicles without a gonadotropin surge. Biol Reprod 71(1): 366-73.
Schneider II, A.P., C. Kubat, and C.M. Zainer, 2016. Appreciation for analysis of how levonorgestrel works and reservations with the use of meloxicam as emergency contraception. Linacre Quarterly 83(1): 52-68.]
Kahlenborn C., R. Peck, and W. Severs, 2015. Mechanism of action of levonorgestrel emergency contraception. Linacre Quarterly 82(1): 18-33.
Raviele, K.M., 2014. Levonorgestrel in cases of rape. How does it work? Linacre Quarterly 81: 117-29.
Peck, R., and J.R. Vélez, 2013. The post-ovulatory mechanism of action of Plan B. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13(4):677-716.
Mozzanega B. and E. Cosmi, 2011. How do levonorgestrel-only emergency contraceptive pills prevent pregnancy? Some considerations. Gynecological Endocrinology 27(6): 439-42.