Controversy will always surround the issue of contraceptives, especially at a Catholic university. Whether or not you agree with contraception, no one can deny that more information and discussion about the subject promotes education. With the morning-after pill Plan B now approved by the Food and Drug Administration and available over-the-counter to women over the age of 18, the buzz has begun again, and for good reason.
But with freedom also comes more responsibility, because serious health problems can arise if the contraceptive is not used properly. For anyone considering using Plan B, there should be a disclaimer that differentiates the emergency contraception pills from the prescribed, everyday form of birth control.
According to Duramed Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures Plan B, pregnancy can be avoided if the contraceptive pills are taken within three days after unprotected sex. With an 89 percent accuracy rate of preventing pregnancy, there are two pills that should be taken twelve hours apart. The pills contain an increased dose of the pregnancy prevention hormone levonorgestrel and should only be taken in extreme emergencies and never on a regular basis. Both the emergency and regular forms of contraceptives contain levonorgestrel, but Plan B is not to be confused with RU-486, the abortion pill. Plan B can only prevent pregnancy, not stop it.
The issue now is not if the morning after pill should be sold at all, but whether or not it should be sold without a prescription. Having a stronger form of contraceptive made more accessible to the public could be much more efficient at preventing pregnancies, and it could also save a woman who has been raped from going through an unwanted pregnancy.
But as any new form of medicine comes out onto the market, people will learn to abuse it. Perhaps the most important precaution regarding Plan B should be when to use it. Like with everyday forms of birth control, regular visits to a gynecologist along with a prescription for different strengths of birth control are required. With a prescribed contraceptive, a doctor will check to make sure that his or her patient is healthy enough to take birth control first, but the danger with Plan B – or any other brands of emergency contraceptives that may come out on the market – is the absence of a doctor checking a patient to make sure she is healthy enough to take the pills. Plan B contains a much higher dose of levonorgestrel, and therefore some women may take the pill several times in a small span of time without realizing its potentially dangerous effects. Plan B can be helpful for a wide range of women but must be used with caution.
