Dana L. writes about "What Happens When There Is No Plan B" in Sunday's Washington Post.
As the anonymous author's story illustrates, polices that discourage birth control inevitably lead to high abortion rates - in spite of our fundamentalist government's tireless efforts to control women's bodies for the project of sparking a white middle class population boom.
When your government is run by anxious white conservative hypermasculine patriarchs, you get a national policy premised on 'traditional values,' such as: If 'we' can't deport the brown people, then by god, 'we'll' out-reproduce them.
The only problem is, it's not working.
The rising abortion rates under the Bush regime serve as yet more proof that the women of this country will not submit to the will of the punitive control freaks in the daddy party. Been there, done that. Or as the slogan goes, we won't go back!
Washington Post:
The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn't want. Well, not literally, but let me explain.
I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we're starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.
The next morning, after getting my kids off to school, I called my ob/gyn to get a prescription for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill that can prevent a pregnancy -- but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. As we're both in our forties, my husband and I had considered our family complete, and we weren't planning to have another child, which is why, as a rule, we use contraception. I wanted to make sure that our momentary lapse didn't result in a pregnancy.
The receptionist, however, informed me that my doctor did not prescribe Plan B. No reason given. Neither did my internist. The midwifery practice I had used could prescribe it, but not over the phone, and there were no more open appointments for the day. The weekend -- and the end of the 72-hour window -- was approaching.
. . . I figured I'd take my chances and hope for the best. After all, I'm 42. Isn't it likely my eggs are overripe, anyway? . . . Weeks later, the two drugstore pregnancy tests I took told a different story. Positive. I couldn't believe it.
. . . I felt sick. Although I've always been in favor of abortion rights, this was a choice I had hoped never to have to make myself. When I realized the seriousness of my predicament, I became angry. I knew that Plan B, which could have prevented it, was supposed to have been available over the counter by now. But I also remembered hearing that conservative politics have held up its approval.
My anger propelled me to get to the bottom of the story. It turns out that in December 2003, an FDA advisory committee, whose suggestions the agency usually follows, recommended that the drug be made available over the counter, or without a prescription. Nonetheless, in May 2004, the FDA top brass overruled the advisory panel and gave the thumbs-down to over-the-counter sales of Plan B, requesting more data on how girls younger than 16 could use it safely without a doctor's supervision.
Apparently, one of the concerns is that ready availability of Plan B could lead teenage girls to have premarital sex. Yet this concern -- valid or not -- wound up penalizing an over-the-hill married woman for having sex with her husband. Talk about the law of unintended consequences.
Read the whole thing
See: Abortion Funds for Women in Red States
Reproductive Rights Feminism Abortion Pro Choice Roe v. Wade EC Contraception Birth Control Plan B
