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• Pediatric Group Recommends Prescribing Morning-After Pill to Teens in Advance of Actually Needing It

  November 26, 2012 at 2:24pm

  Hu et al. conducted a randomized, controlled trial of 2,000 postpartum women in Shanghai, China (who would have a strong incentive not to become pregnant within a year of giving birth because this is forbidden by the government). Half were given 3 courses of mifepristone to use at home as emergency contraception (EC) “as needed.” The other half (control group) had to see a doctor to obtain mifepristone. Both groups could also purchase a Plan B-type emergency contraceptive at supermarkets. Women in the first group used EC twice as frequently as those in the control group, but there was no difference in pregnancy or abortion rates after one year. “This study adds to the growing literature casting doubt on the increased use of EC as a quick fix for rising abortion rates. That is not to say that EC will not prevent pregnancy for some women, sometimes, but rather that it may not make much difference to public health.”

  Xiaoyu Hu et al., “Advanced provision of emergency contraception to postnatal women in China

  makes no difference in abortion rates: a randomized controlled trial,” Contraception 72 (2005): 111-6.

• Pediatric Group Recommends Prescribing Morning-After Pill to Teens in Advance of Actually Needing It

  November 26, 2012 at 2:23pm

  Over 2,000 women in the San Francisco Bay area were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The first group was given packets of EC; the second was told how to obtain EC free from pharmacies; the third had to return to the clinic for EC. Over 80% of the women were also using another form of contraception. After six months, 7-8% of women in each group were pregnant. “We did not observe a difference in pregnancy rates in women with either pharmacy access or advance provision [of EC]; the adjusted risk of pregnancy for both treatment groups was not significantly less than 1. Previous studies also failed to show significant differences in pregnancy

  or abortion rates among women with advance provisions of EC. It is possible that the effect of increased access on pregnancy rates is truly negligible because EC is not as effective as found in the single-use clinical trials, or because women at highest risk do not use EC frequently enough or at all.”

  T. Raine et al., “Direct Access to Emergency Contraception Through Pharmacies and Effect on

  Unintended Pregnancy and STIs,” Journal of the American Medical Association 293 (2005): 54-62 (www.dph.sf.ca.us/sfcityclinic/providers/Directaccesscontraception.pdf; visited Feb. 14, 2007).

• Pediatric Group Recommends Prescribing Morning-After Pill to Teens in Advance of Actually Needing It

  November 26, 2012 at 2:23pm

  Anna Glasier concedes in her above-cited study that “EC may be less effective than we belief [sic]. Estimates of efficacy are unsubstantiated by randomized trials. Efficacy is based on rather unreliable data and a great many assumptions and have been questioned both in the past and more recently. … While advanced provision of EC probably prevents some pregnancies for some women some of the time, the strategy did not produce the public health breakthrough hoped for.”

  A. Glasier et al., Contraception 69 op.cit., at 365

• Pediatric Group Recommends Prescribing Morning-After Pill to Teens in Advance of Actually Needing It

  November 26, 2012 at 2:22pm

  Some of these 23 studies reviewed country-wide statistics on unintended pregnancy and abortion after EC became inexpensive (or free) and widely available in health clinics or over-the-counter in pharmacies. Other studies compared results between women given packets of EC for future use, and a control group of women who had to acquire EC on their own. In the latter type of study, women given EC in advance were more likely to use it, but no statistically significant difference in unintended pregnancy or abortion was found between the two groups.

  The study by Raymond, Trussell and others, cited above, even casts doubt on the usual claims made for EC’s effectiveness for the individual user: “[W]e can be 95% confident that it reduces pregnancy risk by more than 23%. But just how much more remains poorly defined; the published efficacy figures … – on average, approximately 80% – may overstate actual efficacy, possibly quite substantially. Clearly, if the method is weakly efficacious, it is unlikely to produce a major reduction in unintended pregnancy no matter how often women use it.”

  E. Raymond et al., Obstetrics & Gynecology, op cit., at 187.

• Pediatric Group Recommends Prescribing Morning-After Pill to Teens in Advance of Actually Needing It

  November 26, 2012 at 2:21pm

  Even James Trussell who originated the claim that easier access to emergency contraception could “result in a greater than 50% reduction in abortion rates” has conceded that 23 published studies from 10 countries disprove his claim. According to every one of the 23 studies, published between 1998 and 2006, easier access to EC fails to achieve any statistically significant reduction in rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion.

  Raymond, Trussell and Polis, “Population Effect of Increased Access to Emergency Contraceptive Pills,”

  Obstetrics & Gynecology 109 (2007): 181-8.

• Pediatric Group Recommends Prescribing Morning-After Pill to Teens in Advance of Actually Needing It

  November 26, 2012 at 2:21pm

  “[T]he experts had estimated that we would see a drop by up to half in the rates of unintended pregnancy and the rates of abortion. And in fact in the real world we’re not seeing that.”

  Kirsten Moore, President and CEO of Reproductive Health Technologies Project, quoted in A.W. Schachter,

  “„Plan B‟: What Science Can’t Tell Us,” New York Post Online Edition, Aug. 11, 2006.

• Pediatric Group Recommends Prescribing Morning-After Pill to Teens in Advance of Actually Needing It

  November 26, 2012 at 2:20pm

  “The results in this paper do not provide evidence that schemes allowing emergency birth control to be provided in pharmacies free of charge to young people lead to significant changes in teenage pregnancy rates. This result is consistent with previous studies of the impact of emergency birth control, including those based on randomized controlled experiments. Given the hope that many policy makers and health professionals have held out for the potential of EBC in reducing unwanted pregnancies, this finding will be disappointing.”

  Sourafel Girma and David Paton, “Matching Estimates of the Impact of Over-the-Counter Emergency Birth

  Control on Teenage Pregnancy,” Occasional Paper Series, The University of Nottingham, October 2005, p. 17

• Beck to Listeners: ‘Push Back’ Against Viral Chick-fil-A Picture Claiming Christians Don’t Feed the Poor Enough

  August 4, 2012 at 2:19pm

  They have no right to talk:
  Bleeding Heart Tightwads
  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html

• 15-Year-Old Behind Blaze Story on Girl Scouts Speaks Out: ‘We Were So Deceived’

  December 29, 2011 at 1:41pm

  All Parents need to smarten up about Planned Parenthood. They are in the schools, and they are not teaching the truth. One local mom spoke up, showed the high school principal the lies they were teaching and backed it up with hard data, and the principal kicked them out–over 800+ kids in each graduating class. PP has been in there over ten years exaggerating the effectiveness of contraceptives and minimizing the health risks involved in using them.

• Archbishop: MSNBC, CNN, New York Times ‘Untrustworthy’ When it Comes to Religion

  August 20, 2011 at 11:54am

  In reply to The-Monk.

  Konakow,
  For your information, before Christ, the Jews who took turns serving in the temple had to remain celebate before and during that time, even though they were married.

  A man who is willing to abstain and sacrifice for Christ is indeed a holy man.