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August 29, 2005
It is
called emergency contraception. By any other name, Roget’s
Thesaurus calls it a crisis, a highly volatile, dangerous
situation requiring immediate remedial action.
We’re all
familiar with emergencies. The water pipe that breaks and floods the
house…
…the car brakes
that fail, sending you sailing through the intersection right under a
red light…
…the flames
erupting from the skillet on the stove, burning oil popping onto wood
cabinets and kitchen curtains…
…the category
four hurricane bearing down on your coastal home…
…the tight chest
pains making you collapse onto the snow bank you’ve been shoveling…
…all of
them…dangerous situations requiring immediate remedial action.
It used to be
called emergency contraception for a good reason. It implied that
thoughtful, careful people were going about their lives, following
prudent actions, taking care to avoid emergencies…when all of a
sudden…an emergency happened…totally out of the
blue…unexpected…unanticipated…and outside of our control.
Emergency
contraception? Where is the emergency?
The campaign to
provide emergency contraception over the counter to all women, and the
girls who would one day be women, belies the very essence of its
name. The Morning After…in the light of day, with both feet on
the ground, when it comes to mind that we had an emergency last
night…there’s a better remedy for this type of emergency than taking a
little pill
The remedy for
the morning after is engaging the brain on the night before.
Yet, the biggest fans of emergency contraception are those who oppose
abstinence education, who reject the idea that children should learn
sex is best inside marriage.
Repackaging “the
morning after pill” as emergency contraception is a public relations
game of the first order. Sheila, the director of a pregnancy clinic,
attests to this. As the media blitz first put emergency contraception
on the front page, calls to her clinic skyrocketed…calls from men.
Over three-fourths of the questions for Sheila about using the
“emergency” pill came from men.
Like
professional hucksters, proponents for over-the-counter access to
emergency contraception point to the married woman whose birth control
failed. They point to rape victims. Yet for these emergencies, we
can create effective access to emergency contraception. It doesn’t
require putting this pill in easy reach of teen girls.
Truth is,
if you think you
might be planning to have an emergency, there’s a better way. Plan to
not have an emergency. Plan sex for the right time and with the right
person. The Centers for Disease Control says the healthiest time for
sex should be in a lifelong, monogamous, faithful relationship. Mom
and dad call it marriage.
Plan B, for
emergencies, works best when we know what a real emergency is. And
anyone who wants to give us a plan for emergencies owes us the best
plan of all…a plan for avoiding them. Plan A. Abstinence until
marriage.
Copyright © 2005 Jane Jimenez
June 6, 2005 -
Planned Parenthood's War Against Choice
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