Morning-After Pill Prevents Abortions

* Concerning your report on the San Bernardino County supervisors seeking a ban on public funding for the morning-after pill (March 20), first let’s get the facts straight. The morning-after pill usually acts by delaying ovulation, so no pregnancy takes place. It must be given within 72 hours of exposure to forced or unwanted sex to be effective, so speed and ease of access are critical. It can, much more rarely, prevent implantation. So, instead of a woman having to decide whether to keep a possible pregnancy and bear an unwanted child or go through a possible abortion, the pregnancy simply does not occur.

Are the supervisors in favor of teenage pregnancy? If one 13-year-old and four 14-year-olds were given morning-after pills, it should be considered a breath of compassion and sanity to give this solution rather than to force children to go through a possible unwanted pregnancy or an abortion.

These are reasons why physicians’ organizations are in favor of over-the-counter availability of the morning-after pill, for adults as well as teenagers. Restriction of it does not make sense. It simply creates the setting for more abortions.

MARJORIE BRAUDE MD

Los Angeles

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As a teen who works with teens at a community health clinic, I understand some people do not want to acknowledge that young people are having sex. Taking away emergency contraception will only lead to more pregnancies and abortions.

Jenny Biondi from the Right to Life League calls the morning-after pill a “mini-abortion,” when in fact emergency contraception stops conception and the subsequent unwanted pregnancy. This fear of adolescent sexuality and this need to brush the truth under the rug will not solve any problems. All it does is make it look as if there is no problem. This repressive attitude toward sexuality is entirely unhealthy. Emergency contraception is necessary, and will be necessary, until the needs of youth are reevaluated.

ALEXIS STEPPLING

Los Angeles