As you may be aware, supporters of easy access to the morning-after pill (called Plan B) proudly proclaim that once Plan B is readily available, unwanted preg-nancies and abortions will be cut in half. If it wasn’t for those nasty anti-choice right-wing extremists opposing both science and logic, abortion could already have been reduced, Plan B supporters proclaim. Some Plan B supporters even attempt to claim that Pro-Lifers are responsible for a rise in abortions. Of course, even the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute cannot produce statistics to support that outlandish claim.

There is no truth to their silver bullet claim about Plan B reducing unwanted preg-nancies and abortions either! On December 6, 2005 Kirsten Moore, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Technologies Project, admitted at a National Press Club forum that “real world” experience of easy access to the morning-after pill has not reduced the number of pregnancies or abortions. “I think it’s an honest question; the 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,” Moore said. Moore indicated she doesn’t see across the board increases in pregnancy or abortion rates either, and added that “where we see the increases, correlation does not equal causation.”

This now admitted-to-be unfounded claim has been a rallying point for abortion advocates who want the FDA to approve Plan B, which sometimes causes an abortion, for over the counter sale, and wants mandates forcing pharmacists to fill prescriptions for it. Wendy Wright, the executive vice-president of Concerned Women for America, said Moore’s admission that the Plan B drugs don’t reduce abortion or pregnancy rates “knocks the legs out from the hard-charging coalition intent on making this drug as easy to get as toothpaste.” “The claim that pregnancies and abortions would reduce by half is based not on science or fact, but ‘faith’ with no substance in reality,” Wright explained.

Studies, including one by a Planned Parenthood medical director in San Francisco, find the morning after pill does not reduce abortion and pregnancy rates. In fact, Wright explained, the studies she’s seen also show an increase in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases, which the drug is not intended to prevent. “The FDA rightly decided to decline over-the-counter access for Plan B based on a lack of evidence that it could be used safely by adolescents. The FDA should not be pressured by congressmen and abortion activists whose primary argument has no basis in facts,” Wright concluded.