As Karen Malec observes, “March of Dimes officials are wringing their hands and scratching their heads over the problem of premature birth.  They can't seem to figure out why there are so many premature births in the U.S.  How many fewer premature births, infant deaths and cases of cerebral palsy might there be if the March of Dimes had warned women about this evidence on a timely basis.”  Their failure to acknowledge the role of abortion allows this health crisis to continue unchecked.  So who is medically inaccurate?

Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, October 10, 2006 

Exaggerating the benefits and denying the consequences

Now that the pushers of the Plan B morning-after pill have managed to get FDA approval for over-the-counter sales, new information is coming out about exaggerating the benefits and denying the consequences of Plan B availability.

Barr Laboratories claims an effectiveness rate of 89% for Plan B.  However, independent research produced lower results.  Dr. Joseph Stanford, associate professor of family and preventative medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine, was a member of the FDA panel that approved Plan B, but he voted against it.   Studies he and fellow researchers have conducted show only a 72% effectiveness rate.  "We did a more precise meta-analysis that shows it's effective only 72% of the time, and even that number is optimistic," he indicated.  Stanford also noted that studies from Europe, China and the United States show that the morning after pill does not reduce unintended pregnancy rates or abortions.

Further confirmation of the limited effectiveness of Plan B was revealed in a September 6, 2006 internal memo, written by a key Capitol Hill staff member, following a briefing on Plan B.  This memo, obtained by Life Advocacy Briefing, included the following statement:

Noting the claim of “scientific evidence” that the product (Plan B) could be used “effectively” by adult women, I asked whether he had anything beyond the studies presented to FDA for initial approval of the product, that yielded sustained pregnancy rates of 1.8% and 1.9%.  I pointed out that this was extraordinarily ineffective in light of Christopher Tietze’s benchmark research showing that the likelihood of pregnancy in a woman of proven fertility as a result of one random act of intercourse is one in 45, or 2.2%.  Dr. Galson acknowledged that the product is not as effective as condoms or OCs (oral contraceptives), but that the issue of effectiveness had been before the FDA in 1999. The only question now was whether the product could be sold over the counter or should still require a prescription.

Beyond these effectiveness rates under somewhat ideal conditions within a research study, Jennifer Roback Morse raises the issue of effectiveness rates under real world conditions.  She cites data reported for oral contraceptive and condom effectiveness rates in an article titled “Contraceptive Failure Rates: New Estimates from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth,” found in Family Planning Perspectives, 1999, 31(2): 56-63, Table 2.

The failure rates in this study are measured as the percentage of women, using a regular method of birth control, who become pregnant within a year’s time.  This analysis reviewed contraceptive failure as a function of age, income, and marital status.   It found that younger women, unmarried women, and poor women are more likely to experience a contraceptive failure.  For example, oral contraceptives are claimed to be 99% effective.  The failure rate of the pill was 13% for poor married women under the age of 20, but declined to just 5.7% for married poor women over 30. The age-specific failure rate was even more dramatic for cohabiting, but not married couples.  For poor cohabiting women under age 20, the failure rate of the pill was 48%, while for poor cohabiting women over age 30, the failure rate was just 10.8%.

The failure rates for condom use were similarly correlated with age, income and marital status. The most spectacular failure rates are for cohabiting, poor women under the age of 20 who use condoms as their regular birth control method.   72% of these women will be pregnant within a year’s time.  By contrast, among unmarried poor women under age 20, 23% will be pregnant within a year.  The most successful users of condoms are married women over age 30 who are not poor.  Of women in this group whose primary birth-control method is condoms, 6% can expect to be pregnant within a year.