This is Nightline’s show tonight … thought many of you would want to know, especially since Nightline doesn’t make its transcripts or videos available.
Birth Control Battle
Sept. 27, 2005
When Hurricane Katrina struck, it wiped a lot of other news stories off the front page. One story that got little attention that week was a controversial decision by the Food and Drug Administration on the last Friday in August. FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford announced that a decision to make the “Morning After” (or “Plan B”) pill available over-the-counter would be postponed indefinitely, despite the support of a majority of FDA scientists and executives.
The Plan B pill is not the same medication as RU-486 (also called the “abortion pill”) which induces abortion in an already pregnant woman. It is considered emergency contraception, taken within 72 hours after intercourse; the surge of hormones in the pill blocks fertilization or implantation and reduces the chance of a resulting pregnancy by 89 percent, according to its manufacturer. The Plan B pill has been available by prescription since 1999; the FDA has been considering whether to make the pill available to adult patients “over-the-counter” without a prescription.
The controversy, of course, lies here in the definition of pregnancy – or more basically, the question of where life begins. Does it begin at the moment of fertilization? The Plan B pill is taken long before a woman could be tested positively for pregnancy. But is she still pregnant?
The unexpected announcement by Commissioner Crawford appeared a victory for anti-abortion activists in a traditionally scientific arena. After years of debate, all of the usual political signals pointed to the FDA’s approval. And so the decision took many by surprise.
None more so than Dr. Susan Wood, who headed the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health for the last five years. Just days after the decision, she resigned in protest. Tonight Dr. Wood will give her first television interview to Ted Koppel.
And this story keeps going — another unexpected resignation was announced just last week. After only two months in office, FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford is himself stepping down.
We hope you’ll join us.
Sara Just and the “Nightline” staff
Senior Producer
ABC News Washington Bureau
for the heads up!
When is Nightline on?
normally it is on right after the 11:00 local news on ABC.
Would that be 10:30 for Brinnaine? She’s on cow poke time.
Thanks ya’ll!
Yew betchee!
I’ll be tightening up my surcingle against the spin.
All this blather about “when life begins” makes me want to hurl. There can be no one connected with this debate who doesn’t know by now that it’s been conclusively demonstrated that Plan B works only by delaying ovulation, which researchers believe also accounts for its 11% failure rate in women who have already ovulated before they take it.
Plan B has no effect whatever upon an already fertilized ovum. But tonight we’re still going to hear Plan B opponents express “sincere concerns” that because they believe “life begins at conception,” it could amount to an early abortion. And even though everyone knows the truth by now, I am virtually certain that no one will challenge them on the science–no one.
It’s all a put-up job. So feh.
And dang and dagnabbit, too.
Eh, I’ll give it a miss then —
your diary states:
The controversy, of course, lies here in the definition of pregnancy – or more basically, the question of where life begins. Does it begin at the moment of fertilization?
Emergency Contraception (EC): A Safe and Effective Way to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancy
feed via podcast — subscription available through iTunes…
How not surprising.
The timing on the latest NARAL posting at the other place couldn’t be better – Parker’s diary, this. Nice. Naw, women’s rights aren’t under attack, no siree bob.
for making Plan B a prescription drug.
They say it’s too complicated for a minor to use safely without supervision.
IIRC, you take one pill today and another pill tomorrow. It’s not complicated at all. Anyone with fifth-grade reading skills and the ability to distinguish between today and tomorrow can self-administer Plan B properly. We let 15-year-olds drive CARS, but we don’t believe a sexually active 17yo can take one pill today, followed by another pill tomorrow. And although pharmacies commonly sell tobacco products, which are age-restricted, we don’t believe pharmacies can sell Plan B OTC in an age-restricted way.
Given that the alternative to Plan B is often either abortion or childbirth, does anyone believe that access to Plan B endangers MORE young women’s lives?
Complete and utter BS. Lacks even the pretense of logic or reality.
I’m babbling. I’m tired.
“Anyone with fifth-grade reading skills and the ability to distinguish between today and tomorrow can self-administer Plan B properly”
The FDA cannot approve for over the counter use that the current president would be unable to administer correctly without help.
is starting.
It wasn’t too awfully shabby, was it? Dr. David Hager fairly exuded creepiness (he was always odious, but can anybody look at him anymore without thinking of anal rape?) as he testified about being used as an instrument of God to protect the health and chastity of American women. And then there was the obligatory church lady bobblehead from CWA obsessing about the looming threat of 40 y/o men furtively sneaking into Walgreens and buying EC to get away with pedophilia.
Koppel let them go wild, but then he gave over the final third of the show to Dr. Susan Wood, who resigned her FDA post in disgust over Bush’s faith-based interference with the scientific integrity of the FDA. And she was fantastic, exposing them all for the fraudulent nutcases they are.
Nope, not too shabby by half.
the obligatory church lady bobblehead from CWA obsessing about the looming threat of 40 y/o men furtively sneaking into Walgreens and buying EC to get away with pedophilia.
Damn.
That’s because 40 year old men who have sex with 12 year olds are just so responsible and always thinking of the future.
I’ll say one thing for the republican party. They cultivate their (stupid) women and pay them well. The Democratic party’s response to their ‘allies’ can be (once again) determined by looking at yesterday’s FP post on DKos.
The almost amusing thing is that if someone did a diary on AOC laws and adult men who have sex with minors over on DKos (complete with statistics and information about pregnancy rates) these same folks would be screaming “prude” and “nude ballet in Amsterdam”. Likewise if the Dems joined the GOP war on pornography or dissed Howard Stern or tried to close down the sex clubs or actually held non-custodial parents responsible for the children they’ve been equally responsible for bring into the world or went after the Mormon polygamous communities and on and on. Some allies.