Emergency Contraception is Not Abortion

(Emergency Contraception Pills. Photo credit: ema.)

On April 2nd, the Honduran parliament made the provision of emergency contraception illegal. They banned "promotion, commercialization, free distribution and use of EC pills." It's clear from a statement one of the bill's sponsors made to the press that emergency contraception was banned because the believed it is a form of abortion. This misconception seems to be spreading through Latin America.

It's a dangerous untruth. If you are pregnant, and you take emergency contraception, you remain pregnant. It does not cause abortion, or even harm the fetus. Emergency contraception is a vitally important  option to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

Emergency contraception is not abortion. It's a high dose of the same hormones found in oral contraception.  All it does is prevent ovulation. It cannot end a pregnancy. It can be used in the first few days after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy, but it cannot end one. Furthermore, according to the World Health Organization, "However, if a woman inadvertently takes the pills after she became pregnant, the limited available evidence suggests that the pills will not harm either the mother or her fetus."

American legislators make the same mistake. US Republican representative Tom Tancredo said that "cheapens human life and simply uses a woman's body to dispose of the child instead of a doctor." That statement is so idiotic it makes me need to sit down and do my yoga breathing for the sake of my blood pressure.

There is an abortion pill, generally known medical abortion. The medication is made up of mifepristone and misoprostol, and it will terminate a pregnancy of up to eight weeks. No one ever refers to it as contraception, because it's not. It is medicalabortion.

Confusing birth control with abortion is ignorance, poor science, and bad for women. Women's lives should not be at stake because legislators don't have the time or the skills to learn about human anatomy.