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EC CAMPAIGN AIMS AT TEENS

The Maryland-based group, Campaign for Our Children, launched a program to market “emergency contraception” to Maryland teens at a conference at Laurence G. Paquin School in Baltimore February 13.

Speakers urged the 30 to 40 attending school nurses, teachers, guidance counselors, social workers and health care providers to actively promote EC, also known as the “morning-after pill,” to teens as a safe and effective back-up within 72 hours of  “unprotected” sex.

“Trust me, [the EC drug] Plan B is safer than aspirin,” said Dr. Evan Mortimer, medical director of Family Planning and Reproductive Health for Maryland’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Mortimer, who described himself as a Catholic convert, explained that the drug Plan B, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1999 specifically for “emergency contraception,” is safe for women because it contains only a progestin, in contrast to ECs such as PREVEN, which contains an estrogen as well as a progestin.

Although PREVEN was FDA-approved for “emergency contraception” in 1998, “There are reasons to be concerned about estrogen,” said the doctor.

“But you can give [Plan B] to a 35-year-old smoker with heart disease, and to breast cancer victims,” he declared, adding, “I think it’s nice that breast cancer victims are still having sex.”

Dr. Mortimer urged his audience to advocate that their teenage patients or students keep a supply of EC pills handy, just as they would aspirin.

“Why should we be able to just get them after the fact?” he argued.  “They should have them before the fact.  I keep a bottle of aspirin in my office; I don’t wait for a headache.”

As did all the speakers, Mortimer declared emphatically that emergency contraception does not cause abortions, despite the fact that one of the ways EC works is by preventing the implantation of the blastocyst, a developing human consisting of several hundred cells, within the uterine lining of the womb.

The speakers repeatedly asserted that pregnancy begins, not at the fertilization of the egg by the sperm, but about a week later, after the “fertilized egg” has implanted onto the lining of the uterus, a new concept promulgated by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,  the FDA and the National Institutes of Health.

“I personally don’t like abortion,” said Mortimer.  “But for people who say EC is abortion, that’s crap.”

Kathy Rogers, director of Seneca Women’s Health Center, also touted EC as extremely safe.

“Who is not a good candidate for EC?  Anyone who is currently having a stroke--that’s it,” she said.

Rogers, who described Seneca as “the closest thing Baltimore has to a feminist women’s health care center,” declared, “We do provide abortion, and I’m proud of it.”

Seneca, located on Northern Parkway, 1½ blocks from Mercy High School, offers a student discount on abortions.

Rogers said that Seneca plans a training program to raise EC awareness in the spring “targeting high school and college students in leadership positions:  peer counselors and health educators, residence hall staff, sorority and club leaders, dean’s office, guidance counselors--anyone who already has contact with 17- to 25-year-olds.”

EC can currently be obtained only by prescription in all but five states, but “astronomical, astounding” rates of unintended pregnancy in the U.S. make it imperative that EC be sold over-the-counter, said Kirsten Moore, president of Reproductive Health Technologies Project in Washington, D.C.

The manufacturers of Plan B have applied to the FDA for OTC status, and an FDA expert advisory panel recommended approval of the drug by a 24-3 vote in December, said Moore.

“But there has been some political opposition to the switch,” she said.  “The FDA is getting pressure from the White House and other outside forces.

“Our opponents can’t get away with saying it’s an abortion pill.  And they can’t argue safety anymore.  So they’re starting to throw in a lot of hypotheses:  What will this do to sexual behavior?”

But data from other countries show that EC doesn’t change sexual behavior, Moore claimed.

Moore’s group helped promote last year’s Back Up Your Birth Control With EC campaign, which featured  World War II’s feisty Rosie the Riveter with an EC heart tattoo on her biceps.

Conference speakers insisted that no age restrictions should be placed on over-the-counter sales of EC.  Kathy Rogers replied to a woman in the audience who was worried about giving repeat doses of EC to pre-teens, “There are worse things out there than EC--like pregnancy and STDs.”

The Washington Post reported on-line the evening of February 13, however, that the FDA, which was supposed to hand down its ruling that day on OTC sale of Plan B, had instead postponed its decision for 90 days.

Campaign for Our Children, the conference sponsor, was established in 1987 to reduce the high teen birth rate in Maryland through education, according to its website, cfoc.org.  

It credits its adolescent prevention programs with helping  to reduce the number of births to teens nationwide.

Although its online Teen Guide has a small section on abstinence, the bulk of the guide is devoted to detailed descriptions of every conceivable type of contraception.

In addition to federal and state funding, its extensive list of contributors includes Peter Angelos, the Baltimore Sun, H & S Bakery, Art and Pat Modell, and Pam Shriver.