Imagine this: you’ve just been raped. You have a somewhat checkered past, and a couple of warrants are out for your arrest.
But, being a person in need, you go to the police to get help after you’ve taken a Plan B pill. The police figure out about said warrants, and you’re temporarily in jail. You need your second dose of the morning-after pill.
But the jail’s pharmacist won’t give it to you. For all she cares, you can get pregnant.
Why? It goes against her beliefs to dispense the medication.
This actually happened in Tampa, Fla., last week.
This is ridiculous.
The last thing anyone needs after being psychologically and physically traumatized is someone else taking away the one remaining decision you have control over: your body.
But for those of you who are a little in the dark about the scientific side of things, let us clear a few things up.
The Plan B pill is not the same thing as an abortion.
Plan B is FDA-approved and works like a regular birth control pill. (Think of it as a birth control pill on steroids.)
After unprotected sex, women have five days to take the first pill of a two-pill pack, and 12 hours after that to take the second.
Plan B works in a few different ways. It prevents pregnancy mainly by stopping the ovary from releasing an egg, but it can also prevent fertilization of a pre-existing egg and can prevent an egg from attaching to the uterine lining.
Plan B doesn’t affect a fertilized egg already attached to the uterus; it can’t and won’t affect an existing pregnancy.
There goes the abortion objection.
Ed Board is extremely pained by the Tampa medical supervisor’s actions. No one has the right to tell you what you can and cannot ingest – this includes birth-control methods. If she has religious objections then she, herself, can abstain from using the so-called “morning-after pill.” Dispensing prescribed and over-the-counter medication is her job; if she knows it creates a conflict with her beliefs, she shouldn’t take the job.
As for the rest of us, we are in control of our own bodies. We just hope that all of our pharmacists agree with us.
