Bush Forced Me To Have An Abortion

[incanada1234 0]

Bush Forced Me To Have An Abortion

June 5, 2006

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There was a piece in the New York Times by a woman. It's within the last two years, and it was about abortion, and it was how she made up her mind to abort a child with her boyfriend because she'd have to stay home and raise the child, and she didn't earn enough money. She'd have to move out of her fashionable apartment in the Village or wherever it was. Remember that piece? (Rush's Coverage) It was literally so insensitive, it was outrageous. The Washington Post has found another such babe. This is incredible. This was in yesterday's paper. "What Happens When There is No Plan B?" It's by "Dana L." Dana L., by the way, is a lawyer living in Virginia. She's a lawyer and writer, and "out of concern for her family's privacy, she requested her last name not be published."

Here's the lead: "The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn't want. Well, not literally, but let me explain. I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we're starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm." Well, well, you should have had Bush there making sure that you put it in, if this is all his fault! "The next morning, after getting my kids off to school, I called my ob/gyn to get a prescription for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill that can prevent a pregnancy -- but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse.

"As we're both in our forties, my husband and I had considered our family complete, and we weren't planning to have another child, which is why, as a rule, we use contraception. I wanted to make sure that our momentary lapse didn't result in a pregnancy. The receptionist, however, informed me that my doctor did not prescribe Plan B. No reason given. Neither did my internist. The midwifery practice I had used could prescribe it, but not over the phone, and there were no more open appointments for the day. The weekend -- and the end of the 72-hour window -- was approaching."

Understand she starts this out by blaming the conservative politics of the Bush administration for "forcing" her to have an abortion. I mean, if you take this literally, Bush should have known that she and her husband because of conservative policies don't have much "couple time," and they managed to squeeze some in one day in March, and whoa and behold she forgot to put in the diaphragm and that's because Bush wasn't there to remind her!

"But I needed to meet my kids' school bus and, as I was pretty much out of options -- short of soliciting random Virginia doctors out of the phone book -- I figured I'd take my chances and hope for the best. After all, I'm 42. Isn't it likely my eggs are overripe, anyway? I thought so, especially since my best friend from college has been experiencing agonizing infertility problems at this age." Isn't this amazing? Forty-two years of age and unable to accept responsibility for what she has done and tries to foster this off on the Bush administration's "conservative policies." Yes, if there had been an after-school program paid for by the government with buses she wouldn't have had to have worried about picking up her kids and she could have sought out a doctor that would have prescribed.

"Weeks later, the two drugstore pregnancy tests I took told a different story. Positive. I couldn't believe it. I'm still in good health, but unlike the last time I was pregnant, nearly a decade ago, I'm now taking three medications. One of them, for high cholesterol..." Well, whatever. "My anger propelled me to get to the bottom of the story. It turns out that in December 2003, an FDA advisory committee, whose suggestions the agency usually follows, recommended that the drug be made available over the counter, or without a prescription. Nonetheless, in May 2004, the FDA top brass overruled the advisory panel and gave the thumbs-down to over-the-counter sales of Plan B, requesting more data on how girls younger than 16 could use it safely without a doctor's supervision....

"Although I had heard of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control on religious grounds, I was dumbfounded to find that doctors could do the same thing." So she ends up saying here... You know, she had no problem, I guess, calling around finding out a list of abortion doctors from whom to choose, but she was nervous and she didn't want to call a bunch of doctors for the morning-after pill. She was afraid to go "rummaging through the phone book for indiscriminate doctors" to find one who would prescribe the morning-after pill but she had no problem, apparently, seeking out a doctor to do an abortion. It is just amazing to me. These people continue to blame Bush for conservatism, for their own problems. Isn't there a series of mysterious deaths associated with RU-486 now? (Google Search)

Aren't there a number of those, and the people who are, of course, obviously supportive of the morning-after abortion pill are trying to deflect any interest in finding out whether or not the pill may itself be responsible for the deaths. Now, this is the one case I remember in my lifetime. You know, you let a pill like Vioxx or any other thing cause a death, and there is all hell to pay, and there are new hearings and there are court cases, and we go to the FDA and we demand the drug be pulled off the market, do we not? Yes we do! In the case of RU-486, when there were a number of deaths, have been a number of deaths, the silence demanding an investigation into the dangers and risks associated with using this pill are... Well, it's just stunningly silent. It's amazing to watch the hypocrisy on parade on behalf of the American left. When they get themselves in some kind of jam or trouble, it always turns out that the Bush administration and conservative politics are the problem.

[Traviesa 0]

The morning after pill is not an abortion pill. It is a form of contraception, albeit emergency.

[incanada1234 0]

That's why she said, "Well, not literally, but let me explain."

[AlmostMex 0]

That letter is ridiculous - that lady made all the choices and no one forced her to do anythign. If anything her unborn child could say my mommy forced me to die. There are a lot of people out there in a lot more dire circumstances who have had children they truly couldn't afford and found ways to raise them successfully. Give me a break.

The morning after pill is not an abortion pill. It is a form of contraception, albeit emergency.

As far as this goes, it depends on who you ask. I personally consider it an abortion pill. The baby is already conceived at the point you take the pill.

FWIW, the Catholic church says it is an abortion pill.

Just my two cents.

[pedroh 21]

That letter is ridiculous - that lady made all the choices and no one forced her to do anythign. If anything her unborn child could say my mommy forced me to die. There are a lot of people out there in a lot more dire circumstances who have had children they truly couldn't afford and found ways to raise them successfully. Give me a break.

The morning after pill is not an abortion pill. It is a form of contraception, albeit emergency.

As far as this goes, it depends on who you ask. I personally consider it an abortion pill. The baby is already conceived at the point you take the pill.

FWIW, the Catholic church says it is an abortion pill.

Just my two cents.

ah, the sperm doesnt travel light speed to the egg.. sometimes it can take some hours to do, and when it reaches the egg.. there's no baby yet.. just 2 cells together..

[Traviesa 0]

That letter is ridiculous - that lady made all the choices and no one forced her to do anythign. If anything her unborn child could say my mommy forced me to die. There are a lot of people out there in a lot more dire circumstances who have had children they truly couldn't afford and found ways to raise them successfully. Give me a break.

The morning after pill is not an abortion pill. It is a form of contraception, albeit emergency.

As far as this goes, it depends on who you ask. I personally consider it an abortion pill. The baby is already conceived at the point you take the pill.

FWIW, the Catholic church says it is an abortion pill.

Just my two cents.

The baby is not conceived at the point you take the pill. If there is already conception and connection, it will do nothing to prevent the pregnancy from continuing. It simply prevents that conception from occurring with the little swimmers that hang around for several days won't fertilize the egg.

[Fischkoepfin 1]

Just for the sake of balance, here's the original article:

What Happens When There Is No Plan B?

By Dana L.

Sunday, June 4, 2006; B01

The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn't want. Well, not literally, but let me explain.

I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we're starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.

The next morning, after getting my kids off to school, I called my ob/gyn to get a prescription for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill that can prevent a pregnancy -- but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. As we're both in our forties, my husband and I had considered our family complete, and we weren't planning to have another child, which is why, as a rule, we use contraception. I wanted to make sure that our momentary lapse didn't result in a pregnancy.

The receptionist, however, informed me that my doctor did not prescribe Plan B. No reason given. Neither did my internist. The midwifery practice I had used could prescribe it, but not over the phone, and there were no more open appointments for the day. The weekend -- and the end of the 72-hour window -- was approaching.

But I needed to meet my kids' school bus and, as I was pretty much out of options -- short of soliciting random Virginia doctors out of the phone book -- I figured I'd take my chances and hope for the best. After all, I'm 42. Isn't it likely my eggs are overripe, anyway? I thought so, especially since my best friend from college has been experiencing agonizing infertility problems at this age.

Weeks later, the two drugstore pregnancy tests I took told a different story. Positive. I couldn't believe it.

I'm still in good health, but unlike the last time I was pregnant, nearly a decade ago, I'm now taking three medications. One of them, for high cholesterol, is in the Food and Drug Administration's Pregnancy Category X -- meaning it's a drug you shouldn't take if you're expecting or even planning to get pregnant. I worried because the odds of having a high-risk pregnancy or a baby born with serious health issues rise significantly after age 40. And I thought of the emotional upheavals that an unplanned pregnancy would cause our family. My husband and I are involved in all aspects of our children's lives, but even so, we feel we don't get enough time to spend with them as it is.

I felt sick. Although I've always been in favor of abortion rights, this was a choice I had hoped never to have to make myself. When I realized the seriousness of my predicament, I became angry. I knew that Plan B, which could have prevented it, was supposed to have been available over the counter by now. But I also remembered hearing that conservative politics have held up its approval.

My anger propelled me to get to the bottom of the story. It turns out that in December 2003, an FDA advisory committee, whose suggestions the agency usually follows, recommended that the drug be made available over the counter, or without a prescription. Nonetheless, in May 2004, the FDA top brass overruled the advisory panel and gave the thumbs-down to over-the-counter sales of Plan B, requesting more data on how girls younger than 16 could use it safely without a doctor's supervision.

Apparently, one of the concerns is that ready availability of Plan B could lead teenage girls to have premarital sex. Yet this concern -- valid or not -- wound up penalizing an over-the-hill married woman for having sex with her husband. Talk about the law of unintended consequences.

By late August 2005, the slow action over Plan B led the director of the FDA's Office on Women's Health to resign her post. The agency's delay on the drug, she wrote in an e-mail to her colleagues, "runs contrary to my core commitment to improving and advancing women's health." As recently as April 7, Steven Galson, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said that the agency still needed time to work on the issue.

Unfortunately, time was the one thing I didn't have.

Meanwhile, I hadn't even been able to get Plan B with a prescription that Friday, because in Virginia, health-care practitioners apparently are allowed to refuse to prescribe any drug that goes against their beliefs. Although I had heard of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control on religious grounds, I was dumbfounded to find that doctors could do the same thing.

Moreover, they aren't even required to tell the patient why they won't provide the drug. Nor do they have to provide a list of alternative sources. I had asked the ob-gyn's receptionist if politics was the reason the doctor wouldn't prescribe Plan B for me. She refused to answer or offer any reason, no matter how much I pressed her. By the time I got on the phone with my internist's office and found that he would not fill a Plan B prescription either, I figured it was a waste of time to fight with the office staff. To this day, I don't know why my doctors wouldn't prescribe Plan B -- whether it was because of moral opposition to contraception or out of fear of political protesters or just because they preferred not to go there.

In any event, they were also partly responsible for why I was stuck that Friday, and why I was ultimately forced to confront the decision to terminate my third pregnancy.

After making the decision with my husband, I was plunged into an even murkier world -- that of finding an abortion provider. If information on Plan B was hard to come by, and practitioners were evasive on emergency contraception, trying to get information on how to abort a pregnancy in 2006 is an even more Byzantine experience.

On the Internet, most of what I found was political in nature or otherwise unhelpful: pictures of what your baby looks like in the womb from week one, and so on.

Calling doctors, I felt like a pariah when I asked whether they provided termination services. Finally, I decided to check the Planned Parenthood Web site to see whether its clinics performed abortions. They did, but I learned that if I had the abortion in Virginia, the procedure would take two days because of a mandatory 24-hour waiting period, which requires that you go in first for a day of counseling and then wait a day to think things over before returning to have the abortion. Because of work and the children, I couldn't afford two days off, so I opted to have the procedure done on a Saturday in downtown D.C. while my husband took the kids to the Smithsonian.

The hidden world of abortion services soon became even more subterranean. I called Planned Parenthood two days in advance to confirm the appointment. The receptionist politely informed me that the organization never confirms appointments, for "security reasons," and that I would have to just show up.

I arrived shortly before 10 a.m. in a bleak downpour, trusting that someone had recorded my appointment. I shuffled to the front door through a phalanx of umbrellaed protesters, who chanted loudly about Jesus and chided me not to go into that house of abortion.

All the while, I was thinking that if religion hadn't been allowed to seep into American politics the way it has, I wouldn't even be there. This all could have been stopped way before this baby was conceived if they had just let me have that damn pill.

After passing through the metal detector inside the building, I entered the Planned Parenthood waiting room; it was like the waiting room for a budget airline -- crammed full of people, of all races, and getting busier by the moment. I was by far the oldest person there (other than one girl's mom). The wait seemed endless. No one looked happy. We were told that the lone doctor was stuck in Cherry Blossom Parade traffic.

He finally arrived, an hour and a half late.

The procedure itself took about five minutes. I finally walked out of the building at 4:30, 6 1/2 hours after I had arrived.

It was a decision I am sorry I had to make. It was awful, painful, sickening. But I feel that this administration gave me practically no choice but to have an unwanted abortion because the way it has politicized religion made it well-nigh impossible for me to get emergency contraception that would have prevented the pregnancy in the first place.

And to think that, all these years after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land, this is what our children have to look forward to as they approach their reproductive years.

Dana L. is a lawyer and writer living in Virginia. Out of concern for her family's privacy, she requested that her last name not be published.

I was actually struck by the fact that Rush focused so entirely on the opening paragraph and added some other random quote, but didn't address the real problem described in the article: that our doctors don't have to tell us why they refuse to assist us in case of need, that it has become more difficult to have abortions, and that even if women don't want abortions and decide to opt for Plan B, access is heavily restricted.

[ace13 0]

Actually it is 2 fold. It is designed to prevent conception (just like the birth control pill is) but in the event that conception occurs, it also prevents inmplatation of a fertilized egg which is why people call it the abortion pill. Because in plan B it is aborting a fertilized egg.

[Traviesa 0]

Actually it is 2 fold. It is designed to prevent conception (just like the birth control pill is) but in the event that conception occurs, it also prevents inmplatation of a fertilized egg which is why people call it the abortion pill. Because in plan B it is aborting a fertilized egg.

Wait...I understood it to be that it prevents fertilization of the egg, but if the egg is already fertilized, won't do anything...which is true??

[AlmostMex 0]

I should say it can be abortive, and thinking it over, I can't see how you'd ever know whether it was or not. I'd prefer not to take the chance.

The emergency contraceptive/morning-after pill has three possible ways in which it can work:

1. Ovulation is inhibited, meaning the egg will not be released;

2. The normal menstrual cycle is altered, delaying ovulation; or

3. It can irritate the lining of the uterus so that if the first and second actions fail, and the woman does become pregnant, the fertilized egg will die before he or she can actually attach to the lining of the uterus.

In other words, if the third action occurs, her body rejects the embryo, and it will die. This result is a chemical abortion.

Edited June 6, 2006 by InLoveInMexico

[Fischkoepfin 1]

The point is why does a married woman not have access to Plan B if there are reasons that speak against the pregnancy, like the fact that she's 42 and on medication that would be harmful for the baby and for her. Why does she have to abort instead of taking a pill which is much less invasive?

[pax 0]

Actually it is 2 fold. It is designed to prevent conception (just like the birth control pill is) but in the event that conception occurs, it also prevents inmplatation of a fertilized egg which is why people call it the abortion pill. Because in plan B it is aborting a fertilized egg.

Wait...I understood it to be that it prevents fertilization of the egg, but if the egg is already fertilized, won't do anything...which is true??

It does try to prevent fertilization of the egg; barring that, it can prevent implantation. An egg implants in the uterus via the sticky lining of the uterus—that is, what you lose when you have your period. If "Plan B" is effective, then, you have a "period," flushing out the lining of the uterus and the fertilized egg with it (don't forget that if you're ovulating, you lose an egg when you have your period, too).

Once the egg is fertilized and implanted, Plan B is useless. Hence the 72-hour window.

[chocolaterie 0]

guilt is meant for the individual not for the rest of society to prescribe. it works like an induced period, when the uterine lining is shed, it takes the egg with it. At least if this is the same morning after pill that is available in Canada.

[pax 0]

3. It can irritate the lining of the uterus so that if the first and second actions fail, and the woman does become pregnant, the fertilized egg will die before he or she can actually attach to the lining of the uterus.

In other words, if the third action occurs, her body rejects the embryo, and it will die. This result is a chemical abortion.

It is not a "he or she" at that point. Gender differentation happens later.

And it is not a chemical abortion, not at all. Pregnancy requires a successfully implanted fertilized egg to begin growing into an embryo. All you have at that point is a fertilized egg.

Believe it or not, some Catholic bioethicists, including Margaret Farley (a member of the Bush administration's hand-picked bioethics council), point out that it's not at all uncommon for fertilized eggs to not implant and to be removed from the body via menstruation—the numbers could be as high as 75% of fertilized eggs that never make it to implantation. And that's without any outside interference at all.

[Traviesa 0]

Actually it is 2 fold. It is designed to prevent conception (just like the birth control pill is) but in the event that conception occurs, it also prevents inmplatation of a fertilized egg which is why people call it the abortion pill. Because in plan B it is aborting a fertilized egg.

Wait...I understood it to be that it prevents fertilization of the egg, but if the egg is already fertilized, won't do anything...which is true??

It does try to prevent fertilization of the egg; barring that, it can prevent implantation. An egg implants in the uterus via the sticky lining of the uterus—that is, what you lose when you have your period. If "Plan B" is effective, then, you have a "period," flushing out the lining of the uterus and the fertilized egg with it (don't forget that if you're ovulating, you lose an egg when you have your period, too).

Once the egg is fertilized and implanted, Plan B is useless. Hence the 72-hour window.

I've taken Plan B three separate times and have never had that period thing, and also didn't get pregnant. I'm sorry to be slow, but I suppose I still don't understand.