Preventing vs. Terminating a Pregnancy

It's official: it is now easier to end a pregnancy than to prevent one. My younger sister was at the pharmacy yesterday picking up her birth control prescription when she noticed a sign near to the pharmacy window. It stated that only women age 18 or older with a valid California ID would be able to purchase the "Morning After" pill. My sister paused for a moment to consider what the sign was actually saying, and then asked the pharmacist if it was true: could an 18 year-old girl enter the store, approach the pharmacist, provide their driver's license, lay down their money, and receive the pill without a prescription? The answer was a solid "yes." Mind you, in order to attain the birth control my married sister was picking up, she had to have seen a doctor and been giving a prescription. Not so with the abortion pill.

And let's be frank, here..."Morning After" pill is just a cutesy name for a drug that causes you to miscarry the newly-formed fetus in your womb, making it effectively an "Abortion Pill". Tactless? Perhaps. Honest? Definitely. And about time.

So any 18 year-old with a vagina (or teenager who has an 18 year-old friend willing to make the purchase for her) who opts to share it with one of the male species in an irresponsible fashion (we can discuss the fornication later) can "make up" for her mistake by handing two $20 bills to a pharmacist to terminate the new, unsuspecting, eager life within her.

Yes, folks, $40. The cost of an over-the-counter abortion these days. Women's rights advocates everywhere are thrilled: a woman can finally terminate a pregnancy on her own terms. Those same advocates are shaking their heads at my reference to the term "eager life", stating that a fetus is not a human being and cannot be considered one. BRIEF INSERTION: How quickly does a fetus grow and develop? How long does it take for an egg and sperm to develop into a fully-fledged, functioning human being? Not long at all, of course, which leads us to believe that that life is desperate to make it out into the world, so eager that the grow at what outside the womb would be an alarming rate. Interestingly enough, too, a newborn will fight for life like crazy; flail its arms and struggle desperately to come out from under a blanket to breathe, cough and choke and vomit its own lungs clear of fluid, sleep when overly-hungry to shut down their own discomfort...babies are eager creatures when it comes to living, and no less so because they are still in-utero and no bigger than a postage stamp. Women's advocates would argue otherwise, but those of us with any decency and even the most remote respect for life should cringe at the thought that that eager little spirit, willing to undergo massive growth in a comparitively miniscule amount of time, could have its mortal body wiped from the face of the planet by a selfish teen with $40 to spend.

So what do we do? How can we prevent such a pill from being available to anyone with a government-issued ID and a measly sum of money? Please, email your senators, your state House reps, your governor, the White House, the drug companies...anyone you can think of who might be responsible for having made this poor decision. Ask that the drugs only be available to those with a prescription. It won't prevent women from using it, of course, but it WILL make it more difficult to attain.

Your senators can be found here: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Your House Rep here: http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Your Governor here: http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/govemail.html
The White House here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Pharm co's here: http://www.barrlabs.com/contact.php

Please be part of the solution. I'm sending my emails now. Problem solved. (Or...nearly.)

Mommy

**Added 2/20: All above-listed organizations and individuals have now received my emails.**