CNA: Plan B decision treats pregnancy as disease, U.S. bishops' official says
CNA reported today that the F.D.A. has now made the "Plan B" contraceptive available to 17 year-old women without a prescription . Deirdre McQuade, Assistant Director for Policy and Communications at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, criticized the action: “Levonorgestrel is a powerful drug, taken in two doses over a 12-hour period. It is 40 times more potent than comparable progestin-only birth control pills (Ovrette) for which a prescription is required. “Wider access to Plan B could endanger the lives of newly-conceived children, and will put minors at risk for unnecessary side effects, undermine parental rights, and contribute to higher STD rates,” warned McQuade. “Pregnancy is not a disease and fertility is not a pathological condition, so Plan B has no authentic therapeutic purpose, and can actually cause harm to women and their newly-conceived children,” she said. McQuade commented that though the FDA describes “Plan B” a...