Anti-lifers force pro-lifers
to address bigger issue

The National Right to Life Committee is but one of many pro-life organizations that distances itself on the topic of contraception.

But the morning-after pill controversy may change that.

Anti-lifers have developed a compelling strategy to force normalization of MAPs on America. They need income from this lucrative pill to compensate for lagging abortion sales, a downward trend they expect to continue.

To that end, they have developed a four-pronged approach. They are pressuring the Food and Drug Administration to approve over-the-counter sales of MAPs, pressuring pharmacists to fill MAP prescriptions, pressuring state governments to pressure pharmacists to fill MAP prescriptions and, most importantly, have developed a public-relations campaign to equate MAPs with birth-control pills.

Anti-lifers are ecstatic about their PR campaign. They think it will not only turn the increasingly responsive American public back away from us, it will also aggravate the dissension in our ranks on the topic of contraceptives.

I must say I love the PR campaign, too. Anti-lifers have exposed an inconsistency in our movement needing correction.

In a failed attempt last week to stop legislators from making permanent Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s recent “emergency” order forcing Illinois pharmacies to dispense MAPs, GOP state Sen. David Leitch said, “There are many [pharmacists] who believe that the morning-after pill is an act of abortion. That is a right of conscience. To use this gimmick to characterize morning-after pills as conventional contraception is simply wrong.”

No, it is not wrong. MAPs are just megadoses of the same female hormones (estrogen and/or progesterone) contained in BCPs. So both work one of three ways: They may stop ovulation; they may thicken cervical mucous, making it harder for sperm to enter the uterus; or they may stop a week-old embryo from implanting in the uterus, i.e., cause an abortion.

My guess is the bulk of pro-life organizations have steered clear of the contraceptive issue because it was already cemented in American culture when legalized abortion came along, so pro-lifers themselves didn’t make the connection, or they determined they could only handle so much at one time.

Because pro-lifers have been working so hard to stop abortion, they may not realize the point at which we’ve arrived.

We are now at a point actually beyond abortion. Anti-lifers are forcing the contraceptive issue into the public square via the MAP issue, whether or not we like it, and whether or not we think we are ready for it.

Every press release they issue about MAPs makes the connection:

• MS Magazine news brief, June 1, 2005: “[M]ore and more pharmacists are refusing to fill contraceptive prescriptions on the basis of moral or religious objections … Urge the FDA to immediately approve over-the-counter status for emergency contraception.”

• National Organization for Women press release, June 23, 2005: “Reports of pharmacists refusing to fill legally-prescribed prescriptions for birth control, including emergency contraceptives, have surfaced in states across the nation …”

• NARAL action alert, July 26, 2005: “It’s official: Americans can no longer take prescription birth control for granted … Just last month Wisconsin passed a bill to block state universities from filling birth-control prescriptions.”

The Wisconsin bill is to block the sale of morning-after pills, and it has not yet passed, by the way.

Anti-lifers now interchangeably use “prescription contraception,” “birth-control pills,” and “emergency contraceptives.”

Anti-lifers have unintentionally raised the bigger issue, which is that restoring the culture of life involves restoring the culture of sexual morality. This involves discussing not only that prescription contraceptives and the IUD likely abort, but further that the contraceptive mentality, in general, is anti-life and has opened a Pandora’s box of woes on America that stem from the sexual immorality it attracts.

The concept will be absolutely foreign and even laughable to many Americans. It is our job to educate them. It is not just abortion that kills children, exploits women and physically and emotionally damages women. Contraceptives do, too. In fact, they’re the root cause of abortion, because they establish the mindset of hate rather than love at the prospect of conceiving children through copulation.

Legally, it was the contraceptive issue that opened the door to lawful abortions. The Supreme Court in its 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision found for the first time a constitutional right to privacy. That case was about access to birth control.

Is it possible for America to return to a time of virtuous sexual behavior? I don’t know, but I’d sure like to talk about it. Thanks, anti-lifers, for bringing up the subject.