Argentina places morning-after pill over the counter

J-P Mauro - published on 06/03/23

The new legislation does away with the requirement for a prescription to obtain "emergency contraceptives," as well as scrapping age minimums.


Argentina has eased access to so-called emergency contraceptives, also known as “the morning-after pill” or “Plan-B,” after the government decided to remove the requirement for a prescription. The move is said to broaden “reproductive rights” in the South American nation, the homeland of Pope Francis, where it is estimated that over 90% of the population identifies as Catholic.

Emergency contraceptives are pills that introduce hormones to the body, but there is debate about how the pills might act.

Two days before Christmas in 2022, the FDA in the United States changed its Drug Facts Label for Plan B One-Step (PBOS), a popular form of chemical abortion, removing language that, since 2006, had stated that it “may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium).”

“The FDA’s action has created the impression that PBOS and similar, generic levonorgestrel-based drugs used for ’emergency contraception’ (LNG-EC) have no effect on the survival of a human being conceived following sexual assault,” says a formal response to the FDA’s action from the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

“The FDA did not fully address a well-known concern that LNG- EC can prevent pregnancy even after it fails to prevent ovulation,” the NCBC said. “Since this important issue was not resolved and concerns about LNG-EC’s post-fertilization effects remain, the National Catholic Bioethics Center will maintain its longstanding position that Catholic health care institutions and professionals should ensure with moral certitude (that is, by excluding any reasonable doubts), at a minimum, that LNG-EC is not dispensed when it could not prevent ovulation but may well cause the death of an embryo. Catholics should resist legislation that requires dispensing of LNG-EC on the basis of a negative pregnancy test alone.”

More:
https://aleteia.org/2023/06/03/argentina-places-morning-after-pill-over-the-counter/