PZ Myers points out how yet again, misconceptions about emergency contraception, also known as Plan B, keep fooling the mainstream news. Some people have an ideological axe to grind with plan B, and their efforts pervade everything from the FDA, to the media, to our little home-grown Davis Wiki. Why do people actively promote falsehoods?
Plan B is in the midst of political turmoil. It was supposed to have been approved as an over-the-counter medication, however, its non-prescription release is being stalled in the FDA via standard politics. Opponents to Plan B are inventing extra hurdles for this pill to cross to keep it out of reach of people who want it, well, because it doesn’t fit in with their ideology. But what ideology is that?
First, Plan B is a progesterone-based contraceptive that prevents ovulation, thus preventing conception and pregnancies. When taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, it can be an effective emergency contraceptive. For those interested in preventing unwanted pregnancies, and thus reducing abortions, you’d expect that they would be all in favor of this being available at a moments notice.
But no, the group that is opposed to plan B is precisely the same group of people that are opposed to abortions. According to the literature that they distribute, plan B is an abortifacient - it causes abortions. So therefore, they line up against it. (It is also often confused with RU-486, which is an abortifacient)
But there is no evidence for this claim. The progesterone in the pill suppresses follicle development, preventing the release of an egg. It has not been found to prevent implantation, and in fact, progesterone is used in fertility treatments to encourage implantation! Their claim allegedly stems from the fact that the uterine lining thins a little when plan B is taken. However, the medical community rejects the notion that plan B acts in this way at all.
I don’t consider preventing implantation to be a big issue at all. Personally, I would rather have an emergency measure that prevents ovulation AND implantation AND kills sperm. But there are people that are OK with contraception but not OK with preventing implantation, so if they want to make decisions based on that point of view, then they are free to do so.
Therefore, we have a responsibility to present factual information and not mislead anyone for ideological purposes. In my regular browsing through the Davis Wiki, an excellent example of a community coming together to create an encyclopedia about their own college town, I happened upon the contraception page.
I noticed an odd claim - that Intrauterine Devices, also known as IUDs, cause abortions:
They work by preventing implantation of fertilized eggs, and are therefore considered by some to be causing abortions.
If you go the the contraception page, you’ll see that this statement is no longer there, because after researching the claim I found it to be not only false, but just plain stupid. IUDs prevent pregnancies by destroying the eggs and sperm before they ever meet each other, including halting sperm motility just in case they don’t all get killed. I edited out the falsehood and put in the actual facts. (long live the wiki!)
When I looked at the history of the page, I noticed that a few people had kept adding in little addendums to the descriptions of contraception, such as stating that this contraception is an abortifacient, or that one prevents implantation, many people believe that taking this kills babies, etc. Granted, their point of view should be represented, and they added “abstinence” in to several wiki pages about sex, but as for unconfirmed and dubious hypotheses that are ideologically motivated, forget it.
The former president of the local club Students for Life, Colin Wen, had an interesting discussion going on his own page, about his efforts to insert his point of view into the wiki, and even there we find someone who disagrees with him saying that IUDs are “100% abortive.” Take a look at this statement from Colin about Emergency Contraception:
I doubt it was confirmed. That study was done by a quite liberal group. In fact they help fund the American Society of Emergency Contraception. All Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion websites all list the same fact. That the EC pill does thin the uterine wall. This is a website I found on some of the studies
http://www.polycarp.org/postfertilization_polycarp_1.htm All medicines have their side effects listed with them. That was merely what I was doing by mentioning that birth control can cause abortions. Because it can.
Yes, the Emergency Contraception pill and IUDs have been found to thin the uterine lining, which is what they’ve been harping about. But the problem is, the data about the thinning of the uterine lining comes from a different part of the menstrual cycle than ovulation. During ovulation, hormones such as progesterone thicken the uterine lining, and implantations do indeed occur. Point of fact - my romantic partner developed from a fertilized egg that implanted into her mother’s uterus even though she had an IUD at the time.
The medical community, both pro-choice and anti-abortion doctors, stand pretty firmly behind the contention that these methods of contraception, along with others, do not affect implantation. Furthermore, So why do these folks continuously promote it? I’m willing to consider that it is the result of ignorance, or searching for possible evidence for their point of view without looking at the other side.
If you take a look at the link in his quote, you’ll quickly notice that this Polycarp “Institute” also claims that abortions cause breast cancer. This dubious claim is similar to abother one that circulates around the advocacy groups, that birth control pills cause breast cancer, which is all part of an effort to get women to stop using birth control. They elevate the actual increased risk of breast cancer, and totally ignore the fact that birth control pills have been associated with reducing the risk of several other cancers!
The one constant in organizations such as the Polycarp Institute Catholic organization is that they are against contraception itself, along with abortion. When you go to their website, you have no idea what the bulk of the medical literature says, nor whether the couple of studies that they cite had methodological problems, funding issues, etc, and so you can be easily misled to believe that research supports your pre-determined conclusion.
It is no different than the groups that cite some obscure study to claim that evolution is impossible or never happened, that genetic engineering will destroy the world, that prayer helps cure sick people, or that a comet is about to blow us all up. Typically, the conclusion of the study doesn’t even support what they are claiming anyhow.
This reveals another level to these kinds of issues. First, you have misleading information about contraception and abortion being posted on a website. Then you have several individuals who could be very honestly searching for support for their views on the internet. When they come across the website in question, they latch onto those claims and promote the falsehood. Folks such as Colin Wen may actually believe what they are saying is true, which is where this can become problematic. In effect, they are unconsciously being manipulated by an ideology - that of the Polycarp website.
But on the other hand, it is probably not very unconscious at all:
Chastity is the only way. —JimSchwab
Perhaps if we mention STDs and pregnancy every other line, it’ll have that effect. —JessicaLuedtke
Jessica is one of the folks who added these little addendums to the page that I had to delete, and here she quite plainly admits that the goal is to make people become chaste. As in - scare them away from sex. Indeed, they are more about promoting a particular sexual ethic than being “pro-life.” When you take into account the misleading statements about contraception = abortifacients, birth control causing cancer, abortion causing cancer, and abortion causing depression, (also FALSE) remember that they are cherry-picking information to build a false conclusion merely to advance a particular sexual ethic.
This is beyond accidental or willful ignorance, this is the promotion of unsupported conclusions based upon wishful thinking and fueled by an ideological agenda, and calling it science, calling it established fact. No matter what our political or social stripes, we all have a duty to each other to present ourselves honestly, and if we are to make factual claims to make sure that those claims are backed up by reality. Like I said, I don’t personally consider preventing implantation to be an issue, I am concerned with the fact that there are people who do, and by buying into this nonsense, they are just being controlled by an ideology rather than basing their decisions off of facts.
Let me give you something to think about when you encounter folks who for religious reasons are arguing against forms of contraception. This comes from Colin Wen, a Catholic:
Withdrawal or sterilization in view of the Catholic Church and the eyes of God is a completely selfish act that deprives God, your partner, and yourself of the most beautiful act he gave us. Intercourse is a largely selfless act in that you give to your partner and to God your openness to his will and to the creation of new life.
Therefore, as they have argued in the Abortion Debate page on the wiki, any contraception is wrong. But they know that people who do not share their religion will not be persuaded by religious-based arguments, which is why they try to form secular arguments based upon misleading or false information. In this case, they’re trying to get you to act Catholic.
And the funny thing is, my partner’s mother had an IUD, and she was Catholic. I think most Catholics can tell that the rabidly anti-contraception position of their church is mal-formed.
Finally, something interesting to think about - a piece of news I discussed on my show once. Apparently, pregnant women who are stressed out may abort their fetuses automatically. And here’s the real interesting part - they will preferentially abort the male fetuses. Funny how most of the people railing against abortion are other men…?
Let’s see if they’ll try to outlaw stress! Or being female…
