CWA Leader Decries Politicians' Bid to Help Plan B Bypass FDA Approval
by Mary Rettig
November 21, 2005
(AgapePress) - - The executive vice president of Concerned Women for America (CWA) says some lawmakers are trying to set a dangerous precedent in their efforts to allow an abortion drug to be sold over the counter.Four members of Congress -- Representatives Carolyn Maloney, Chris Shays, Joseph Crowley, and Jay Inslee -- recently introduced a bill that would allow the non-prescription sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the manufacturer's application. However, CWA's Wendy Wright believes these lawmakers are ignoring public safety for the sake of their own ideology.
Wendy Wright | |
"We might as well do away with the FDA and just leave it in the hands of politicians," Wright asserts. "It's a ludicrous proposal, and it shows how politicians in favor of abortion are really living in glass houses. They throw stones, claiming that politics has trumped science when it comes to the morning-after pill."According to the CWA spokesperson, these politicians are even claiming political pressure was used to keep Plan B from being approved. Meanwhile, it is these pro-abortion lawmakers themselves, she contends, who are in fact using their political power to get their way.
Although Wright believes the bill to authorize the sale of Plan B prior to FDA approval is unlikely to pass, she feels the fact that lawmakers believe they have the power to bypass public safety concerns is disturbing. The proponents of the bill "make the false argument that easy access to Plan B would reduce pregnancies and reduce abortions," she says, "but in fact, their own studies refute that. Their own studies show that when you have easy access to the morning-after pill, there is no reduction in pregnancies and there is no reduction in the number of abortions."
A low dose of the drug used in Plan B can be used for birth control, but it is only available by prescription, Wright points out. It makes no sense whatsoever, she contends, for a high dose of the same drug to be available over the counter, or for lawmakers to be the ones making that decision.
Mary Rettig, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
