You would think , think that a government department called “Health Canada” would be in the business of promoting health. So why would they approve for sale a drug which can destroy a human life and wreak havoc on another life? Even worse, why allow it to be sold without a prescription at pharmacies across the country?

The drug of course is the so-called morning-after pill (MAP) or levonorgestrel. It's also called Plan B. Or, in the words of dishonest physicians, pharmacists and Health Canada, it's also called “emergency contraception (EC).” Health Canada finally made the announcement last month that it would be available without prescriptions.

Promoters of the MAP—the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada (SOGC), the Canadian Pharmacists Association, most if not all of the provincial Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and of course, Health Canada—keep saying that it will reduce the number of abortions. This is interesting because none of them admit there are health risks to women who have abortions and none that I'm aware of have issued warnings or concerns about Canada's escalating abortion rates. So if abortion is not a problem, why do we need something to reduce the numbers?

Second, why do they say the MAP will reduce the number of abortions? In BC, where the pill has been available over the counter since 2002, the abortion rate has increased annually. The more sinister part of their claim is that this drug prevents pregnancies. This is a lie. The MAP is an abortifacient, that is, it can cause an abortion.

In its August 2003 Clinical Practice Guidelines for Emergency Contraception, the SOGC says: “The exact mechanisms of action of emergency contraceptives are unclear but EC could theoretically interfere with follicle maturation, the ovulatory process, cervical mucous, sperm migration, corpus luteum sufficiency, endometrial receptivity, fertilization, or zygote development, transport, or adhesion.”

In other words, there are 10 different ways that the drug could work and the SOGC has no clue which one or ones it is. However, the last three, zygote development, transport or adhesion, all have to do with the destruction of human life. Once the egg and sperm unite, the resulting zygote is human life and anything that interferes with the continued development and growth is an abortion.

On the effectiveness of the MAP, the SOGC says that levonorgestrel is 85% effective if taken within 12 hours of unprotected sex and only 60% effective if taken within 72 hours. They consider the pill to be effective if the woman doesn't get pregnant, or, if she aborts the zygote at the very early stage. To look at this another way, if the woman takes the MAP within 12 hours, she has a 15% chance of getting pregnant and if she waits longer and up to 72 hours, the failure rate (that is the pregnancy rate) is 40%. Nevertheless, the SOGC recommends levonorgestrel for use up to five days after intercourse.

(Heather Gemmen, author of “Startling Beauty”, was raped by a stranger at knifepoint in her own home. She took the MAP a couple of days after the rape and after a great deal of discussion and agony over the decision. She later discovered she was pregnant anyway.)

The SOGC also recommends that women of reproductive age “should be provided with a prescription for hormonal EC in advance of need.” That could include girls aged 11 or 12 who have begun menstruating. In fact, last month a 14-year-old girl in eastern Ontario was given the MAP and contraceptive patch by a school nurse without parental consent after the girl skipped school and had intercourse with her boyfriend.

The SOGC guidelines say that a pelvic examination is not necessary. That means that there is no need to determine whether the woman or girl is pregnant before dispensing the drug. Just assume the worst (pregnancy), dump hormones into them and hope (don't pray) for the best.

The SOGC admits that the MAP is intended “only for occasional use” but there is nothing to prevent women, or more particularly young teens, from using the pills repeatedly. It claims there are “no absolute contraindications except known pregnancy” but admits that most studies have excluded people who are at risk from oral contraceptives. It says the pill is ineffective if the woman is pregnant but admits that there have been no studies of babies born to women who have taken the MAP when pregnant. There are also few studies of women who have used the drugs repeatedly and none on the use and repeated use by teens.

On side effects, the guidelines mention nausea, vomiting, dizziness and fatigue. However, a World Health Organization study, quoted in the Lancet in April 2001, reported that of 100 women taking the recommended dose of levonorgestrel (two tablets within 12 hours of sexual intercourse and a third if vomiting occurred), one woman died of meningitis and 21 were lost to follow-up, which means no one knows what effects those 21 women had. The same Lancet letter points out that because the MAP is equivalent to a high dose contraceptive (60 times stronger), the drug has all the same side effects, which include nausea, excessive bleeding, and venous thromboembolism.

So, Health Canada has approved a drug for use by women and girls whose mechanism they do not understand, for treatment for a condition (pregnancy) that may not exist, whose effectiveness is low and whose side effects and long-term effects have been inadequately studied.

A friend of mine pointed out several years ago that women's bodies are the only place that it is still okay to dump toxic chemicals. To that, I would add that health care professionals are increasingly eager to use women as toxic dumps.

I know that that's a gross generalization. There are many caring, ethical people in these professions. Their values are not reflected in their professional bodies. It may be unfair, but unless they speak out, all of them are tarred by these organizations.