(LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced Thursday that it has approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, which starting next year will be available regardless of age.
The Associated Press reports that the FDA has approved Opill, manufactured by Irish company Perrigo, to be sold without a prescription. The pill, which is meant to be taken at the same time every day, uses progestin to block sperm from reaching the cervix, according to the manufacturer. The move follows a unanimous vote in May by a panel of outside advisers to the agency.
“This is really a transformation in access to contraceptive care [sic],” said Ibis Reproductive Health president Kelly Blanchard. “Hopefully this will help people overcome those barriers that exist now.”
“Common side effects of the pill include bleeding, headaches, dizziness, nausea and cramps, according to the FDA,” the AP reports. “The label also cautions that certain drugs can interfere with Opill’s effectiveness, including medications for seizures, HIV and hypertension.” The report adds that the pill could encourage the growth of tumors in women with a history of breast cancer.
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Prior to that May vote, the FDA had expressed concern that the company’s instructions were not sufficiently clear for women with medical complications, and that in one of Perrigo’s studies 30% women reported taking more pills than were actually distributed for the study, throwing off the company’s data about the results.
Progestin-based contraceptives like Opill and Plan B are commonly promoted as alternatives to abortion because they supposedly prevent pregnancy rather than end it. In January, the FDA amended Plan B’s label to “clarify” that it was not an abortifacient. But such drugs do in fact have abortifacient potential, and whether they prevent conception or implantation depends on when they are taken relative to a woman’s cycle.
Donald Trump has suggested a 6-week abortion ban is ”too harsh”, attacking Gov. Ron DeSantis for his bill protecting innocent human life after 6 weeks.
Obviously pro-lifers wish to protect all human life from conception with outright abortion bans.
SIGN: Donald Trump MUST support pro-life legislation
The former president said he is ”looking at all alternatives” when asked if he would support such a 6-week ban, making this a crucial opportunity for pro-life voters to make their views known to him in no uncertain terms.
“He has to do what he has to do,” Trump said about Gov. DeSantis’ abortion bill. “If you look at what DeSantis did, a lot of people don’t even know if he knew what he was doing. But he signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh.”
Anyone truly in the pro-life movement thinking the ban is too harsh must mean it’s too harsh on those babies less than 6-weeks who can still be murdered.
Mr. Trump’s outlandish claim about anyone in the pro-life movement opposing the ban is doubtful to say the least, but there was more to follow in the interview.
When pressed on whether he thought the bill was ”too harsh”, Trump would not answer directly, instead saying: ”I’m looking at all alternatives. I’m looking at many alternatives. But I was able to get us to the table by terminating Roe v. Wade. That’s the most important thing that’s ever happened for the pro-life movement.”
The former president is correct in saying the overturning of Roe v. Wade was a monumental step for the pro-life movement, but it should only be the beginning of banning the killing of babies in the womb entirely.
Donald Trump’s belief that even a 6-week abortion ban is extreme spells trouble for every citizen concerned about ending abortion, which is why we need you to take part in this urgent petition to him.
SIGN & SHARE: We must change Donald Trump‘s mind on abortion
Our true loyalty is to innocent human beings facing death, none more so than those in the womb, and any candidate who prevaricates about something so important to building a civilized society has to be corrected.
We urge all Republican candidates to advocate for a total ban on abortion, without any exceptions – not just at 6-week’s gestation as an incremental measure.
SIGN & SHARE our petition urging Donald Trump to do the right thing.
MORE INFORMATION:
Trump distances himself from 6-week abortion ban by DeSantis: ‘Too harsh’ – LifeSiteNews
“If Plan B is taken five to two days before egg release is due to happen, the interference with the LH signal prevents a woman from releasing an egg, no fertilization happens, and no embryo is formed,” Dr. Donna Harrison of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists explains, citing numerous studies. However, if the pill is taken during the “two-day window in which embryos can form but positive pregnancy tests don’t occur,” studies indicate it “has a likely embryocidal effect in stopping pregnancy.”
Further confusing the issue is the manipulation of semantics by activists in the medical establishment. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a purportedly-impartial medical authority that in reality is heavily pro-abortion, redefined “conception” in the 1960s to refer to implantation rather than fertilization, for the purpose of making contraception more culturally acceptable.
Even so, a 2011 survey found that most OB/GYNs continued to say life begins at fertilization, not implantation, and a 2019 survey found that 96% of biologists “affirmed that a human’s life begins at fertilization.”
With last year’s overturn of Roe v. Wade allowing states to directly ban abortion, which fourteen states have done so far, left-wing activists have identified easier distribution of abortion and birth control pills as one of the most effective ways to preserve abortion “access,” even at the expense of patient safety.
Under the Biden administration, the FDA has eliminated the requirement that abortion pills only be dispensed in-person to the women taking them, and the Biden Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has declared that abortion pills may be freely mailed across the country, despite the fact that a provision of a 150-year-old law called the Comstock Act that expressly says the opposite.
A 2020 open letter from a coalition of pro-life groups to then-FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn noted that the FDA’s own adverse reporting system says the “abortion pill has resulted in over 4,000 reported adverse events since 2000, including 24 maternal deaths. Adverse events are notoriously underreported to the FDA, and as of 2016, the FDA only requires abortion pill manufacturers to report maternal deaths.”
Pro-lifers warn that with the Biden administration completely eliminating requirements that abortion pills be taken under any medical supervision or with medical support close by, those events are certain to increase.
The FDA has been accused of putting political ideology over sound medicine on other issues, as well, from approving COVID-19 shots for children to gutting restrictions on sexually-active homosexuals donating blood.
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