For people who don’t choose to burden themselves unduly with thinking, Plan B is a wonder drug — a final and reliable bulwark against unwanted pregnancy, and it can’t even be called an abortion! Reproductive-rights love Plan B because it further empowers women to “choose.” And pro-life types love it (or at least they should, goes the narrative) because the drug prevents the fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, so it’s not quite the same thing as an abortion. The girl or woman who uses this drug is relieved of some of the moral consequences of surgical abortion because at the time she takes it, she doesn’t even know whether she is (or might be) pregnant.
This week, the controversy over Plan B unexpectedly has put the Obama administration on the side of the angels, or at least nudges the administration toward the angels’ half of the room. The administration wants to limit over-the-counter sales of Plan B to girls 17 and older. A court ruled it shall be made available to girls 15 and older.
This piece, from National Review Online, is for people who dare to move past the superficialities of Plan B:
Plan B, a drug which does nothing to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, creates a false sense of security. The convenience of over-the-counter access may encourage teens to engage in risky behavior that will have life-long consequences.
I find it outrageous that a decision of this magnitude can be made, independently, by a 15-year-old.
But that’s not the most outrageous aspect of the court ruling. As the author of the NRO piece, Anna Franzonello, points out, most males who impregnate underage girls are adult “men,” not hapless, fumbling boys. This also makes it easier for such “men” to compel their partners to make the problem go away. After all, it’s one thing to persuade a girl to take a pill to head off a baby that doesn’t exist and may not even have been conceived; quite another to get her into an abortion clinic to kill an unborn baby that is now a part of her. And you never know, you might encounter someone at the abortion clinic whose ethics compel her to turn in the “father” for statutory rape. I know, it’s doubtful, but it could happen. With ready availability of Plan B, none of these considerations apply.
We all should be concerned about the coarsening and moral diminution of our society when killing — whether in a late-term abortion, a la the Gosnell case in Philadelphia, or the simple ingestion of a pill that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus and therefore dies — is viewed by large numbers of people as a positive good.
Plan B, like abortion rights and the Pill and all the rest, is not really something that empowers women or gives them “choice” in exercising their reproductive rights. What it does is empower men to prey on young girls and greatly improves their chances of getting away with it. And the left accuses Republicans, who tend to oppose this sort of thing, of waging a war on women.