Texas NOW Blog

I do enjoy the gossipy, snarky PinkDome. And in the general case I love me some Bluebonnet. But yesterday's post about the alleged irony of anti-choice Senator George Allen owning stock in Barr, which makes Plan B, made my teeth itch.

NO! That's not ironic. It would be ironic if Plan B was an abortifacient. But it's not. Plan B is a form of emergency contraception - the so-called "morning after" pills. Plan B actually prevents abortion abortion because it gives women one more option if their regular birth control method fails, if they forget to use it, or if they are sexually assaulted. So if Senator Allen is such an all-out wingnut that he's against contraception, then he should dump his Barr stock. But if what he's against is abortion, then he should buy more.

Why am I so grouchy at Bluebonnet as well as the editorial peeps at the News Virginian about this? Because I hate it when misinformation about EC is perpetuated. The Folks Out There have a hard time differentiating EC from RU-486 (the 'abortion pill'). They're not the same thing. Even the government says so. EC is basically backup birth control. If you're already pregnant and you take EC, it won't do anything. RU-486 causes a medical abortion. If you're pregnant and you take RU-486, it will terminate the pregnancy. Since we're so freaky about abortion in this country, it's crucial to make sure people understand the difference.

And the timing couldn't be worse. There have been years of controversy and jackass behavior on the part of right-wing Bush adminstration officials on the issue of over-the-counter access to EC. One of them opined that making EC more widely available would lead to massive promiscuity and teenagers forming sex-based cults around its use. I'm not kidding. Resignations were tendered. Nominations were held up. Some crazy stuff went down. Now that we've finally gotten the FDA to reconsider making EC available over the counter, the last thing we need is more misinformation.

If you want to get a joke out of this mess without Alanis references, it's not hard to do. Here's a little comedy gift from me to you: the name of the FDA official who made the insane statements about sex cults is... Janet Woodcock. Y'all have fun with that.