FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: December 7, 2011

CONTACT: Stephen Phelan 540-622-5270 – SPhelan@hli.org – www.hli.org

HHS Plan B Decision A Welcome Surprise; Now Overturn Contraceptive Mandate

FRONT ROYAL, Virginia — The following statement was released today by Human Life International President Father Shenan J. Boquet in response to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decision to keep the emergency contraceptive Plan B from being offered to girls under 17 years of age without a prescription:

"This is a surprising development, and a welcome one, but we remain very concerned about the fact that Secretary Sebelius is apparently standing by her very controversial decision to mandate contraception and sterilization coverage in all private health care plans under ObamaCare.

“If this decision by Secretary Sebelius is truly about protecting the health of young women, then she will reconsider the HHS rule forcing private insurers and employers to pay for services to which they are diametrically opposed.

“But, if this move is intended as a pragmatic one to alleviate concerns of those, such as the Catholic bishops, who are rightly concerned with her department's activist promotion of contraception, then it will fail in its objective. The mandate must be reversed, and soon."

About HLI: Human Life International: Pro-Life Missionaries to the World. Founded in 1981, HLI is the world’s largest international pro-life organization and has affiliates and associates in over 100 countries on six continents. www.hli.org

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For more information on Plan B emergency contraception, see below...

Excerpt from "Promised Objectivity, Americans Receive Planned Parenthood Ideology" by HLI America National Director Arland K. Nichols, published on The Public Discourse: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/09/4031.

[…] numerous studies show that greater access to oral contraception and emergency contraception does not in fact reduce unintended pregnancies or abortion. Below is a sampling of relevant research:

Effect of Oral Contraception Use on Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion Rates:

A 2011 study by David Paton in the Journal of Health Economics, showed that “no evidence is found that the provision of family planning reduces either underage conception or abortion rates.”

A 2011 study by Peter Arcidiacono of Duke University stated that for teenagers “[the] results suggest that increasing access to contraception may actually increase long run pregnancy rates even when short run pregnancy rates fall. On the other hand, policies that decrease access to contraception, and hence sexual activity, may lower pregnancy rates in the long run.”

Effect of Emergency Contraception on Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion Rates:

A 2010 study by the Cochrane Library reviewed eleven randomized control trials that showed that readily available emergency contraception did not reduce unintended pregnancy rates. Chelsea Polis of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a proponent of easy access to emergency contraception concluded: “Our review suggests that strategies for advance provision of emergency contraception which have been tested to date do not appear to reduce unintended pregnancy at the population level.”

Another earlier review of eight studies by the Cochrane Library elicited the following response from James Trussell of Princeton University:

For individual women, it is definitely a last chance to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. But it is not going to have a major population impact because people will never use it enough . . . If women aren't going to use Plan B when they are given it for free in a clinical trial and are counseled beforehand about using it every single time they have unprotected sex, then having to go to CVS and having to pay $45 each time—it isn't going to happen.

(Oddly enough, Trussell is one of the primary peer-reviewed sources used by the IOM to justify free provision of contraception, including emergency contraception.)

A 2007 study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology by Raymond et. al. concluded that “increased access to emergency contraceptive pills enhances use but has not been shown to reduce unintended pregnancy rates.” A November 2006 study in the same journal led the same lead author to conclude that increased access to emergency contraception “did not show benefit in decreasing pregnancy rates.”

In 2004, Contraception published a study by Glasier et. al. that showed that in spite of free provision of emergency contraception to 18,000 women, “no impact on abortion rates was measurable. While advanced provision of EC probably prevents some pregnancies for some women some of the time, the strategy did not produce the public health breakthrough hoped for.”

A 2005 study by T. Raine et al. published in the Journal of the American Medical Association yielded similar results. The authors concluded that “while removing the requirement to go through pharmacists or clinics to obtain EC increases use, the public health impact may be negligible because of high rates of unprotected intercourse and relative underutilization of the method.”

A survey like this reveals that conclusions are far from unanimous regarding the effect of oral contraceptives on unintended pregnancy and abortion rates. However, the report produced by the IOM does not reflect this uncertainty, nor the weight of evidence that suggests that access to oral contraception has little to no effect at a population level. On the other hand, the data is homogeneous in regard to emergency contraception, and it points to a conclusion opposite of the IOM committee’s. All told, the studies reveal that while there are many “professional and editorial opinions” that emergency contraception should be made readily available, and “professional projections” that it could reduce unintended pregnancies, the author was unable find a single study indicating that it is actually effective in reducing unintended pregnancies or abortions in real population groups.