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Emergency Contraception: Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

At the Life Training Institute Blog, Rich Poupard writes about a rather astonishing web seminar (accessible here) in which Dr. James Trussell made some candid admissions about the failure of emergency contraception to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancy.

Emergency Contraception: Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

Trussell’s page on Princeton’s website notes that he is “a senior fellow at the Guttmacher Institute and a member of the board of directors of the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, The Guttmacher Institute, the Society of Family Planning, and a member of the National Medical Committee of Planned Parenthood Federation of America”. It further notes that Trussell “has actively promoted making emergency contraception more widely available as an important step in helping women reduce their risk of unintended pregnancy…”

According to Poupard, Trussell acknowledged the following:

  1. Trussell previously hoped (published in 1992) that EC would reduce unintended pregnancies and abortion by half.
  2. 15 years later 11 studies have consistently showed no decrease of pregnancy rates from use of ECs.
  3. Trussell also stated that a future decrease in pregnancy rates from EC use is highly unlikely – an astounding admission…
  4. Due to difficulties in estimating the expected pregnancy rates, the published efficacy in the package insert of EC is almost certainly too high.

Where’s the Outrage?

Poupard observes:

This is amazing stuff. Since there was extensive news coverage of the effort to get Plan B to OTC status, why the silence in the wake of information that Plan B will not effect pregnancy or abortion rates? Imagine the outcry if a heart medication was thought to reduce heart attacks by 95% – and was made over-the-counter in order to increase its availability to reduce heart disease. A year later evidence comes out that no study had ever found that it had any effect on heart attack rates, and that the only thing that could be said about it is that it is “probably better than nothing”. There would be a great outcry, congressional hearings, and accusations that the evil pharmaceutical companies were gouging unsuspecting patients. However, so far there has not been a peep among those concerned about “women’s health” that they could be promoting an expensive medication that may not be effective.

Declarations from Post-Abortive Women Sought

If you know someone who has had an abortion or has been involved in someone else’s abortion, have them contact Operation Outcry, which is looking to collect a million declarations from those who have experienced abortion first-hand in an effort to show the Supreme Court how abortion has harmed men, women, and our society at large.

Our Continuing Court Battles against Planned Parenthood

Our fight against Planned Parenthood in the courts is continuing, and every day that goes by brings us one step closer to getting to the bottom of Planned Parenthood’s lies in coming into Aurora and, God willing, one step closer to kicking them out.

Tom Brejcha and Peter Breen at the Thomas More Society have been working tirelessly as well as getting some input from some attorneys from Washington D.C. who contributed to the NOW v. Scheidler trial.

All the attorneys are very excited about these cases. We could see some big waves rippling out from Aurora, IL in the coming years. Here’s an update of what’s happening in each of the three cases currently in court:

Frachey et al. v. Planned Parenthood

Our zoning case [PDF] against Planned Parenthood and the City of Aurora has been filed. We are currently in legal limbo of waiting for the attorneys for the defense to reply to our complaint. They have till March 20 to file that reply. If past performance is any indication of future results, we will likely be waiting till the 20th to get that reply.

Once we get their reply, our attorneys will go over it and file a response to it. After that, the trial will begin in earnest. Look for that to happen late March or early April. We will, of course, keep you updated as developments occur.

Fox Valley Families Against Planned Parenthood et al. v. The City of Aurora

When we filed our 1st Amendment case against the City of Aurora, the city’s attorneys immediately called for a settlement conference to try to brush this thing under the rug. Unfortunately for them, this case is far too big for that.

You may have heard about the original date set for that conference, which was Ash Wednesday, but it didn’t happen that day. Our attorneys needed a little more time to build up a rock solid case against the City and PP, so the conference has been rescheduled for Wednesday, March 26, which is Easter Wednesday. What an encouraging day to have a lawsuit! Pray that new life will triumph.

Elizabeth and Roger Earl et al. v. Steve Trombley

Finally, the libel case [PDF], which has found itself on the back burner for a while now, through no fault on our side. The defense hired a high powered Chicago attorney, Leah Bruno, who has worked for the likes of McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and Prudential insurance. You can look her up here. Ms. Bruno asked for more time to review our case, so we’ve been waiting several weeks to give her time to do that.

The next action on that case will take place March 19, and after that, much like the zoning case, we will respond to her reply to our complaint, the the trial will get rolling in earnest.

All three lawsuits are rolling along nicely, though law, like most government operations, takes time. Our attorneys could not be more excited, both about our chances and about the implications these cases could have nationwide.

As always, pray hard for our attorneys and the judges for wisdom, and for the PP, the city, and their attorneys that they might fall into their own nets, as the psalmist says, or experience glorious conversion.

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