By Stephen Phillips M.D. | Echo
To help people in the Taylor community understand the issues in the lawsuit regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which Taylor recently joined, some statements in the article "Mythbusters: contraceptives edition" in the Nov. 21 edition of The Echo need to be clarified.
It is true that oral contraceptives (birth control pills) are used for purposes other than contraception. But oral contraceptives play no role in Taylor's lawsuit because the university's current insurance plan covers oral contraceptives.
Plan B, a post-coital contraceptive that contains levonorgestrel, prevents conception by suppressing ovulation, stopping mature eggs from being released by the ovaries. Levonorgestrel is a synthetic form of progesterone, a hormone involved in the reproductive system, that is also used in some birth control pills.
Some people have expressed concern that when levonorgestrel is used to prevent pregnancy after unprotected intercourse (as Plan B is used), it might work not just by preventing ovulation but by interfering with the embryo's implantation in the uterus following conception. The best available medical evidence indicates this is not the case.
However, the ACA also requires coverage of ella, a second medicine that is used after intercourse to prevent pregnancy. Ella contains ulipristal, which mimics the abortion drug mifepristone. Mifepristone is marketed to perform medical abortions. Ulipristal is marketed as a post-coital contraceptive, but unlike levonorgestrel, it appears to work, at least a significant part of the time, by interfering with implantation. Ella prevents an early embryo from being able to survive and develop.
The ACA requires all insurance plans to cover both Plan B and ella. Required coverage of ella is the best reason to have a moral objection to the law. For Christians who believe an embryo has full moral status and should be treated with the same respect as any other human being, it is wrong to use a drug that interferes with the development of an embryo after conception.
Those who support the use of ella say that using ella does not cause abortions because an abortion can only occur after the woman is pregnant. By their standards, a woman is not pregnant until after the embryo implants in the uterus. That misses that point of the moral objection to using ella.
No matter when we define the beginning of a pregnancy, the concern is about the new human life formed at the time of conception. Since ella may prevent a human embryo from developing, leading to the death of that embryo, there is reason to say the use of ella is wrong. The requirement to provide ella as part of the university's health plan is sufficient reason to oppose the law on moral grounds.
