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Subject: Fisking the Vatican on Plan B
Posted by: Perm Dude
- [5002712] Wed, Jan 07, 2009, 13:16
Just wanted to park this here (and get feedback) while I think this through.
I'm not sure I agree with the last paragraph (that Catholics may take contraception in "good conscience"), since I believe this is directly against John Paul II's "Theology of the Body." But I want to root around a bit on it.
Overall, it is hard to follow the moral teachings of anyone (or anything) when they don't appear to be getting the science right. It smacks of an already-decided mentality that doesn't sit right.
Comments welcome, of course, particularly from Catholics. |
| 1 | Boldwin
ID: 5704850
Wed, Jan 07, 2009, 13:40
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It seems to me that that blog is doing a lot of inaccessible special pleading. As well they are deceptively acting as if women take morning after pills before fertilization.
If any woman wants to say she is on a regular program of taking morning after pills as if they were normal birth control instead of a desperate after-the-fact measure to prevent an already fertilized embryo from implanting let her come forward. If anyone can see where I misread that come forward.
But it seems this author is not describing the actual use to which they are put to in real life.
That they could serve as birth control pills before the fact seems a fatuous non-issue if they are not in fact used that way.
That the moment of fertilization cannot be known and thus good data cannot be obtained seems to be his excuse to kill the baby with his left hand and point to his right hand not knowing what he is doing.
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| 2 | Perm Dude
ID: 5002712
Wed, Jan 07, 2009, 13:46
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I think the distinction being made by the Vatican is the difference between preventing fertilization and preventing a fertilized egg from implanting.
The science seems to point to Plan B as doing the former. The Vatican is saying that it is doing the latter.
I'm not sure about your point about the "regular program." Plan B has the same ingredients as the regular Pill, just in a more concentrated form. It works the same way as the Pill--by preventing fertizization. And by taking it right after the sex in question, it does the job exactly the same way (since fertilization can take place up to a week after sex).
Still reading stuff about this, though, particularly that troublesome last paragraph in the Slate article.
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| 3 | Boldwin
ID: 5704850
Wed, Jan 07, 2009, 16:37
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And by what science do you guarantee she gets this done before fertilization?
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| 4 | Perm Dude
ID: 5002712
Wed, Jan 07, 2009, 18:34
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Well, first off the drug is intended to prevent ovulation. If that fails, it works to prevent fertilization. It does not work at preventing implantation. (As noted in the article (did you read it?)):
Progestational drugs, including levonorgestrel, are used therapeutically in assisted reproduction because they increase the rate of successful implantation and pregnancy. That observation a priori reduces the likelihood that Plan B interferes with implantation; it even raises the counterintuitive but undocumented possibility that Plan B used after ovulation might actually prevent the loss of at least some of the 40% of fertilized ova that ordinarily fail spontaneously to implant or to survive after implantation.
So, in your scenerio of immediate fertilization (awfully rare, but I'll give it to you), Plan B would actually help the implantation stage if I'm reading my drug literature right.
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| 5 | Boldwin
ID: 5704850
Wed, Jan 07, 2009, 22:20
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From the Wiki entry on this...The United States FDA states that progestin-only ECPs like Plan B work by preventing ovulation. It also says "it is possible" that progestin-only ECPs may interfere with the embryo implanting in the uterine lining That sounds to me like a Catholic could not do that without arbitrarily dismissing the FDA's position.
I wonder if fertility doctors seeking to aid implantation actually use this drug in the morning-after doses which are 10x those used in 'the pill'. The blogger leaves that hanging as an unstated unspecified possibility and coincidentally as the crux of his argument ie 'these here pills actually aid implantation, to wit see fertility doctors' without addressing it which I find suspicious and dubious.
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| 6 | Perm Dude
ID: 210180
Thu, Jan 08, 2009, 01:58
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The italics in my #4 are a quote from a fertility doc, quoted in the Slate article. There is no arbitrary dismissal--these are experts seemingly at odds with each other.
Wiki, which is quoting this FDA page, has a much higher degree of uncertainty than I'd like to see in such a piece. You'd think that the FDA would either be certain about it, or not be certain enough to put that out there.
Good find. Gotta do some more digging.
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| 7 | Boldwin
ID: 5704850
Thu, Jan 08, 2009, 08:32
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Expert A says pressing this button commits a murder...
Expert B says it doesn't...
Whatchagonnado?
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| 8 | Perm Dude
ID: 210989
Thu, Jan 08, 2009, 10:14
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That's not exactly the case, even putting aside the question of "murder" since we're talking about how the drug works, not whether that action is murder or not.
One expert says it certainly doesn't work in one way, and has the day-to-day, real world experience to back it up. The other says that "it might" work the other way, and is constrainted from making strong connections on what drugs do without legally-mandated drug tests to back it up.
There are lots of drugs out there that are being used in ways that the manufacturer (and FDA) won't say work in that way because of legal constraints. It very well could be that the FDA believes it works to prevent implantation, but they take the "it might" line directly from the manufacturer's patient information packet because there are no tests to back it up conclusively.
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| 9 | Boldwin
ID: 5704850
Thu, Jan 08, 2009, 10:20
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Keeping looking for the dosage fertility doctors use to improve implantation and by what mechanism it supposedly works. I just find that bizzare.
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