Kindly Old Ron Paul Would Let You Have Emergency Contraception After ‘Honest Rape’
Lindsay Beyerstein
Guess what, ladies? Dr. Ron Paul, self-proclaimed champion of personal liberty might deign to allow you emergency contraception. Now, don’t get too excited. He’s only okay with you taking high-dose birth control pills to prevent unwanted pregnancy if you’ve been the victim of “honest rape.”
On Friday, CNN’s Piers Morgan asked Paul if he would be comfortable with his daughters or grandaughters getting an abortion if they were raped. Paul tried to dodge the question by bringing up emergency contraception. Being the generous man and compassionate physician that he is, Dr. Paul said he’d encourage these all-American, salt of the earth rape victims to get “a shot of estrogen” at the ER right away. (EC contains both estrogen and progesterone and is administered orally, but it seems clear what Paul has in mind.)
“You would allow them to abort the baby?” Morgan asked, seemingly oblivious to the distinction between EC and abortion.
“It is absolutely in limbo, because an hour after intercourse or a day afterwards, there is no legal or medical problem,” Paul replied. By which the fanatically anti-choice libertarian means that emergency contraception is okay with him (at least for “honest rape” victims) because EC is not abortion.
Anti-choicers like to conflate emergency contraception and abortion. Paul, a gynecologist by training, knows perfectly well that emergency contraception isn’t abortion. Emergency contraception prevents ovulation, it doesn’t stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, let alone terminate a pregnancy.
Like many Americans, Morgan believes that fertilization is like a carnival game: Ding! You rung the bell. Step right, up sir, and collect your prize.
I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but it doesn’t work that way. Fertilization takes place quietly days after intercourse. Besides which, a fertilized egg is not yet a pregnancy. The woman isn’t pregnant until the egg implants in the uterus. A large percentage of fertilized eggs never make it that far, even in nature. No pregnancy, no abortion.
Paul is taking advantage of Morgan’s ignorance to dodge the question. Emergency contraception works by preventing ovulation. No egg, no fertilization. That’s why EC only works during the 72 hours after unprotected sex. If the egg has already been released, the hormones can’t do anything to stop fertilization.
So, why is a self-proclaimed champion of liberty is so stingy about EC? You’d think a red blooded pro-freedom libertarian like Ron Paul, who knows perfectly well that emergency contraception isn’t abortion, would recommend it to any woman who didn’t want to be pregnant after unprotected sex, not just to some hypothetical subclass of “honest” rape victims.
[HT: Kaili Joy Gray.]
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