Take Action - Talking Points
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NARAL P.O. Box 279 |
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Talking Points:
Please use these talking points to help us educate Montanans about how EC has the potential to prevent thousands of unplanned pregnancies in the U.S.
Emergency contraception (EC) is often called the nation’s best-kept health secret.
It can effectively prevent pregnancy if taken within days after sex.
EC is not abortion and should not be confused with the drug mifepristone (RU 486), an early option for nonsurgical abortion.
Studies have shown that increased access to EC has the potential to prevent half of the approximately three million unintended pregnancies in America each year.
Additionally, increased use of EC could reduce the annual number of abortions by half – EC use prevented over 50,000 abortions in 2000 alone.
Each year, approximately 25,000 women in the United States become
pregnant as a result of rape. An estimated 22,000 of these pregnancies could
be prevented if sexual assault victims had timely access to EC.
Being pro-choice means enabling women to control their own reproductive lives. Whatever one’s stance on the abortion issue, all should be able to agree that women deserve access to contraceptive methods that help prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place.
EC meets the FDA criteria for over-the-counter drug status: it is safe, effective, and easily administered.
The FDA advisory committee overwhelming voted to approve EC for over- the-counter use, but political ideology got in the way of science.
We cannot allow political ideology to take priority over women’s health.
Over-the-counter access to EC is important because EC must be used in a timely fashion in order to be effective. For example, if a couple is faced with a broken condom on a Friday night and a woman’s doctor’s office is closed over the weekend, she might have to wait until the following Monday – three days later – to obtain a prescription. Women in rural areas may have to travel great distances to reach the nearest doctor or clinic, making a prescription within the relevant time frame after unprotected sex difficult, even impossible, to obtain.
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