Contraception Deception: The
Abortion Rights Movement Plays Word
Games to Hide Abortion
By Ruben Obregon
Abortion rights advocates have been
accusing the pro-life movement of trying
to redefine pregnancy and reclassify
certain contraceptives as abortifacients.
In essence, they have been charging that
the movement has not been telling the
truth about contraception but instead
has been playing word games in an effort
to ban it.
The truth is, it was the abortion
rights and family planning movements
that have been playing word games for
the past few decades, and the pro-life
movement is simply trying to correct the
damage.
This decades old controversy revolves
around the definition of a single word:
conception.
Up until the mid sixties, the
question of the beginning of pregnancy
wasn't a subject of serious debate. It
was well accepted, based upon sound
science, that, that conception occurred
at fertilization (that is, the union of
sperm and egg).
It was also accepted that anything
which prevented implantation in fact
caused an abortion, as recognized by the
US Government and described in a 1963
public health service leaflet:
"All the measures which impair the
viability of the zygote [newly created
human] at any time between the instant
of fertilization [union of sperm and
egg] and the completion of labor
constitute, in the strict sense,
procedures for inducing abortion" [1]
This acknowledgement posed a problem
for the family planning movement which
was moving away from "pure"
contraceptives and more towards drugs
which also caused early abortions by
preventing implantation of a newly
created human being. The only way to
make these drugs legally and morally
acceptable to the general public was to
change the definition of conception.
This is where the American Academy of
Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) stepped
in. In 1965 the ACOG issued a medical
bulletin which "officially" changed the
definition of conception from union of
sperm and egg to implantation:
"Conception is the implantation of a
fertilized ovum [egg].” [2]
Suddenly, under this new definition,
drugs which were recognized as
abortifacients now only prevented
pregnancy – and could now be called
contraceptives.
The excuse the ACOG gave for the
change was that fertilization could not
be detected – a fact that had been
already well established. Prior to 1965,
this flawed reasoning was never formally
accepted as reason for change. It was
political agenda, not scientific
progress, which prompted the change by
the ACOG – it had nothing to do with
advances in biology, embryology, or
gynecology.
As a result of this change, over the
decades women have been told that their
contraceptives drugs didn’t cause
abortions, and that they would not work
if they were already pregnant – and
therefore morally acceptable.
But this is deceptive and based upon
misinformation and distortion of
scientific fact. Changing a definition
does not change reality – that a woman’s
body is carrying a distinct and new
human being and hence pregnant, whether
or not that fact is detectable.
Women aren’t being told the entire
truth about their contraceptives, and
it’s time for members of the ACOG to
tell their patients the truth.
The same deception is being played
out in the debate over emergency
contraception. Notice what the makers of
Plan B state regarding how their drug
works:
"Plan B® is similar to a birth
control pill and is believed to act as
an emergency contraceptive by: …Altering
the endometrium, which may inhibit
implantation …Plan B® is not effective
once the process of implantation has
begun; it will not affect an existing
pregnancy... " [3]
The ACOG has been heavily promoting
Plan B with its “Ask Me” emergency
contraception campaign. In essence, they
are peddling drugs which are capable of
causing early abortions as a solution to
preventing abortion. It doesn’t take
much to realize that abortion isn’t
prevented with an earlier abortion.
Pro-life advocates are not changing
definitions – they are simply restoring
them to their scientific meanings, free
of agenda driven bias. If the pro-choice
crowd can't do this because many
contraceptives would be known as
abortion drugs, that is no one's fault
but their own.
Note: The No Room for
Contraception Campaign is developing an
educational campaign to restore the
scientific definitions of conception and
pregnancy, expose the deceitful word
games of the ACOG, and to inform the
public that many contraceptives are also
abortifacients. To participate in this
effort, sign up at
http://www.NoRoomforContraception.com/ecsignup.htm
Footnotes
[1] Public Health Service
Leaflet no. 1066, US Dept of Health,
Education, and Welfare, 1963, 27
[2] American College of Gynecology
Terminology Bulletin (September 1965)
[3] The official Plan B website, “For
Prescribers: How Plan B Works”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ruben Obregon is the the President and co-founder of
No Room for Contraception. He has
worked in the pro-family movement for
the past 16 years on issues ranging from
education to marriage.
