The Plan B birth control pill is supposed to be a panacea for lowering the number of abortions and unplanned pregnancies — so much so that the Obamacare health care law forces religious companies and organizations to pay for such birth control in their employee health insurance plans.
But a Planned Parenthood official is admitting that the Plan B drug Sandra Fluke worked so hard to force Americans to pay for is not getting the results the abortion business promised.
NPR interviewed one of the top officials at the nation’s biggest abortion corporation:
“While there’s a lot of data to show it can prevent pregnancy in individual women, we’ve all been disappointed that on the population level, it just hasn’t had the effect we hoped,” said Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The unintended pregnancy rate hasn’t changed at all.”
What is Planned Parenthood’s response? Spending more money promoting birth control:
Enter what we might call Plan C. Around the country, Planned Parenthood affiliates are launching a new campaign called EC4U to educate women and clinical staffs about two more effective methods of morning-after help: Paragard, the copper IUD, and “ella,” a relatively new pill that uses the hormone ulipristal acetate, rather than the levonorgestrel in Plan B and a similar pill, Next Choice.
Accumulating data suggest that Plan B has two main weak points. One is weight; it was highlighted in this week’s reports, but contraceptive specialists had known for many months that the pill’s effectiveness drops in overweight women and approaches nil in women with a Body Mass Index above 35.
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“We don’t know why,” Dr. Nucatola said. “We just know that when you look at women who take it, and stratify it by their BMI, the pregnancy rate goes up” the heavier a woman is.
The other Plan B weakness is timing. The usual window for emergency contraception is thought to be about five days; Plan B’s effectiveness appears to drop off quickly after 72 hours. Overall, its effectiveness is estimated at between 74 and 89%, Dr. Nucatola said.
Because Plan B isn’t working, Planned Parenthood is pushing a drug that is more likely to cause an abortion — ella.
“Plan B always will have its place,” Dr. Roncari said, “but I think providers are starting to realize that ella may be a more preferred pill option for women — and I think that’s where we’re heading at Planned Parenthood.”
