Loren Pechtel

Extreme cases merely highlight problems.

Opera Nut

Good point, Pechtel.

Extreme cases also highlight the law of unintended consequences.

yguy

The question ought to be, "How can I be old enough to have sex if I'm not old enough to have a child?"

Opera Nut

yguy, your knowledge of female physiology is sorely lacking, to put it politely.

Guess you don't think about children suffering from rape and incest by their own daddies, uncles, brothers, whatever.

And I include boys in the rape victims category.

Loren Pechtel

Unintended consequences are the result of flawed laws (or whatever change was made). As humans aren't perfect some of this is to be expected.

RevDahlia

Quibble: the morning-after pill is not an abortifacient. It's essentially a high dose of progesterone and/or esrogen, and postpones ovulation. It is often confused with RU-486, the "abortion pill", but is in fact an entirely different thing.

back to my corner now.

Loren Pechtel

The morning after pill also prevents implantation. Messing with ovulation won't do any good if she has already ovulated.

fatherphil

i think the extremes tend to mask and evade the norm.

'now' was wise enough not to pursue the extreme attitude that scott peterson should not be charged with double murder because it might give credence to pro lifers because it would hurt the mainstream position of their platform.

tell me, does the morning after pill involve interference with the survival of a fertilized egg?

Dr Rick

Yes, they work primarily by preventing the ovum from implanting into the uterine lining. So do an IUD, and to some extent, birth control pills.

Daleth

Is primarily correct there, Rick? I have been under the impression that the "morning after" pill frequently works by delaying ovulation until after the sperm have had time to die. Since most pregnancies are the result of sex before ovulation, that's made sense to me. I know that it can also work by making the uterine lining inhospitable for implantation, but I'm wondering if that is more often the case than delaying ovulation. (Not that it matters to me one way or the other, just curious.)

Thanks
Dal