Is it wrong to sell or prescribe emergency contraceptives?
Question:
I desire to be a pharmacist and being that I already work for a pharmacy as a pharmacy technician, I supply the medical stations with medications. I was wondering what your thoughts were in regards to supplying the medication Plan B that helps to prevent pregnancy from occurring. Am I in the wrong by doing this? What about the nurse that gives the patient the medication, are they wrong in doing this?
Answer:
From a biblical point of view, life begins a conception. Things which purposely kill a child after conception is murder. The secular world has been hiding from these simple facts. A child in the womb is called a fetus to avoid thinking of it as human life. The convenience of the mother is placed above the life of the child.
In a marriage, contraceptives (things that prevent conception) can be used to manage when a couple has another child. Abortives are wrong because it murders a living child, already conceived. See "Contraceptives" for more details.
Plan B is a form of synthetic progesterone. Its goal, according to the manufacturer, is to prevent a woman from ovulating. If she doesn't ovulate, then she cannot get pregnant. The question is what happens if a woman has already ovulated and then takes Plan B or who ovulates despite taking Plan B (after all nothing is perfect). From what I've read so far, no one is certain. It appears that Plan B might alter a woman's cycle slightly and thus prevent implantation, but there is no conclusive evidence. What is known is that once a fertilized egg has been implanted in the uterus, Plan B has no effect.
This is different from RU-486 (mifepristone) which definitely causes an abortion even if the fertilized egg is already implanted in the uterus.
The real problem with the concept of emergency contraception is that they are not typically used by married couples. They are usually promoted as ways to prevent pregnancy after a rape, but commonly they are used after consensual sex where no attempt was made to use a contraceptive or that contraceptive was suspected to have failed. In other words, the typical use is to prevent consequences after fornication.
The real problem in society is fixing the acceptance of fornication. If we can shift society's thinking, then we would not have to be concerned that emergency contraceptives are just being used to cover up sin.
As a pharmacist, you aren't privy to why a woman is taking the emergency contraceptive. It is possible that some young woman wants to reduce the chance of being pregnant by a rapist. Nor can you know if a young woman sinned and has repented of her fornication.
You probably know more than I about whether Plan B can be an abortive or not. It doesn't appear to be one at this time. It is a tough call, but it is no tougher than selling a box of condoms to a seventeen-year-old.
Basically, there comes a point when you have to accept that people are responsible for their own sins (Ezekiel 18:20). You don't want to participate or encourage those sins, so clear cases where you would be helping someone sin should be avoided (Romans 1:32). When a legitimate product can be used properly but can also be misused, the responsibility really falls on the user, not the seller -- unless that seller is encouraging misuse.
