Morning-After Pill Access

Re “A Symbol of Sex Without Mystery,” Commentary, Dec. 21: I would sell my soul if it would bring back the world that Katie Roiphe cherishes. But that was another time. I sincerely hope that some will regain that time and others will learn of it. However, today is here, and Plan B (the morning-after pill) has a significant role to play in preventing hardship and unhappiness in untold numbers of teenagers and others I see in my practice. I can only be grateful that Plan B is available.

Robert S. Ellison MD

Obstetrician-Gynecologist

West Covina

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A part of me (actually most of me) is put off by Roiphe’s idealistic, girlish musings about sex and birth control in our culture today. She mourns the loss of sexual mores from the ‘50s and early ‘60s as she imagines they were from her readings of novels written during that period.

If she wants a true picture of those good old days, she might instead talk to some of us who actually lived through them. Then she’d learn about the “tremulous profundity” of botched illegal abortions, homes for unwed mothers, illegitimate “bastard” children and a rigid double standard for sexual behavior between men and women. These sad “norms” would be equally prevalent today if not for the advances and availability of contraceptive technology.

Susan Calhoun

Lynwood

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I do wish my parents were still alive. They had eight live births and four illegal abortions, one of which left my mother to a long, drawn-out recovery from peritonitis, adding another burden to our everyday life. My parents, working-class people already overburdened by the vicissitudes of poverty, would have welcomed such a marvel.

They would have been mystified by Roiphe’s piece, as I am, telling us that the morning-after pill may help rob our most intimate moments of real meaning.

Believe me, during the ‘50s and early ‘60s any sexual encounter for a woman was always overshadowed by the fear of pregnancy. Whatever “awe” was associated with it was fear of the “punishment.” Things have not changed all that much today for many of us.

Rhoda Shapiro

Encinitas

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Last week I started the countdown, knowing it was only a matter of hours until someone would pen the hand-wringing commentary deploring access to Plan B, the so-called morning-after pill. Roiphe’s piece arrived right on schedule. If the morning-after pill accomplishes nothing else, it will relentlessly smoke out the closet misogynists in the pro-life camp -- the element for whom, at the end of the day, it’s the simple prospect of women having sexual freedom that just sticks in the craw. What say we compromise with a warning label on every package of Plan B? It will say: This Product May Rob Your Most Intimate Moments of Real Meaning. Do Not Use Unless You Feel 6 Billion Is Enough Already.

Margaret J. Daugherty

Los Angeles

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In her Dec. 20 letter, Martha Swiller expresses her hope that “science wins out over ideology” in debating the use of the morning-after pill. Yet her letter includes statements that contradict basic tenets of biology.

Abortion, by definition, is the termination of a pregnancy. Any chemical agent that prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg into the uterus is an abortifacient. Pregnancy begins not with implantation but with fertilization. Any high school biology textbook explains this. This is why pro-lifers (not extremists) oppose abortion and emergency contraception, because in both cases a life is destroyed. This is not a statement of ideology but a fundamentally sound statement of science.

Noel D’Angelo

Thousand Oaks

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I’m curious about Michael J. Allegretti’s proposal to develop an afternoon-before pill which “could be ingested by females, and it would enable them to realize that the grave risks associated with unprotected sex are not limited to an unwanted pregnancy” (letter, Dec. 20).

Assuming such a pill could be created, why would it be given specifically to females? Is it because males are immune to these grave risks (presumably sexually transmitted diseases)? Or because males already realize how grave the risks are but are pressured into sex by females? Or could it be the outdated notion that males are supposed to try to have as much sex as possible, while females are supposed to stop them, and therefore if there is an unwanted pregnancy it’s the woman’s fault?

Anne Schwarz

Los Angeles