"Abortion-causing drugs"

Missouri state representative Paul Wieland is asking the courts to exempt his family from the contraception requirement of the state insurance plan.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what that means, legally: I guess he wants his family to not have coverage for contraception while under the state plan. This strikes me as asinine because - well, you can have good insurance that covers all sorts of things and just not use those things.

But beyond that very broad issue, there's this quote:

“I see abortion-inducing drugs as intrinsically evil, and I cannot in good conscience preach one thing to my kids and then just go with the flow on our insurance,” said Rep. Wieland, who has three daughters. “This is a moral conundrum for me. Do I just cancel the coverage and put my family at risk? I don’t believe in what the government is doing.”

Okay. For everyone who never took high school biology, or didn't pay attention, or went to a crappy school, let's break this down.

There are drugs which induce abortions. Probably most well-known of modern abortifacient is mifepristone, or RU-486. This drug, in high enough doses, induces abortions. For abortions, it's typically used in conjunction with another medication.

Mifepristone can also be used as a contraceptive, if taken after sex and before ovulation. It's not 100% understood, but most studies point to it preventing ovulation, rather than preventing implantation. When used in that way, it is no way an abortion-causing drug, because there is nothing to abort. The general path is intercourse and correctly-timed ovulation leads to the union of sperm and egg. Several days later, the fertilized egg attaches (or implants) on the uterine wall, and fetal development begins. If the egg does not implant, as it often doesn't because that's just how nature is, there cannot possibly be an aborted pregnancy because there is no pregnancy.

Now, let's talk about hormonal contraception, which is what most people probably think of when they think of what sort of contraceptives insurance pays for. The most commonly used is a pill taken orally, but there's also patches, vaginal rings, injections and implantable birth control devices (both a small plastic device that can be inserted just under the bicep, and an intra-uterine device). There are dozens of varieties on the market, but ultimately they all function on more or less the same mechanism: by introducing estrogen and/or progesterone type hormone into the body, they prevent ovulation and/or thickening cervical mucus to prevent sperm from reaching an egg to fertilize it.

These drugs may have some effect on the uterine lining, but there is no evidence that these changes actually prevent implantation.

So to say that the birth control medications that your insurance covers are "abortion-causing drugs" is, quite simply, completely and totally untrue. You cannot induce an abortion if there's no pregnancy.

I can't help but feel that if Mr. Wieland and those who share his attitudes took a basic high-school level biology course, they would, perhaps, feel slightly more at ease with the state of the world.