Is Ella Contraception Or Abortion?

Coming soon to a store near you: the “week after” pill named “Ella.” This new drug, hailed by some as the next generation of the “morning after” birth control pill or “emergency contraception”
claims to prevent “pregnancy” up to five days after sexual intercourse.

Nearly universal access to contraception apparently wasn’t sufficient for our sexually permissive culture so—shazam!—along comes “emergency contraception”(EC). The “morning after” pill or EC is a high dose (a really high dose, at 40 times the potency) of the ordinary birth control pill. Emergency contraception claims to prevent pregnancy up to 72 hours after sexual intercourse.

Now, apparently EC isn’t enough. On June 17, an advisory committee gave its unanimous recommendation to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow the sale of “Ella” in the United States. This development is another sad indictment of our society’s impoverished view and abuse of human sexuality.

The characterization of Ella (by the FDA and others) as the next generation of “emergency contraception” is also an abuse—of truth in advertising. Ella is, in fact, closer to the abortion drug RU 486 than it is to emergency contraception.

Here is the difference. As just mentioned, EC is a high dose of the hormone progesterone which can suppress ovulation (contraceptive effect) or alter the lining of the uterus so a conceived embryo can’t implant (abortifacient effect). It is not known with certainty how often EC operates as a contraceptive versus an abortifacient.

Ella, on the other hand, is a progesterone blocker called “selective progesterone receptor modulator” (SPRM). This is the same type of drug used in the chemical abortion regimen RU 486. A SPRM works by preventing a newly conceived embryo from implanting in the uterine lining or by starving an already implanted embryo. This is an early abortion—not contraception!

This biological fact hasn’t stopped Ella supporters from claiming that it is a new form of contraception, not abortion. This claim is based on a biological sleight of hand that dates back to the advent of the birth control pill 50 years ago.

When it was discovered that one of the ways in which the Pill works is to alter the uterine lining to prevent implantation of an embryo (abortifacient), its supporters knew that would be a problem for those who might accept contraception but not abortion.

To remedy this, Pill advocates convinced key players in the medical establishment to change the definition of pregnancy from conception to implantation. By doing this, if the Pill prevented an embryo from implanting, they could claim that it was preventing a pregnancy, not ending one. This deceptive act is an example of the maxim that “verbal engineering always precedes social engineering.”

In a letter to the head of the FDA, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, expressed “grave concern” over the FDA’s move to approve an abortion drug as an “emergency contraceptive.”

“Millions of American women, even those willing to use a contraceptive to prevent fertilization in various circumstances, would personally never choose to have an abortion,” said Cardinal DiNardo. “They would be ill served by a misleading campaign to present [Ella] simply as a ‘contraceptive.’

“In fact,” the Cardinal continued, “FDA approval for that purpose would likely make the drug available for ‘off-label’ use simply as an abortion drug—including its use by unscrupulous men with the intent of causing an early abortion without a woman’s knowledge or consent. Such abuses have already occurred in the case of RU-486, despite its warning labels and limited distribution.”

As the “aging sex symbol” Rachel Welch said in a recent editorial challenging the sexually permissive culture created by the birth control pill, “we’re capable of so much better.”

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All Questions are answered by a priest of the Diocese of Lincoln and published on the Southern Nebraska Register.