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Prior to Roe v Wade, all medical schools taught medical students that pregnancy was synonymous with conception and that pregnancy began with fertilization. A woman became pregnant with fertilization and human life began with fertilization. As a result of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v Wade, the medical definition of pregnancy was allowed to be politically and culturally changed so that pregnancy was redefined as the implantation of the human embryo into the uterine lining. Implantation occurs five to seven days after fertilization. This totally unscientific change in the medical definition of pregnancy was engineered so that the destruction of human life via induced abortions during the first week of pregnancy could be re-labeled as a form of contraception.

Unscientific changes in the definitions of medical terms are still occurring today, even 30 years after Roe v Wade. Today the Morning After Pill is exclusively portrayed to women as a contraceptive. The change in the definition of a contraceptive has resulted in the Morning After Pill to be advertised and promoted to women as a "quick fix contraceptive pill" that prevents pregnancy after a single act of sexual intercourse. The Morning After Pill’s ability to cause medically induced abortions of human embryos is hidden from the public. The pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession do a disservice to women by not providing them with all the information that is available about the Morning After Pill.

Women are not being informed that the Morning After Pill does not have an exclusive contraceptive drug action in preventing a pregnancy. The Morning After Pill has three pharmacological actions, i.e. a contraceptive action, an abortifacient action and a placebo action. To understand which pharmacological action of the Morning After Pill is operative in a particular case, it is necessary to review certain aspects of the medical science of human reproduction.

Assuming a normal menstrual cycle of 28 days, ovulation occurs on the 14^th day. For pregnancy to occur, fertilization of the ovum must occur within 24 hours of ovulation. Fertilization occurs in the distal, fimbriated end of the Fallopian Tube. After fertilization the ovum is a single human cell with its own unique DNA profile and is medically called a zygote. About 24 hours after fertilization and while still in the Fallopian Tube, the zygote divides into a two cell human embryo. As the human embryo continues to divide and increase in cell numbers, the cilia and muscular contractions of the Fallopian Tube propel the human embryo toward the uterus. It takes about five to seven days before the human embryo, now in the form of a blastocyt, reaches and implants in the lining of the uterus, i.e. the endometrium. The ability of the endometrium to allow the implantation of a blastocyst is under rigid control of estrogen and progesterone hormones.

If both intercourse and the administration of the Morning After Pill occur prior to ovulation, the Morning After Pill functions as a contraceptive either by inhibiting ovulation or by rendering the cervical mucus impermeable to sperm. Either of these drug actions prevents fertilization. This contraceptive action is the only pharmacological action found in the promotion and advertisement of the Morning After Pill. The possible abortifacient and placebo actions are not to be found in the advertisements of the Morning After Pill. The abortifacient and placebo actions of the Morning After Pill are discussed below.

If ovulation occurs on the same day as intercourse, fertilization can occur within five to ten minutes after intercourse. It is a scientific fact that sperm can migrate from the opening of the cervix, into the uterus and then to the end of the Fallopian Tubes to fertilize the ovum within five to ten minutes after intercourse. In this situation, if the Morning After Pill were to be taken even within one to two hours of sexual intercourse, the Morning After Pill would not function as a contraceptive but as an abortifacient by preventing the implantation of the human embryo.

The advertisement of the Morning After Pill recommends its use within 72 hours of sexual intercourse. The public is not made aware of the following information. Viable sperm are stored in the cervical crypts for up to five days after intercourse and fertilization can occur within minutes of ovulation during those five days of sperm storage. Thus if ovulation occurred at any time within a 72-hour time interval between intercourse and the administration of the Morning After Pill, fertilization of the ovum has already occurred before the Morning After Pill was taken. In this situation the Morning After Pill will prevent implantation and the developing human embryo will be aborted.

If intercourse occurred five or more days after ovulation and the Morning After Pill is taken, the Morning After Pill does not act as a contraceptive nor as an abortifacient but acts as a placebo since the ovum is incapable of being fertilized this late after ovulation. However, the Morning After Pill has a multitude of side effects that occur regardless of when it is taken. Before discussing these side effects it is necessary to understand what type of drugs and their dosages are in the Morning After Pill.

There are two pharmaceutical preparations of the so-called Morning After Pill. The pharmaceutical preparations of the Morning After Pill contain either a combination of chemically altered estrogen and progesterone (Preven) or just the chemically altered progesterone alone (Plan B). The amounts of chemically altered hormones in these drug preparations, if taken according to directions, are twelve times the single daily dose of these same drugs found in oral contraceptives known as "The Pill". Such a large increases in the dosages of these chemically altered female hormones are responsible for both the abortifacient actions and the side effects of the Morning After Pill.

Physicians who prescribe the Morning After Pill in the form of the Emergency Contraceptive Kit are required to inform the patient that there is a 25% failure rate with the use of the so-called emergency contraceptive and that surgical abortion may be necessary to terminate the pregnancy. Of the women using emergency contraception 50% report nausea and 20% have vomiting. Menstrual irregularities, i.e. changes in heaviness of bleeding or spotting, occur in 25% of women who used the Morning After Pill. Abdominal pain/cramps, headaches and breast tenderness occur in 10—20% of women who took the Morning After Pill. The manufacturers of the Morning After Pill state that a pregnancy test is indicated if menstrual bleeding does not occur within 21 days of taking the Morning After Pill. This last statement is the result of the fact that the effectiveness of the Morning After Pill in preventing/terminating a pregnancy is only 75%. This percentage is lowered even further when the Morning After Pill is not taken as recommended or when the woman is on other medications that alter the metabolism of the drugs in the Morning After Pill. Women need to be informed fully, not partially, before considering treatment decisions that will have such significant effects on their health and well being.

Jane Martellino

following individuals and groups who

Our belief is that the value of one life is truly indefinable or immeasurable.

Therefore, the Center’s existence is valid for the sake of saving or attempting to save even one life.

Our statistics show that we are accomplishing our mission. Each month for the past five years, we have received phone calls from women who are facing a crisis in their lives because of the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy.

Dr. Miech’s informative article educates and reminds us of the misleading and quite harmful effects of certain pharmaceutical products aimed at women in crisis.

We stand by our belief that Women have the right to know. Knowledge is the POWER to make the right choice. Women are faced with many choices in today’s culture and they carry with them a whole set of issues of which they need to know at the outset rather than when it is too late.

The truth is that millions of women have had abortions. Some claim that they have no regrets; however, many face a startling awareness when they become pregnant later with a "planned" child. They wish they had been told the complete truth about their "choice" before they made that fatal decision.

As part of our commitment to "A Women’s Right to Know", we have been blessed to have Dr. Mark Lowney, a Pro-Life OB/GYN with a private practice in Fall River, Ma. join our board. Due to Dr. Lowney’s inspiring commitment to the sanctity of life, he will provide for our clients an examination to confirm pregnancy, complete with sonogram. A sonogram of the unborn child clearly reveals the truth; that a new life is clearly present and not a blob of tissue as stated by abortion advocates.

Since our last newsletter, six women took a free pregnancy test of which 5 produced a positive result. Of those 5, two women were abortion minded.

Two women came to us after having their pregnancy already confirmed elsewhere and needed information on what their choices were. One has definitely chosen life, the other woman we haven’t been able to confirm her final decision.

One abortion minded women was advised over the phone since she was not willing to come into the office.

One women needed emotional support after receiving a botched abortion.

We trust that God has helped us to provide everything we could to assist women as they face a life choice.

Please pray for them.

Diapers—sizes 1,4, 5 and 6

It’s really simple…. It’s called Baby Bottle Boomerang because you distribute empty baby bottles to your church congregations, clubs, scout troops, youth groups, etc and just like a well-tossed boomerang, they come back to you… full of coins, bills, and checks. And the bottles can be used over and over again, shared by various groups and used year after year, creating a permanent fundraising promotion with much - needed support.

2. With a successful campaign, we will be able to broaden our services to women and their babies by increasing our hours with additional staff, providing much - needed material support for infants and toddlers, training of staff and volunteers, and workshops for area schools, parishes, youth groups, and other interested organizations on abstinence education.

• Those who spent some of their precious Saturday working at the yard sale and

• especially to the clean-up crew who left the Knight’s of Columbus Hall in perfect condition.

• St. Philomena grade 5 students who volunteered.

• Ida, Mary, and Jean who helped sell additional items on Sunday

In the April issue of ELLE, an internationally read women’s magazine showcasing fashion, celebrity, and contemporary lifestyle, writer Jed Dickson offers a brief but valuable commentary. As the composer of the publication’s monthly calendar of events, Dickson routinely informs readers on the launchings of plays, albums, museum openings, & other forms of diversion. A stand-out was this year’s April 25 entry in which Dickson notes "a handy illustration of the word irony", pointing out that it was both Take Our Daughters to Work Day and the 35th anniversary of the first law legalizing abortion.

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