The Morning After

By AM Tuesday, January 18, 2011

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It’s great news and I’m flabbergasted it’s only happening now in 2011 when the pill itself has been available since the 1980s. I wasn’t aware that GPs would have the time or inclination for any ‘counselling’ after dispensing the morning after pill!? I recall getting it, in Dublin, way back in the mid 1980s….the only counselling back then involved being ‘scolded’ by a family planning doctor and given a polite warning that women like me “ended up on the boat” sooner or later … I’m sure we’ll hear more blubbering from the pro-life lobby and the last of the religious loons this week, waxing lyrical about how availability of this ‘abortive’ pill will encourage people to run out of their houses immediately and try to have sex. - June Caldwell

When I learned that Boots were to issue prescription-free morning after pills over the counter it struck me as a further strengthening of women’s rights and opportunities against those, some belonging to men only religious groups, who would try to impose their own manufactured morality on them.

The morning-after pill is an emergency measure that can prevent an unwanted pregnancy developing if taken in the first 72 hours after unprotected sex. The Family Planning Centre advise that it is likely to be more effective the earlier it is taken. The initiative by Boots cuts out the need for a doctor’s approval. With time not being lost by visits to doctors the effectiveness of the pill is increased. Boots have made a much needed move, long delayed. Better late than never.

Having, in the words of the Irish Times, spotted ‘an amendment to legislation in 2005 which meant emergency contraception could be offered by pharmacists if they operated under a protocol drawn up by a doctor’ Boots launched its initiative. The protocol for Boots has been drawn up by its own medical director, Dr Graham Marshal, who while based in Britain is registered with the Irish Medical Council.

There seems no good reason whatsoever – if we rule out religious bigotry and greedy doctors as constituting good reasons – for Ireland not to bring itself into line with other European societies including the North, where women have forced back the boundaries that so constrain their lives. Irish Family Planning Association Medical Director Dr Caitriona Henchion in welcoming the move said:

emergency contraception is currently available directly from pharmacies in 17 European Union countries. The emergency contraceptive pill is a very safe and responsible method of preventing pregnancy and offers women and girls a second chance to prevent pregnancy when a regular method has failed, no method was used or sex was forced.

The Irish College of General Practitioners in trying to protect its own business, the fee presumably at the forefront of their considerations, frowned on the development. One of its spokespersons claimed that making the pill available over the counter would only increase its demand. That might be true but so what? If women want to prevent themselves developing pregnancy, then the choice is ultimately theirs. Reasons should be found to facilitate a rapid circumvention rather than force the woman to face a decision to abort much further down the line.

The downside is cost. Although Boots claims its objective is to ‘provide responsible, accessible and affordable healthcare to its customers’, Dr Rebecca Oglesby has argued ‘I wonder why it has to be so expensive though, I’m sure many women will find that cost hard to bear.’ This means women in the poorer sections of society. But at least it will cut out the doctor’s fee which now no longer has to be added to the cost of the prescription.

Earlier in the year a women’s health lobby group, Choice Ireland, called for emergency contraception to be made available over-the-counter after one woman claimed a Kerry doctor had denied her a prescription for the morning after pill. She had to travel to Cork. Choice Ireland spokesperson Sinead Ahern objected that:

medical professionals should act professionally and not allow their religious or ethical beliefs to interfere with the job they are paid to do. It is totally unacceptable that a woman can be denied the pill on the basis of that GP’s personal views. It is incumbent on the HSE to ensure that patients are not placed in a position where the only doctor available to them is allowed an ‘opt-out’ of the treatment they require.

The doctor in question should have been struck off for dereliction of duty. What god he worships or football team he supports is of no consequence to the requirements of his profession. He should be compelled to deliver the service whatever about the patient not supporting his football team or sharing his religious opinion. If he wants to play Vatican roulette in his own bedroom it is a matter for himself. No one else should feel under any obligation to listen to him.