The morning after pill is basically a heavy dose of contraception (ie birth control pill)... to be taken within 3 days of intercourse ...you don't know if you're pregnant you just think it's a possibility ....ie for situations where you had sex without any contraception (including the pill) and are worried that you might have gotten pregnant and you don't want to be pregnant...what it does is prevent conception from occuring (like all contraception pills do)...this pill has many uses and, FYI, is a standard offering in most instances for women who have been raped.

RU 486 is used in situations where you know you are pregnant (ie conception has taken place) and you want an abortion and don't want or don't have access to surgery - it is another option other than surgical abortion - x452 is right it has never been intended to make it available over the counter.

I'm still not gonna get into the rights and wrongs of abortion but I just wanted to clear up any misunderstandings about the two kinds of drug...they are a very different thing.  I realise that some religions have an issue with both contraception and abortion but they are two different things none-the-less.

Is 'The Morning After' pill available over the counter? . .  and to many people. . the difference between the two is so marginal anyway . . one is taken when there may be doubt about ones condition . . (therefore easing a conscience issue). . and the other is dead cert eliminating a pregnancy . . (which BTW is done after the fact). . so there is very little difference in the service each offers. . . only the users conscience knows.

Just a thought. . how do they plan to prevent somebody using this pill in an advanced pregnancy and causing a huge health issue that will cause the user to end up in hospital (at taxpayer expense) when it all goes wrong. ?  

Years ago, like almost 30 yrs ago, my little sister-in-law at the time asked me for some of my contaceptive pills (I gave her between 5 and 10) she said it was to bring on a miscarraige as she thought she was pregnant. I didn't know about the fact you could take the 'pill' in that manner. A couple of years later I accompanied her to a capital city to have an abortion. This was all before she turned 18. She made her own choices and was very well informed. I however was more naive even though I had already had my first child when she had the abortion.

A friend of mine has told me the RU486 abortion pill has been the cause of deaths in some women who take it.

Okay... done my research and here is what I found out:
Many websites can be found on the subject. Here are my picks,

http://www.libertywomenshealth.com/services.php?id=11

http://drdrew.com/article.asp?id=1171

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2000/11-06-2000/vo16no23_ru486.htm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8620380/

Reading the information on these websites has given me a lot of important and relavent  information.

Quoted from Gizmo

Is 'The Morning After' pill available over the counter? . .  and to many people. . the difference between the two is so marginal anyway . . one is taken when there may be doubt about ones condition . . (therefore easing a conscience issue). . and the other is dead cert eliminating a pregnancy . . (which BTW is done after the fact). . so there is very little difference in the service each offers. . . only the users conscience knows. [/color]

Yes it is available over the counter generally, but depends on where you live as to what restrictions (as to age/questions asked by pharmicists etc). It was developed in  part due to the fact that lots of women and young girls were doing what Suzi talked about her sister doing...the Morning After Pill is a better way of managing appropriate dosage than taking a handfull of normal contraceptive pills (due the wide variety of dosage issues that can arise).

I'm not getting into the moral debate on abortion.

Quoted from Gizmo

Just a thought. . how do they plan to prevent somebody using this pill in an advanced pregnancy and causing a huge health issue that will cause the user to end up in hospital (at taxpayer expense) when it all goes wrong. ?  

I've no idea who "they" are in your question.  

But I will say that no one can prevent anyone else from doing something they really want to do.  If the safer methods weren't available and someone really wanted to end their pregnancy during late term that person would find a way to do it.  I've personally seen such examples as a woman sitting in a nearly boiling hot spa for 24 hours, having someone hit a woman in the stomach repeatedly with a phone book and I won't bother listing the various potions and concotians that people take in an effort to cause late term abortions.  These cases will cost you (the taxpayer) more than a medically managed abortion ever could.

Did I mention I'm not getting into the moral debate.

Quoted from SuziH

A friend of mine has told me the RU486 abortion pill has been the cause of deaths in some women who take it.

Yep.  Some women die as a result of surgical abortion too.  People also die having their wisdom teeth out and I know someone who died falling off a ladder and more people die driving their cars each and every day than have ever died as a result of taking RU486 in the 16 years it has been available in Europe and the rest of the world.

I'm really not getting into the moral debate here...all I am saying that the argument "this has killed people" doesn't really help the debate along...there is probably no pill, drug, piece of technology that hasn't killed someone somewhere either by accident, misuse or deliberate mistreatment.  I'm sure that somewhere someone was killed by a toaster at some point...we gonna ban toast?

Just to give you some food for thought Gizmo, the contraceptive pill usually works in 3 differant ways.

-It increases the mucus membrane on the cervix making it more difficult for sperm to pass.
-It makes it less likely for an ovary to release an egg.
-It retards the ability of a fetilized egg to implant on the uterus and makes it's way out.

In the third case, assuming an egg has been dropped and sperm has gotten through to fertilise it, the only differance between this last safegaurd and the morning after pill is perhaps not much if anything at all.  I actually don't know if the morning after pill makes implantation not occur, if it causes rejection, or both, but either way it's not really for us to say if when or how it is called life once it's got all the genetics to be potentially be called life.

Half of all fertilised eggs don't stick to the uterus naturally.  Many women miscarry early on and never know, beleiving it to be spotting or their normal cycle.

None of the above should be mistaken for my moral convictions on the issue.  I don't remember if I've said it before or not, but I think that it's silly that when abortion is legal that we should argue over just how to go about it.  Legality of abortion is the fuel of the fire, not RU486.  RU486 is an innocent bystander that made an easy scapegoat. As an inanimate object, I feel sorry for it

Quoted from MeanDean

. .RU486 . . . . As an inanimate object, I feel sorry for it

. . . .
. . you will get over it!   

Quoted from Gizmo

Still frightening to think of a woman having such a dark secret and hiding herself away to end the problem . .the consequences are so easy (and sad) to predict.

On that one we don't disagree at all...and I find it awful that in all the debate over this drug or abortion generally we rarely hear anyone talking about that aspect...not the right to lifers or the pro-choicers.  

Are there women who use abortion as a twisted form of contraception?  sure

Are there women who use abortion because a pregnancy doesn't fit with their travel plans just now?  sure

But often the decision is a heart-wrenching one...and if society hadn't got so darn caught up with right and wrong (and I find both the right to lifers and the pro-choicers equally vehemant about their rightness) they might take time to consider that things in real life are rarely black and white but often shady grey...some women feel they have no other option...

they are at risk of being beaten mercilessly by a father or brother who believes they are evil because they had sex,

or they are at risk of giving birth to a seriously ill or deformed child because they have that many drugs coursing through their system they don't remember having the sex that got them pregnant in the first place or the 14 weeks in between that event and sitting in the doctor's office

or they are at risk of having another child that they simply cannot afford to feed on their income (even with a baby bonus)

or they are so bone jarringly scared of bringing a baby into the world because they are alone...they have no family, no father for the child, no friends who might help

There are a million such stories...and they're all a very very very sad indictment of our world  

Abortion counselling: the choice is yours
By Stephanie Peatling
February 20, 2006


WOMEN with unplanned pregnancies will be able to choose whether to seek counselling but will be referred only to trained professionals by their general practitioners under measures to be discussed by Federal Government ministers tomorrow.

Church groups already running pregnancy support services say that although their views on abortion are well known, their counselling services canvass all options.

The executive director of Catholic Welfare Australia, Frank Quinlan, said more counselling services were needed to help women with unplanned or unwanted pregnancies make decisions about their future and to help women after they had terminations.

"Anyone coming to one of our agencies is likely to understand the Catholic Church's position on abortion," Mr Quinlan said yesterday.

"But we are very adamant that we have to be providing support and assistance to all comers."

The Minister for Health, Tony Abbott, will take a $60 million package to cabinet tomorrow, including a proposal for a 24-hour national telephone service for pregnancy counselling.

He will also ask for an extension of the Medicare rebate to cover three counselling sessions for women with unplanned pregnancies.

It is understood the counselling would be optional and women would be referred to psychologists or to general practitioners or nurses with psychology training.

The telephone service will be put out to tender.

Mr Abbott said yesterday he did not have a problem with church groups making expressions of interest for the service.

"I have a great deal of confidence in church groups to deliver professional health services," Mr Abbott said.

"They deliver them with a Christian ethos of love and compassion and I think any services which the Christian churches deliver are delivered with great professionalism but also with great compassion."

The chief executive of Anglicare Sydney, Peter Kell, said people should be able to choose whether they went to church-backed or secular counselling services.

"Some of the criticism that has been directed at this suggestion has been the misapprehension that Christian counselling would tell the people who go to them what decision to make," Mr Kell said.

"That's not how counselling works. It only works when it helps people make informed decisions and how to live with them."

The Opposition said a woman with an unplanned pregnancy should be able to choose whom to approach for counselling.

"She might choose to be counselled by someone else and she should be able to make that choice," its health spokeswoman, Julia Gillard, said.

"We all know Tony Abbott is a very religious man, but he's not God and he shouldn't have the right to pick who is going to counsel every Australian woman who decides that she would like some counselling in the difficult circumstances of facing an unplanned pregnancy."

Abortion counselling services were referred to the consumer watchdog last year for investigation.

The Greens senator Kerry Nettle wrote to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in October asking it to see whether abortion counselling centres were providing women seeking terminations with all available options.

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/nat.....9/1140283949270.html

Quoted from MeanDean

In the third case, assuming an egg has been dropped and sperm has gotten through to fertilise it, the only differance between this last safegaurd and the morning after pill is perhaps not much if anything at all.  I actually don't know if the morning after pill makes implantation not occur, if it causes rejection, or both, but either way it's not really for us to say if when or how it is called life once it's got all the genetics to be potentially be called life.

Yo Mean Dean. Good information.

The RU486 pill breaks down the lining of the uterus so that it can't sustain the foetus (baby) and it is as you say, rejected by the body.

If you (not you, but a woman) are using a contraceptive and get pregnant anyway, then it's all over red rover. You can't take a contraceptive after the event. That is the difference between it and RU486.

It is amazing how many people have a miscarriage early on. Until my sister-in-law had one, we didn't know of anyone, but suddenly everyone comes out with a story of someone they know had it happen to them. It is all too common.

Drug companies refuse to import abortion pill
By Glenn Milne
February 26, 2006


ABORTION pill RU486 will not be freely available to Australian women, despite this month's emotional Federal Parliament debate.
Major pharmaceutical companies have informally advised their peak industry group, Medicines Australia, they have no intention of importing the drug.

They have decided the move would be too costly and controversial.

This month's rare conscience vote, releasing MPs from the constraints of voting along party lines, stripped Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott of his veto over the pill.

More than 150 members and senators spoke on the Bill during the five sitting days it took to pass through both houses of Parliament.

It was hailed by supporters as a breakthrough giving all women access to the drug – particularly rural women who might not be able to easily obtain a surgical abortion.

But given the unwillingness of Australian-based drug companies to get involved, the dream of Federal MPs who voted for RU486 – that it be readily available across the pharmacy counter – is unlikely to be realised.

Well-placed sources said the decision not to import RU486 was based on two factors.

The first is that the market is limited and the elaborate approval process would not make commercial sense.

But the second reason is more important. Pharmaceutical companies understand that their industry is not particularly well regarded by the community and they believe it is not worth stirring up a high-profile campaign against them by the pro-life movement.

"Against that background it's not particularly clever to register such a medicine when we're going to get a range of groups capable of generating a lot of publicity targeting the whole industry," said one source close to the drug companies.

The decision by the companies also means it will be much harder for RU486 to be placed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Without PBS listing there would be no Federal Government subsidy for the pill.

Under current law only certified drug importers and "authorised prescribers", usually doctors, are allowed to apply through the Therapeutic Goods Administration to import drugs after they are approved, and then ask for PBS listing. Individuals are prohibited.

While women might still be able to access RU486 overseas on the internet, the application of the pill is time-sensitive and the length of the process would probably mean the window of opportunity for its effective use would be missed.

The Cairns-based medico who helped spark the RU486 debate, Dr Caroline de Costa, is working flat out to get around the effective continuing ban on the drug by the pharmaceutical industry.

As an authorised prescriber she has begun the process of asking the TGA to allow her to import RU486 and has approached the New Zealand not-for-profit company Ista, which sells RU486 in that country, to provide a supply of the drug.

She is also trying to encourage Ista's parent company in France, Exelgyn, which owns the drug's patent, to apply to the TGA to import the drug.