Emergency
Contraception 
Menstuff® has compiled the following information on Emergency
Contraception.
What is Emergency Contraception?
How Did Emergency Contraception Contribute to
the Decline in Abortion?
Newsbytes
Related Topics: Reproductive
Health, Condoms,
RU-486, Men
& Abortion
What is Emergency Contraception?
Emergency contraception, or postcoital contraception, consists of the
same hormones found in ordinary birth control pills. When taken in a
concentrated dose within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse,
these hormones can prevent a pregnancy from occurring. All hormonal
contraceptive methods, depending on when during the menstrual cycle a
woman initiates the method, act by delaying or inhibiting ovulation,
inhibiting fertilization or inhibiting implantation of a fertilized
egg, which in medical terms is considered to mark the beginning of
pregnancy. Emergency contraception (EC) is not "the abortion pill"
(mifepristone or RU-486) and will not abort an established
pregnancy--i.e., one in which the fertilized egg has already attached
itself to the wall of the uterus, according to the World Health
Organization definition of a pregnancy.
How Did Emergency Contraception Contribute to
the Decline in Abortion?
Emergency contraception has been estimated to have an effectiveness
rate of 75% when it is used within 72 hours of unprotected
intercourse--i.e., for each pregnancy that occurs after use of
emergency contraception, three are prevented. In 2000, 1.3% of women
having abortions had unsuccessfully taken emergency contraception to
prevent the current pregnancy, which corresponds to 17,000 of the 1.3
million abortions in that year. Hence, some 51,000 abortions (17,000
x 3) were averted by emergency contraception in 2000.
By contrast, 0.1% of women having abortions in 1994 had used
emergency contraception in the month they became pregnant, accounting
for 1,400 of the 1.4 million abortions in that year and approximately
4,000 (1,400 x 3) averted abortions.
There were 110,000 fewer abortions in 2000 than in 1994. An
estimated 47,000 (51,000-4,000) of these abortions were prevented by
increased use of emergency contraception, accounting for as much as
43% of the decrease in total abortions over that period. The change
in the number of abortions prevented by the use of EC could be higher
or lower than our estimate, depending on the types of emergency
contraceptive pills used in 2000 and whether or not women used them
correctly.
For the full article, go to Contraceptive Use Among U.S. Women
Having Abortions in 2000-2023
Source: www.agi-usa.org/media/supp/ec121702.html
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