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RU-486? I’m not. The birth control pill that goes by the name RU-486 is made by the French and destroys the fertilized egg. Personally, I prefer the new American morning-after pill, which stops the sperm and ovum dead in their tracks before fertilization. I like to think of it as a tiny preemptive strike. However patriotic the morning-after pill may be, I recently woke up with some doubts. It’s not that there isn’t a great case for reproductive options. It’s just that perhaps the means to an eternal, irreversible end shouldn’t sit in the medicine cabinet between the Advil and the Listerine. The product is marketed under the name “Plan B.” Plan A is to stop nailing everything that moves. In any case, this controversial new pill is not the wonder drug it’s made out to be. Sure it nixes the pregnancy in the morning. But does it get the guy out of your apartment before you have to go to work? Does it get the wharf-like smell out of your sheets? Does it extract your cell phone number from his Palm Pilot? ? Does it expunge from your own memory the fact that you talked baby talk to a man who changes oil filters for a living? Does it give him amnesia when you and your Pilates pals run into him at Starbucks and he thinks he actually does something for you when you’re not tanked up on Tanquerays? Does it get rid of the crabs? Does it get the video off the net? Still, the sales potential is enormous. In today’s busy world, who has the time to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl all day? You can bet they’ll sell like PEZ in Vegas. What happens here, stays here. In all likelihood, the morning-after pill is just the first in a generation of drugs that will be allowed to develop full term. Some hook-ups, born of complete desperation, create nearly instant post-orgasmic revulsion and require a moment-after pill. Other experiences might require five, six, or seven morning-after pills a day for several days running. That’s why spring breakers are better off with one big week-after pill. Surrogate moms with cold feet might create a niche market for the trimester-after pill. Someone this very moment is working on the gender-specific morning-after pill. If research is successful, look for a variety of post-coital medications—targeting eye color, hair color, sexual orientation, and specific academic strengths—to hit the market sometime in late ’08. Family planning should begin the morning after. But perhaps the most interesting scientific and ethical challenge concerns those folks who soon after regret taking the morning-after pill. There really ought to be something to take the following morning. Truth is, our society’s morning-after approach to life in general has been gestating for quite some time and won’t be second-guessed. The morning-after pill could have been the official prescription medication of Sex and the City, and Sarah Jessica Parker could have been its official spokesperson. In fact, the final 13 episodes had me wishing for a season-after pill. So did last year’s Yankees-Red Sox playoffs. Looking at the federal budget deficit right around now, we need an Rx for an administration-after pill. Various baby boomers squandering the 1970s following the Grateful Dead around the country in a van could have used a decade-after pill. We could all still use one for the 80s. Ultimately, the morning-after pill is about the same thing many of those plastic surgery shows are about—the desire to turn back the clock. Only those born yesterday, however, fail to recognize that while you can certainly butcher the present, you can’t erase the past. Of course, that won’t stop the far left from trying to return to a time when interrupting reproduction was the moral equivalent of ordering a side of fries. And it won’t stop the far right from trying to return to an era where reproductive options were strictly for when their own daughters got into trouble. Even I find myself a little nostalgic. There was a time when people smoked after sex. Now they smoke out the zygote. It’s come down to a perverse sort of modern symmetry--a GHB pill to get you to conception, and a morning-after pill to get you out of it. No doubt anal-retentive date-rapists of the future will carry both. Who said chivalry was dead? Of course, certain cells won’t go down without a fight. Pharmacists in states like Illinois and Texas are refusing to dispense the morning-after pill, even where they are required to by law. If only they were so discerning when it came to dispensing Vioxx. The folks who for generations made insipid comments while handing you a pack of Trojans are back, and they mean business. I can hardly wait for the million pharmacist march. Four semesters in community college and they’re ready to play God. Speaking of which, the Vatican is against the morning-after pill too. But they’re no strangers to second thoughts. They pioneered the annulment. Click here to rant back. |