Popular TV Show Misleads Teens About Emergency Contraception

Technorati Tags: Veronica Mars, CW Television Network, Plan B, emergency contraception, morning-after pill, miscarriage, RU-486, Federal Drug Administration, Pres. Bush, religious right

The CW Television Network is airing an episode tonight of the popular teen series, Veronica Mars, in which Plan B contraception is part of the plot line. Problem: the show's producers have incorporated right-wing misinformation about what Plan B is, and what it does:

Tonight, the CW network will air an episode of Veronica Mars that is based on misleading right-wing claims about contraception. The show is about a young woman named Veronica Mars, who is both a college student and a part-time private investigator. This week, Veronica is hired by Bonnie, “a promiscuous classmate, to find out who secretly slipped her the morning after pill, causing her to have a miscarriage."...
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The basis for tonight’s Veronica Mars episode is more than just an innocent factual error. It dangerously confuses the facts on women’s health and furthers incorrect right-wing claims.

The morning-after pill — also known as Plan B — is not an abortion drug. It is a form of emergency contraception that when “taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, the two-pill series can lower the risk of pregnancy by up to 89 percent.” It cannot cause a miscarriage. Plan B works only when taken before a woman becomes pregnant.

While Plan B is now available over the counter to women ages 18 and older, it comes after three years of political stonewalling by the Bush administration. In 2003, a panel of independent advisers told the FDA that it “overwhelmingly backed nonprescription sales [of Plan B] for all ages.” But the Bush administration interfered and blocked Plan B sales in a pander to the right wing, which argues that the drug increases promiscuity. (See the real facts here.)