Pros And Cons Of Emergency Contraception

533 Words3 Pages

The controversy surrounding emergency contraception showed the merger of arguments from previous (and, at the time, still ongoing) debates on contraceptives and abortion. Medicalisation of reproduction manifested itself in the prescription-only status of the drug which restricted access, thus, jeopardising the chances of successful treatment due to a 72-hour timeframe of application. The license holder company for the drug, Schering was reluctant to obtain the license in the first place, let alone promoting it for similar reasons Pincus and his fellow researchers struggled to find a sponsor for their research on oral contraceptives : a risk to the company’s reputation for doing research on issues that may promote irresponsible sexual behaviour while not expecting significant financial gain from the sales of the product. This reluctance demonstrated the dependence of the medical profession on the pharmacological industry and necessitated a more active promotion of the method from medical staff working in the field. The main argument for keeping the drug in a prescription-only status was concerns for safety: the early emergency contraceptives contained large doses of oestrogen, which had known and serious …show more content…

The first officially licensed product, PC4 by Schering became available in 1982. Despite being one of the main providers of contraceptive products, Schering Health Care Ltd remained reluctant to obtain the license and promote the drug. The reasons for their reluctance was similar to those displayed by pharmacological companies a few decades earlier with regards to clinical testing of oral contraceptives: concerns over a potential risk to its