Is the contraceptive an abortifacient?
The MAP is officially labelled as “emergency hormonal contraception”, implying that it acts to prevent conception. However, its activity includes effects on events after conception, which would require classification as a substance which could cause an abortion. Scientifically, “human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception)” 1. Many human characteristics are already laid down genetically from the moment of conception. We can already determine whether the new being is male or female. Implantation has been described as the fourth stage of human embryonic development.2 By this time it has undergone eight of the forty-one cell doublings that occur before birth. The nature of the embryo (conceptus), which is human and alive, is unchanged by implantation; only the position of the embryo is affected. Proponents of the term “emergency hormonal contraception” have changed the definitions by saying, “before
