Five Things to Know About the Morning-After Pill on Its 20th Anniversary

Medication portion of PREVEN Emergency Contraceptive Kit. Photo: Smithsonian Institution

In 1993, the New York Times Magazine posited that the morning-after pill might be “the best-kept contraceptive secret in America.” Even many doctors had no idea there was a fallback contraceptive that could be used shortly after unprotected sex or cases of rape.

In many ways, the morning-after pill had been right in front of U.S. doctors for decades. In terms of chemical composition, it was not much different from standard birth control, using the same main ingredients — synthetic hormones — in higher doses. Moreover, many of their colleagues in Europe and Asia had already been prescribing morning-after pills for years.


In 1998, years of research and advocacy led to the first FDA-approved morning-after pill.


Here, however, the secret was still largely intact. A 1994 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that two-thirds of American women had never heard of the morning-after pill or other forms of emergency contraception (EC). Less than 1 percent had ever used them.

There was an information shortfall in large part because there was no contraceptive that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) specifically for emergency use. Some providers worked around that absence by using the chemically similar estrogen and progestin medications that were approved for regular birth control. By upping the dosage, they created a suitable morning-after pill on their own. But drug makers couldn’t label or market those birth-control pills for emergency, post-coital use, since they weren’t FDA-approved for that purpose. It also spelled problems for federally funded clinics. Federal dollars couldn’t pay for an off-label medication hack, a makeshift morning-after pill that wasn’t officially approved. Continue reading

Will You Be Attending the Roe Luncheon?

Volunteers at the 2010 Roe Luncheon in Tucson

Volunteers at the 2010 Roe Luncheon in Tucson

This post refers to the 2011 Roe Luncheon. Information about this year’s event can be found on our website.

This year marks the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which recognizes a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona invites you to join us for our annual Roe v. Wade anniversary luncheon.

The Tucson luncheon is on Thursday, February 17, at the Doubletree Hotel. Our emcee will be David Fitzsimmons, of the Arizona Daily Star. We will be honoring Patti Caldwell, formerly the executive director of Planned Parenthood of Southern Arizona, for her years of service. We are very excited to be featuring Amy Allina as the keynote speaker at the Tucson luncheon. Ms. Allina is the Program Director of the National Women’s Health Network (NWHN). Amy is also a founding coordinator of Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need, a national initiative working to make sure women’s voices are heard and women’s concerns are addressed as policymakers put the new health reform law into action. Continue reading