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Anne is reading …

Patricia Wall/The New York TimesIn an absolutely stunning article in the New York Times, the headline says it all: Abortion Qualms on Morning-After Pill May Be Unfounded. Medical authorities from the National Institutes of Health to the Mayo Clinic say that the morning-after pills may work by blocking fertilized eggs from implanting in a woman’s uterus.

That scientific process is sufficient to have conservative politicians and some religious groups pushing legislation all over America that bans the sale of emergency contraception, calling the pills abortive pills. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney calls them “abortive pills’ as do Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

The New York Times has undertaken an investigation of the science around the morning after pill, writing that there is no evidence that emergency contraceptive pills prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb. Perhaps the morning after pill is confused with RU-486, a medication prescribed for terminating pregnancies, that does destroy an embryo.

After The Times asked about this issue, A.D.A.M., the firm that writes medical entries for the National Institutes of Health Web site, deleted passages suggesting emergency contraceptives could disrupt implantation. The Times, which uses A.D.A.M.’s content on its health Web page, updated its site. The medical editor in chief of the Web site for the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Roger W. Harms, said “we are champing at the bit” to revise the entry if the Food and Drug Administration changes labels or other agencies make official pronouncements.

“These medications are there to prevent or delay ovulation,” said Dr. Petra M. Casey, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Mayo. “They don’t act after fertilization.”

Rather, the pills delay ovulation, the release of eggs from ovaries that occurs before eggs are fertilized, and some pills also thicken cervical mucus so sperm have trouble swimming.

At the end of this exhaustive article on the history of the morning after pill, Jonathan Imbody, vice president of government relations for the Christian Medical Association, wrote on LifeNews.com, that the fact sheets contradict Plan B’s alleged abortion-inducing nature, raising questions about “whether ideological considerations are driving these decisions.”

Declining US Competitiveness

A study of about 10,000 global-residing alumni of the Harvard Business Study shows a troubling forecast for US competitiveness. Only 9 percent of alumni said they would consider moving existing business activities from another country into the US.

The greatest areas where America has fallen seriously behind the rest of the world were 1) Effectiveness of political system; 2) K-12 education system; and 3) Complexity of tax code.

View graphs full size.

First Pals

Just in case One Million Moms doesn’t understand clearly that JC Penney is firmly entrenched behind spokeswoman Ellen DeGeneres despite their cries that Ellen is unacceptable for being gay, the company shares its Father’s Day ad.

It reads: “What makes Dad so cool? He’s the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver — all rolled into one. Or two. Real-life dads, Todd Koch and Cooper Smith with their children Claire and Mason.”