Let’s look at the reporting on the new FDA decision

And let’s start with today’s Chicago Tribune, the front page in fact, with the very large headline story “Plan B cap lifted.” Here’s the opening sentence:

Moving to resolve a bitter controversy, the Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that it would allow emergency contraception to be sold over-the-counter to women 18 and older.

Bitter? Who has been bitter? And why?

Girls 17 and younger will be able to get the drug–a high dose of the same hormones found in birth control pills–but only with a prescription.

Two questions on that one. One, who really believes that with the availability of Plan B to 18 year olds and older, they won’t actually be readily accessible to everyone? And two, since birth control pills are prescription-only, why is the higher dose and stronger version of them now approved for over the counter sales?

“This is a historic event in the struggle for women’s reproductive health and rights, and a long-overdue victory for science over ideology,” said Sharon Camp, president of the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit policy and research group.

How is it a victory for science over ideology? The ideology of abortion — because it is that — wins out big time in this decision. And by the way, the Guttmacher Institute is a special research affiliate of Planned Parenthood. It is named after Alan Guttmacher, who was president of Planned Parenthood in 1968 when he founded the Institute.

Camp continues:

“For the first time we’re trusting women to make good reproductive health-care decisions by letting them buy their own hormonal birth control, without a prescription.”

There it is. An actual admission that women will buy these pills to use as birth control. Some of the pro-life articles on this news story expressed concern that Plan B will be used as routine birth control.

Access to emergency contraception is important, because the drug is most effective if taken within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse.

This is the Chicago Tribune staff reporter editorializing in the body of a front page news story.

Also called Plan B, the medicine generally prevents a woman from ovulating or inhibits the fertilization of an egg, according to the FDA.

She didn’t mention that if the egg has been fertilized, Plan B prevents implantation, causing the newly conceived human life to abort.

The article makes clear what a political football this decision was for the Senate confirmation of new FDA commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach. And the language it uses in the account is clearly leading the reader — by the hand — to draw positive or negative conclusions about both sides of the issue of abortion.

“Advocates” are the folks who applaud the FDA decision and believe it will help women.

But conservatives were incensed.

So, clearly the “advocates” — which evokes good thoughts, right? people who care — are not conservatives. THEY were incensed (bad thoughts). One of those pro-lifers was reported as complaining, another negative description. It was Carrie Gordon Earll, senior bioethics analyst at Focus on the Family. Her quote was that President Bush “missed the mark with this endorsement,” and she could have said it, or stated it, or concluded. But the Tribune reporter chose to say she “complained.”

Okay. Got it. The coloring is fully on, from the first line. And it continued:

Dr. David Stevens, executive director of the Christian Medical Association, criticized what he called the FDA’s “political compromise” and said “removing this high dose of hormones from a doctor’s oversight removes a vital safety protection from women.”

The Doctor was concerned about what he considered an unsafe move — which Pharmacists individually and as an organization have told me they strongly believe — and removing the medical oversight of a patient’s medical treatment. But, the article doesn’t say he was concerned. It says he “criticized” the “political compromise,” which was put in quotes to diminish it. If it was not a political compromise, what was it?

Now there’s this little line deep in the story that is important to note:

There is nothing in the FDA’s ruling that prevents pharmacists from refusing to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill.

That would be the pharmacist conscience clause, which is another political hot potato. Just wait until that happens…

Now note this:

In a memo released Thursday, von Eschenbach, the FDA’s acting commissioner, said Barr Pharmaceuticals “had not established that Plan B could be used safely and effectively by young adolescents” without the supervision of medical professionals. He chose 18 as a cutoff for non-prescription sales because it’s the age when teens legally reach adulthood in all 50 states and because several other products, including tobacco and nicotine replacement therapy, are restricted to customers 18 and older, the memo said.

Okay, two things about this information. Earlier in the article, the reporter stated that “two FDA advisory panels overwhelmingly found Plan B safe and effective for women and girls and the agency’s own scientists concurred.” Several paragraphs later, the above quote reveals that von Eschenbach himself said that Barr Pharmaceuticals had not established that safety. At best, that’s just plain contradictory. It’s manipulating the information. And the other thing is that the cutoff age was not decided because of health or safety likelihood, but because it’s the legal age. So something that’s legally for sale, has to be sold to those 18 and over. Except alcohol….but that’s another story.

The Tribune article pointed out that the Center for Reproductive Rights is still suing the government to, among other things, remove the age restriction.

Still, others see what was clearly a compromise by the FDA as a step forward.

What? Several paragraphs earlier, didn’t Dr. David Stevens of the Christian Medical Association call it the same thing? Only his comment was reported as a “political compromise” with those quotes. And he “criticized” it, remember? So….a Christian doctor was being criticized by the Tribune reporter for ‘criticizing’ the FDA’s decision as being a “compromise,” which it turns out some of the ‘good folks’ later in the story said it clearly was.

Some things are clear, alright. Like the need for critical thinking skills in reading news stories. And intellectual honesty in writing them.