[lbo-talk] "Plan B, " emergency contraception, why the right hates it

[B.]

[In addition to physicist Bob Park at bobpark.org, PZ
Meyer of the Pharyngula blog has always been one of my
favorite popular science writers -- one of those folks
that can relate science to political issues. - B.]



Why the wingnuts hate Plan B

by PZ Myers

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/04/why_the_wingnuts_hate_plan_b.php

There has been an oddly evasive struggle going on in
Washington DC for the last several years. We have a
safe, easy method of emergency contraception that has
been turned into a political football, with
Republicans playing their usual role of criminally
stupid thugs, trying to crush a simple idea: Plan B
contraception. It illustrates exactly how the
Religious Right is trying to intrude on your private
life, and in particular, how they want to control
women.

I'll explain how Plan B works, but to do so I'm going
to have to explain some basics of the hormonal control
of the menstrual cycle.

This is a fairly complicated but typical diagram
illustrating the various organs, hormones, and changes
that go on in the menstrual cycle. At the top is the
master gland, the pituitary, that secretes regulatory
hormones; below that is a diagram of the changes in
the ovary; below that is a diagram of changes in the
lining of the uterus; and finally, at the very bottom,
is a graph of the concentration of various hormones in
the blood during the phases of the cycle.

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more at url above