Tag: implantation

For NYT, Evaluating Birth Control Mechanisms is Classed as POLITICAL SCIENCE

~ Pharmer ~ 2 Comments

Science at Issue in Debate on Morning-After Pill – NYTimes.com.

Pharmer is immensely amused by the NYT Political Science article purporting that Plan B, levonorgestrel (a progestin – synthetic progesterone analog) delays ovulation but has no effect upon post fertilization mechanisms. This claim certainly has a relationship to political ideology, but not to pharmacological science.

There is the suggestion that Plan B can operate to impede ovulation even when taken 72 hours after intercourse.

The usual life of sperm is 48 hours, and The usual lifespan of secondary oocytes (eggs) is 1 day. The most fertile time for a woman is the day of, and the day after ovulation.

Laughably entertaining is the suggestion that there is no time for levonorgestrel to affect thickness or receptivity of the uterine lining, but there is time for it to always work by delaying ovulation. Scroll back up to the lifespan of the gametes and THEN ponder that it takes about 7 days for the early human embryo to travel down the fallopian tubes into the uterus and implant in the uterine lining.

Seven days is not long enough for the morning after pill to affect feedback inhibition, transport, endometrial tissue, and implantation processes, yet 48 hours is claimed to be long enough to exert a perfect 100 percent mechanism for delaying ovulation so that sperm and ‘egg’ don’t meet.  (Remember when a woman is most fertile, the day of and the day after ovulation?)   It’s pathetic when leftist ideology replaces scientific analysis and inquiry in such a blatantly obvious manner.

James Trussell (population controller of Princeton) has changed his tune about the efficacy of Plan B. Now he wants to say that the pill is ridiculously ineffective, so that condoms, rhythm, and withdrawal are far superior in efficacy as birth control. This is what he needs to admit in order to claim that the Plan B doesn’t work if a woman has ovulated.

Progesterone hormones have multiple mechanisms of action. Progesterone receptors are found in various tissues, and their preponderance and activity undergo cyclic changes. These hormones largely affect gene expression. These effects are not instantaneous. The physiological effects of progestins on reproduction vary with the timing of their use. The morning after pill’s modes of action will vary depending on when in the cycle and how long after intercourse they are used.

One cannot prescribe progestins to patients to mitigate hypermenorrhea (excessive bleeding), and at the same time claim that they don’t affect the uterine lining.

Progestins given on a scheduled basis fail to prevent ovulation in about half of patients. This has been attached to the labeling of progestin only pills, which have been used to control excessive bleeding, as well as to prevent pregnancy.

Plan B is a progestin. Ella is a selective progesterone receptor blocker (like mifepristone, RU456). Each one will affect the reproductive processes in different, dose dependent and time dependent ways. Political Science author Pam Belluck needs to consider the drugs separately when attempting to evaluate them mechanistically.

Plan B, levonorgestrel, like ALL hormones, operates on many physiological processes, by many different means.

If the leftists ever manage to develop effective birth control drugs which operate ONLY by preventing the union of sperm and egg, we may proceed with the constitutional amendments to accurately define human life with no further impediments.

More at Jill Stanek’s place. and right HERE.

The Early Embryo is Growing and Differentiating, but Gingrich Doesn’t Think It’s Alive Yet

~ Pharmer

Gingrich Breaks from Some in Anti-Abortion Community on When Life Begins – ABC News.

Newt doesn’t want to give up on embryonic stem cell research, yet, although the front running private research company, Geron has done so. It would be nice if he and the rest of the  candidates could commit to cease wasting public funds on  unethical research which has consistently failed to produce results.

The candidate probably does not want to get into the issue of the morning after pills and the birth control pills, and he’s willing to display ignorance of developmental biology in order to avoid this.  Gingrich might be afraid of losing the birth control pill users by acknowledging   that the life of a sexually reproducing organism begins when it really does.

He was also able to suspend logic, accept the fraud of global warming,  and sit down with Nancy Pelosi in a warm and fuzzy  Environmentalist Whacko ad.

The entire  government could start by acknowledging reality.

Rather than being mis-branded as “contraceptives” the various  hormonal B.C. products  should be called   ‘birth control drugs’, and carry the tag  “This product has multiple mechanisms of action,  and  might  (or is likely to) operate by stopping the life of an early human embryo.”

Spontaneous Abortion in Other Species

~ Pharmer ~ 2 Comments

Jill Stanek’s blog featured some Aggie News, relating equine behavioral and biological phenomena to the abortion issue.   Pharmer, being Pharmer, can’t pass up such hot issues as animal husbandry  (that’s breeding livestock …ok.)

It’s been noticed that bringing in outside male zebras to prevent inbreeding at zoos has resulted in an extremely high miscarriage (abortion) rate among the mares.    Horses share this difficulty, as do other animals such as some rodents.  In the presence of the males from the home location, the mares which have been bred by outsiders will often lose their offspring.  Some of the mares will copulate with the home males, and if unable to do so will be more  likely to abort.  It is surmised  that this is a biological adaptation to the fact that the male equines will very often kill the offspring which resulted from relations with outside males. It is believed to result in a conservation of energy and resources for the mare to lose the offspring before birth  rather than go through the effort of delivering a foal which will be killed anyway.

In one of the fluffy news pieces describing the phenomenon among horses, it was suggested that the mares could actually will the loss of the pregnancy if the circumstances regarding the presence of non parental males were untoward.  Pharmer supposes that this notion is no more crazy than man-made global warming.

In a somewhat related phenomenon, the  smell of urine from newly introduced  males who did not breed with the female mouse will elicit failure of implantation, but does not cause loss after that stage. This is referred to as the Bruce effect, in which production of a functional corpus luteum is prevented.  This effect is abated by the presence of familiar males, even if they did not breed with the female mouse. The Bruce effect  is not seen in rats, and is a good deal different than what is being observed in horses.