Health
Health Buzz: Emergency Contraception Use Rising
CDC: 1 in 9 Sexually-Active Women Have Used “Morning After” Pill
More and more women have been using emergency contraception pills, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2006 through 2010, 11 percent of sexually-active women between ages 15 and 44 had used emergency contraception, the report says, up from just 4.2 percent in 2002, and less than 1 percent in 1995. Young women were most likely to use the “morning after” pills. Nearly 1 in 4 of sexually-active women between 20 and 24 had used emergency contraception. Across all ages, around 50 percent of women said they used the contraception because they had unprotected sex. Beth Jordan Mynett, medical director of the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, told USA Today that these emergency contraception pills should not be confused with “abortion pills.” “Emergency contraception does not cause an abortion. You take emergency contraception pills to largely prevent ovulation from happening. This is pregnancy prevention,” she says.
