Officials at the Pentagon have decided to require U.S. military bases all over the world to provide abortifacient morning-after pills, or emergency contraception.

Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia Smith told the AP that the Pentagon was following through with a recommendation by an independent panel of doctors and pharmacists, who recommended the morning-after pill be included on the list of required medications stocked at military facilities.

Smith said the decision will be implemented at some time to be determined in the future.

The morning-after pill, or “Plan-B” medication, is designed to prevent sperm from fertilizing an egg if taken before an embryo’s conception. However, the drug can be taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse, and will also abort a newly-conceived embryo by preventing its implantation into the wall of the mother’s womb.

Although manufacturers bypass that fact by claiming pregnancy begins at implantation, not at the fertilization of the egg, science accepts that at the moment of conception DNA from the sperm and the egg unite to form a new and completely unique human being — nothing further is added by implantation.

Critics of the decision contend that cultural leftists are using the pill as a “means to promote their agenda,” and could endanger military doctors and pharmacists who have conscience objections to providing Plan-B to patients.

“The morning-after pill is highly ineffective in preventing pregnancies and completely useless in preventing sexually-transmitted diseases,” said Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America.

Wright told LifeSiteNews.com: “It’s a political tool for abortion advocates. By making this drug required, the next step will making drugs like RU-486, the abortion pill, mandatory. And doctors or pharmacists who have objections will be purged from the ranks.”

“The military needs to focus on discipline and proper behavior – because lives depend on it – not promoting risky behavior,” she said.

Following much controversy in 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the morning-after pill Plan-B, manufactured by Duramed Research, for over-the-counter sales to women 18 years-old and older in 2006. A federal court case by pro-abortion advocates in March 2009 forced the FDA to lower the age requirement to 17-years and older.

University of Utah School of Medicine professor Dr. Joseph Stanford, the lone dissenting vote on the FDA panel that approved Plan B for over-the-counter, pointed out that a “more precise” FDA meta-analysis showed the pill’s success rate in preventing pregnancy at about 72% – much lower than the manufacturer’s claim of 89%.

Even pro-abortion advocates have admitted that emergency-contraception (EC) has a far higher failure rate at preventing pregnancy than theorists claimed.

In a 2009 article for the RH Reality Check blog, journalists Elizabeth Westley, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells reported that estimates showed that some effectiveness rates for Plan-B were reported as low as 59 percent, and that EC had not driven down rates of unintended pregnancy or abortion. The trio expressed worries that such findings would “put the brakes on funding.”

A U.K. study published in the British Medical Journal reported that rates of pregnancy and abortion in fact went up – not down – since the introduction of emergency contraception.

To view source, read here.

[Editor’s note: Some of the original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed.]