Growing debate over abortifacients: abortifacients, drugs or agents that cause an abortion, are commonly sold to women who think they are getting substances that prevent conception altogether.(RIGHT TO LIFE)

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Generally speaking, the average American, whether pro-life or pro-abortion, is aware that the number of abortions committed in this country is in the millions. Both the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), an arm of Planned Parenthood (PP), keep count by directly surveying doctors and clinics for the data each year. According to records they've compiled since 1967, when some individual states decriminalized abortion, an estimated 46 million surgical abortions have taken place in the United States. That's an average of 1.3 million innocent lives terminated per year.

AGI reports that the number of abortions has been decreasing in recent years, from 1.36 million in 1996 to 1.29 million by 2002, with that trend continuing downward through 2005. However, these numbers don't account for chemically induced, sometimes called medically induced, abortions, which are now on the rise.

Whether termed "abortifacients," "emergency contraceptives," or the "morning after pill," these are drugs designed to prohibit a newly conceived child from implanting in the womb for nourishment and are now widely available, with statistical use largely unreported. RU-486 (Mifepriston), methotrexate, and the Intra-uterine Device (IUD) all prevent the fertilized embryo's implantation, with Mifepriston and methotrexate also causing the fetus to be expelled. Some injections produce the same effect. The World Health Organization's newest "vaccines" make a woman's immune system attack and destroy her own baby.

But the main abortion-inducing drug just may be birth control pills (BCPs). Experts in the fields of pharmacy, biology, gynecology, and obstetrics have come to the conclusion that today's hormonal contraceptives not only possess their contraceptive properties but have potential abortifacient mechanisms that can kick in when the contraceptive mechanism fails. Though these claims are backed up with scientific evidence, contraceptive users may be innocently ignorant about the true properties of these substances.

The Need for Informed Consent

Few prescribing physicians and patients seem to be aware of the postfertilization effects of birth control pills. This lack of understanding represents a failure to fully inform patients about something with physical, moral, ethical, and psychological consequences.