emergency contraception

Birth Control Bingo

Our giant 25-page guide to birth control options provides in-depth info on contraceptive choices to help you find your BC BFF.

Defending Roe

When I saw the announcement that Supreme Court Justice Kennedy was retiring, paving the way for Trump to appoint another conservative extremist to the court, I got the hot, panic-anger feeling in my chest that I’ve come to associate with life under this administration. This adds to the growing threats already undermining reproductive freedoms and LGBQA protections in the U.S. The things that could happen if -- and unfortunately, but most likely, when -- Trump and his enablers in the legislative branch manage to get a new justice appointed make me ill every time I think about it.

Scarleteen Confidential: The Safer Sex Drawer

An easy way to both normalize safer sex, and make sure that the young person or people in your home have access to basic safer sex and contraception they may need is to have some of those basics in your home, somewhere where everyone can easily find and see them.

UK Hurdles to Emergency Contraception

It's been a few months now since Heather posted "Back Up Your Birth Control Backup Day" making it crystal clear that, despite some pretty unethical misinformation given to young people seeking it, emergency contraception in the US is totally legal to sell to people 17+ without prescription.

It was few days later over here in the UK that I read a blog-post from a student in London that she had been refused emergency contraception, but not because of her age.

Which had me asking myself what the law actually is in the UK.

Morning-After Misunderstandings

Labels inside every box of morning-after pills, drugs widely used to prevent pregnancy after sex, say they may work by blocking fertilized eggs from implanting in a woman's uterus.

But an examination by The New York Times has found that the federally approved labels and medical websites do not reflect what the science shows. Studies have not established that emergency contraceptive pills prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb, leading scientists say. Rather, the pills delay ovulation, the release of eggs from ovaries that occurs before eggs are fertilized, and some pills also thicken cervical mucus so sperm have trouble swimming.

If you've wanted/needed to use emergency contraception, have you had any trouble getting it?

Back Up Your Birth Control Backup Day

EC = BCYeah, we meant to say that. Boy do we wish we didn't.

Here's the spiel: it's Back Up Your Birth Control Day today, but as you may have heard, or personally experienced, here in the states, we're still having a lot of trouble with pharmacists refusing over-the-counter Plan B (emergency contraception, the morning-after-pill, or whatever you like to call it), for a whole bunch of reasons, including because of age, even though most of those asking for or about it are of legal age to get it over-the-counter, and without a prescription.