December 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com)—Amidst an ongoing debate among prolife advocates about whether to classify the Pill as an abortifacient or a prophylactic, pro-abortion advocates have published an authoritative statement declaring that the Pill prevents implantation of embryos, thereby causing an abortion. 

In a supplement to its November 2008 issue, top reproductive health journal Fertility and Sterility published the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) statement, “Hormonal contraception: recent advances and controversies.” 

In a summary of the development of contraception in the United States the statement called oral contraceptives the “most widely used” reversible method.  In the “wide variety” of oral contraceptives that are available, the “mechanisms of action” are the same, said the statement: “inhibition of ovulation, alteration in the cervical mucus, and/or modification of the endometrium, thus preventing implantation.”  

Prolife advocates who oppose abortion, but not contraception, have long considered the Pill as an ethical contraceptive option, as opposed to the IUD, which causes abortions by preventing implantation.  However, the statement by the ASRM clearly indicates that the pill is medically classified as a drug that acts by “preventing implantation,” thereby causing the death of a fertilized embryo—a unique and living human being.   

A large body of literature supports this statement, including articles from Fertility and Sterility.  The most significant of these is a 1996 study by a group of OB/GYNs from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, that concluded that “impaired uterine receptivity” is “one mechanism by which OCs exert their contraceptive actions.”