A bitter pill for Romney?
If the right to abortion is going to be a battleground, Governor Mitt Romney ought to at least make access to emergency contraception the common ground of his incipient campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
He could get his chance as early as today to prove to Massachusetts voters that his national ambitions are not dependent on pandering to ideologues who would play politics with the reproductive health of American women.
The state House of Representatives is due today to debate long overdue legislation that would make emergency contraception more readily available to women who need it. The Senate last month unanimously passed the bill that would allow specially trained pharmacists to dispense the morning-after pill without a prescription.
The pill, also known as Plan B, prevents pregnancy by interfering with ovulation. It is not an abortion pill, and suggestions by opponents that it is are designed to confuse, not to inform. The pill is 89 percent effective if taken within 72 hours of intercourse, a time frame that renders impractical a visit to the doctor's office to secure a prescription.
Easier access to emergency contraception would advance the goals of both sides in the contentious debate about abortion by reducing the number of unintended pregnancies, an estimated 26,000 a year in Massachusetts. ''To those who oppose abortion, this is a step they should applaud," says Melissa Kogut, head of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts.
The measure is anything but extreme. The morning-after pill, as an effective backup to unprotected sex or contraceptive failure, has been dispensed by prescription since 1998. Most hospital emergency rooms in Massachusetts already offer the pill to rape victims; this measure would mandate that they do so.
The pill would be available over the counter nationwide but for the refusal of the increasingly politicized federal Food and Drug Administration to heed the recommendations of its own specialists. Seven states have stepped into the breach to make the pill more readily available, most recently New Hampshire, where Romney's presidential aspirations would be put to an early test.
The legislation the House will consider today would have passed in Massachusetts long ago had not former House speaker Thomas M. Finneran subverted the will of the majority in deference to the Catholic Church and its opposition to all forms of artificial contraception. Finneran refused to allow the chamber even to vote on the issue.
Amendments are likely to be offered today, to restrict access to the pill by minors or to allow a pharmacist to refuse to dispense it, but supporters are confident the bill will pass. ''We are fighting hard to get a two-thirds' majority," Kogut says, a reference to the margin of victory needed to override a gubernatorial veto.
That advocates are worried about a veto is a reflection not of the merits of the bill, but of the duplicity of the governor. In 2002, when he was a candidate for the office he now holds, he answered ''yes" to a question posed by Planned Parenthood about his support of ''efforts to increase access to emergency contraception." In the past few weeks, however, as he has repositioned himself to appeal to a more conservative national audience, he has declined to restate that commitment.
The House vote will bring an end to Romney's haughty refusal to discuss reproductive health issues with the voters who elected him. Ignoring the inquiries of advocacy groups and disregarding the questions of journalists has become standard operating procedure for the governor when the issue is women and their reproductive rights. Typical is the nonresponse response of press secretary Julie Teer: ''With regard to e.c., the governor will review any emergency contraception bill if and when it reaches his desk."
Well, yes, that is his job, after all. How he does that job, whether focused on the health of the women of Massachusetts or distracted by the primary voters of South Carolina, is about to be seen.
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com. 