Pro-Family Groups Calls on A.G. to Correct Opinion

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 16, 2003
NEWS CONTACT: Joe Glover – 804-419-4483 ext. 456

FOREST, VA -Â The leader of a Virginia pro-family organization today criticized the Attorney General’s office for a decision that gives a green light to state colleges to dispense the so-called “morning-after” pills to students to terminate pregnancies in the early hours of embryonic development. Joe Glover, President of the Forest-based Family Policy Network, says the Attorney General is “playing political games” with tiny human lives.

Glover says, “Attorney General Jerry Kilgore is wrong to reject the long-held belief that life begins at conception – the moment when sperm and egg unite to form a new and unique human life.” He adds, “Helping strong humans deny the right to life to weak ones in this case is as reprehensible as any other act of infanticide. Jerry Kilgore may claim to be pro-life in theory, but on this issue he is playing political games with human lives.”

According to an excerpt from “The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology,” 6th Edition, by Moore and Persaud (p. 532), Postcoital birth control pills usually interrupt pregnancy – not fertilization. According to the text, “Ovarian hormones (estrogen) taken in large doses within 72 hours after sexual intercourse usually prevent implantation of the blastocyst, probably by altering tubal motility, interfering with corpus luteum function, or causing abnormal changes in the endometrium. These hormones prevent implantation, not fertilization. Consequently, they should not be called contraceptive pills. Conception occurs but the blastocyst does not implant. It would be more appropriate to call them ‘contraimplantation pills.’ Because the term abortion refers to a premature stoppage of a pregnancy, the term abortion could be applied to such an early termination of pregnancy.”

Glover says, “Family Policy Network is calling for Attorney General Kilgore to correct this erroneous opinion and instruct Virginia colleges and universities to comply with the law. If he does, many daughters of the citizens of this Commonwealth will benefit from a 24-hour pause to consider the value of a human life they may already have inside.”

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