Plan B Debate: Charmaine on NBC and MSNBC, And Why People Read Blogs

Plan B, The Morning After Charmaine’s pre-taped interview for NBC began airing last night. Watch the short segment here on NBC Nightly News and MSNBC.

Alert Readers will notice that Charmaine’s pre-taped interview done by ABC was not aired. At all.

I asked Charmaine if she thought the ABC piece would go on.

“No,” she said, “they didn’t get what they wanted.”

I wondered what ABC wanted. I thought maybe they would want the truth. An honest debate on Plan B? A rebuttal to the Planned Parenthood’s puff piece?

“Nope,” snorts Charmaine. “They wanted sex.”

“What did you give them?” This is beginning to sound a bit odd. But we are all professionals here. “So what did they want to hear?” I ask.

“That we want people to stop having sex.” The main stream media was all a-titter that the right wing, church-going conservatives, would want their prudish boring sexless lives extended to the normal world of one-night stands and casual hook-ups and empty passion.

This line of questioning from the main stream media is not new to the wife of Your Business Blogger. I always find it odd that the MSM interviewers would ask Charmaine about the sex-prude-Christian-wing-nuts. They lead, with a knowing smirk, “Sex is awful…right?”

Asking a woman who bore five children. With a Ph.D.. With one man.

(Your Business Blogger is not only insufferable, but also a Neanderthal.) (And I find terminal degrees enticing — fulfilling. My Ph.D. cup runneth over.)

So the interviewer got only facts on the problems with the morning after pill. But they wanted sex. And left empty handed.

And spiked the story.

And this is why people read blogs.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Michael Medved at a recent conference hosted by the Culture and Media Institute part of the Media Research Center, reminded us that the modern press outlets have changed from ‘fact reporters’ to ‘truth tellers.’ The truth as the reporters see it. Which is as few real people see the truth. So print newspaper subscriptions are dropping like a stone. Because most newspapers are simply one long editorial. And if an opinion is what readers wants, they will read Powerline or Captain’s Quarters, Evangelical Outpost or any of a thousand excellent on line publications. Blogs.

For more on Medved, see Management Training of DC, Emotion Trumps Data on CNN’s ‘Your $$$$$’

From the Family Research Council,

Plan B: More Sales, Less Medical Care

Today the Washington Post trumpets news that sales of the Plan B morning-after-pill have doubled since the FDA allowed it to be sold over-the-counter (“OTC”) last fall. We hate to rain on the parade, but several points need to be made.

First, the drug’s supporters complain about FDA’s requirement that Plan B remain a prescription drug for girls 18 or under. Physicians consulting with FRC believe Plan B may affect adolescents differently from adults, and it is alarming that Plan B’s manufacturer did not present adolescent safety data to FDA.

Consequently, FDA decided that it could not be sold safely to adolescents without a prescription. When FDA concocted a legally dubious marketing scheme combining OTC adult sales with adolescent prescription sales, FRC, Concerned Women for America, and the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons took FDA to court. That litigation is ongoing.

Second, we were concerned that the label comprehension tests for Plan B, conducted by Plan B’s manufacturer, indicated that 1 of 3 women tested did not realize Plan B was not a replacement for traditional contraceptives. Without physician oversight, this might lead to Plan B’s overuse.

Finally, concerns by pharmacists and Catholic hospitals about Plan B’s abortifacient properties are credible: the drug’s label, approved by FDA, states that Plan B “may inhibit implantation of the embryo.”

Doubling the use of a bad drug is nothing to celebrate.