It’s hard enough asking for a cream for that rash, let alone asking for the morning-after pill.
The emergency medication is just that — medication for an emergency. When something’s gone wrong. When a woman fears she may be pregnant because she was raped, or stealthed, or unprepared, or made a mistake, or the contraception failed. And now she’s plucking up the courage to do something about it. To not be pregnant.
So news of a plan for pharmacists to offer women counselling when they ask for the morning-after pill or fill their prescription for the early abortion drug RU486 was met with predictable outrage. Many women, myself included, pictured the horror of a condescending dude in a white lab coat talking to them about a vulnerable, intimate or abusive matter.
Victoria’s Minister for Women Gabrielle Williams even accused the federal government — which is funding the trial — of pushing a “not-so-subtle pro-life agenda”.
While she supported giving women more information about their contraceptive options, she worried that having those conversations “at a time of potential crisis” could leave women feeling judged, and put them off getting more help.
The second point is fair enough, but the “pro-life agenda” line was utter tosh.
The $2.5 million trial being run by Monash University is based on good science. The results of a similar trial in Scotland, published in The Lancet, found that women offered counselling at a pharmacist had a 20% higher uptake of effective contraception in the months after accessing emergency contraception.
The trial leader, Monash Professor Danielle Mazza, emphasises that the counselling is optional, would be done only in private consulting rooms, and is about giving women more options — and encouraging them to consider long-acting reversible contraception (LARC).
She’s also working on a trial with GPs to increase the uptake of LARCs to shrink the number of unwanted pregnancies, because LARCs are a more effective contraceptive choice but have a dismally low usage rate in Australia.
The bullshit here is not the trial itself but the pervasive barriers to contraception that Australian women face.
The bullshit is the shame and the stigma of unwanted pregnancies that could see a woman hesitate to ask for the morning-after pill — and that hesitancy could increase if they fear some well-intentioned pharmacist trying to strike up a conversation about it.
The unintended consequence of women being more afraid to go to a pharmacist is not something this trial will or could measure. But the fault lies in the stigma and shame women are made to feel, not the trial.
The bullshit is that some doctors can’t or won’t prescribe RU486. And the increased barriers for culturally and linguistically diverse women, and women in rural or regional Australia.
The bullshit is that women disproportionately feel the responsibility for contraception, and the stigma when it fails.
The bullshit is that, after about three decades on the daily pill, I can’t remember ever being offered an LARC.
This is a trial. It will give insights into possible solutions. Personally I’d be horrified if my pharmacist offered to have a chat with me about contraception. But it’s also horrifying that no one has ever even slipped me a leaflet about my choices.
Have you ever been offered long-acting reversible contraception? Write to letters@crikey.com.au, and don’t forget to include your full name if you’d like to be considered for publication.
I’m a pharmacist of 20 years. I’m often asked for the morning after pill & I make it as painless as a dude asking for voltaren for his dicky knee. There MUST be no stigma attached to fundamental women’s health.
I’m happy to dispense mifepristone as I believe in a women’s right to her own body.
Unfortunately not all my colleagues agree & push their views onto women who by luck of the draw, walk into their shop.
I’m also happy to have sensitive conversations about health – with LAC’s being just one. That’s why I have a private consultation area ….
Can we please not call it RU-486 anymore. The drug has a name, mifepristone. A letter/number combination is used by drug companies and regulators during the reseach and development phase, in this case the RU is for Rousesl-Uclaf the French pharmaceutical company that did the dvelopment. Mifepristone is no longer in development, it’s even listed on the PBS (under it’s correct name, mifepristone).
and, can we stop referring to anti-choice wingnuts as “pro-life”
Yes! I read an article the other day where the author was talking about the right to body autonomy (US jurisdiction) and that we should call it “pro-forced-labour” I like pro-rights abuser personally but hey, that’s just my choice.
Stereotypes are alive and well “ Many women, myself included, pictured the horror of a condescending dude in a white lab coat…..“. Visit a pharmacy and speak to the pharmacist, and you are just as likely to be talking to a woman as a condescending dude. At least you didn’t refer to a condescending, middle-aged, white dude.
And the reason the pharmacist might ask you about iron pills or phenergan is that they are health PROFESSIONALS. It’s their job to offer health advice and ensure no harm is done by what they dispense. It’s just a pity that they need to sell nail polish remover in order to stay in business.
Thanks – great comment. Was just about to point out the ‘unconscious bias’’ in Shepherd’s story. As at December 2020, The Pharmacy Board of Australia lists Registrants as follows:
Female 62.8%
Male 37.2%
Never let pesky facts disrupt the agenda.
All part of the marketing campaign. Come and subscribe to Crikey. Vent your rage. Be part of our tribe.
Sick of Crikey on health. This one is completely in hack territory and nothing better than the original tabloid’s outrage/revenue driver.
Get a health editor Crikey. Or, for the sake of health literacy, stop Adam Shwabb from ever writing anything on Sweden again and ask Shepherd and Hardaker to share something other than narrow personal opinion.
It would be a disruption of the biz-model apparently pursued – write rubbish, get clicks, the more the better.
That demonstrably unqualified scribblers opine on topics beyond their mnimal ken reminds me of Frank Zappa on rock zine scribblers – “people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t think for people who don’t“.
yea ! health professionals – means they can dispense concoctions and make up concoctions – next they will add 5 minute counselling to chronic schizophrenics – bit like a the health “professional” version of speed dating – what if the shop is busy can’t afford the time, customers waiting etc . I have often thought Woolies and Coles should be able to sell medicines all they have to do is check the prescription and put a label on the bottle.
I thought the same when I read that. It must be hard to confect outrage week on end. Most of the Pharmacists and counter staff that have spoken to me about my prostate medication have been female.
The right-wing aren’t “pro-life”, or else they’d be pro-welfare and anti-war. Better to call them “pro-birth”, because that is where all of their interest in “child welfare” ends.
Hmmm how “excruciating” is it really though compared to an unwanted pregnancy and child for life. I mean c’mon ladies I feel we should be able to rise to these particularly occasions when so much is at stake and even if it wasn’t, a little fortitude goes a long way. And as stated there would be private consulting rooms so why is it so much different from just going to the doctors, pharmacists are also health professionals!