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GERACE: If a woman's sexually assaulted and its a weekend what she has to do on top of dealing with that situation get in touch with her doctor, get an appointment. If it's a weekend, you know how long that can take or a holiday, she has to go into the doctor's office, she has to get the prescription, she has to go to a pharmacy, she has to get to a pharmacy that stocks that medication, if they don't have it she has to go to another place. It's most effective when it's taken in a timely manner.
HONEYWOOD: There's a lot of pharmacies who are not stocking emergency contraception. What are the reasons for that?
GERACE: One of the things they've done, the City Council that is, in their studies and their initiatives, has been to go out and survey pharmacists in the five boroughs. What they've found out is that in some cases some of the pharmacists just didn't know about it or there was no demand for it. A pharmacy after all is a business so they're not likely to stock a medication that isn't gonna move. So, many people think it has to do with political objections to the medication, but really often it's just that pharmacists don't know about it and women aren't asking for it because they don't know about it either. That's why it's so important to increase awareness.
HONEYWOOD: This has been a big issue nationally as you know, do you think that in NYC you're going to encounter any resistance from pharmacists based on issues of conscience?
GERACE: Here in New York we don't have anything like that. In fact, we are the first eastern state to mandate EC in the ER for example. That is, making emergency contraception available for rape survivors. So we really distinguish ourselves as a state and a city as leaders in promoting and protecting women's health. I don't anticipate that we would have a groundswell of support for endangering, I mean limiting women's access to birth control, which is what it is, you know. Emergency contraception is a high dose of birth control pills.
HONEYWOOD: How would you respond to critics who say that Plan B will, or Preven ... will it make people less responsible with contraception at the beginning, before they have sex. Do you think that's a problem?
GERACE: No. In fact, there's research that indicates that women that are educated and have access to emergency contraception are no more likely to engage in riskier sexual behavior or stop using ongoing or regular methods of birth control. The other thing is that, it's expensive. One dose of EC costs about 30 dollars which is about as expensive as a full month's cycle of birth control pills. There are very few women that I know that would be willing to spend that amount of money after each and every act of intercourse.
HONEYWOOD: Can you explain how this type of emergency contraception, how it works differently than say an abortion pill?
GERACE: An abortion pill is different because an abortion pill actually ends a pregnancy. if a woman is pregnant and takes emergency contraception, she will stay pregnant. It's not an abortion pill.
HONEYWOOD: Thank you for being with us today.
GERACE: Sure, no problem.
HONEYWOOD: Miriam Gerace is Communications Manager for Planned Parenthood of New York City.