Northern Ky health board votes
Latest attempt to legitimize homosexuality fails in state's largest city
From Kentucky Citizen Digest, Jan, 1998

A northern Kentucky health board decision to dispense an abortion pill has pro-life activists up in arms. The Northern Kentucky Independent District Board made the decision when it found out it stood to lose $250,000 in federal money if it did not.

Under federal Title X guidelines, health departments must provide the pill, the technical name of which is “Depo-Provera,” but which some refer to as the “morning after pill.” If used within 72 hours of conception, the pill prevents a fertilized human ovum from attaching to a woman’s uterus. If an ovum does not attach to the side of the uterus, it cannot develop any further and eventually dies. Since it destroys the ovum after, rather than before conception, it is considered an abortifacient rather than a contraceptive. The pill was approved for use earlier this year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

When the board first voted on the issue on Sept. 17, it voted to request a waiver from the federal government to allow it not to distribute the pill, but said if it could not get the waiver, it would make it available. According to federal officials, the northern Kentucky health board was the only one in the nation to request such a waiver.

The board’s decision to distribute the pill if a waiver is denied set off a firestorm of protest and accusations that the board was more concerned with getting money from the federal government than it was in the value of life.

“I feel very strongly we’re being swayed here as a board looking at dollars and not looking at lives,” said Cheryl Myers, a board member who voted against the pill.

Health officials argued that pregnancy does not actually occur until after the fertilized egg attaches to the wall of the uterus. “Pregnancy is medically defined as occurring when a fertilized egg implants in the lining of the uterus, said Dr. Susan Kramer, medical director with the northern Kentucky health department.

But Art Kunath, a northern Kentucky physician disagrees. “As a physician,” he said, “I know that conception begins with the fertilization of an ovum with a sperm and a new individual begins at that time. It has nothing to do with implantation -- so a pill that prevents implantation is willful abortion of a new individual. The pill is, in fact, an abortifacient and therefore, in my mind, is clearly murder. We don’t want the government mandating that we kill our children.”

“They’re just redefining pregnancy to accommodate early abortion, and they all knew it, and they voted on it,” Bob Cetrulo, a spokesman for Northern Kentucky Right to Life, told the Kentucky Post.

The board was asked by Myers to reconsider its decision, but Mary Ann Barnes, chairwoman of the board, would not allow board members to hear further argument on the issue or reconsider their vote.

But the battle is far from over. “We certainly are going to see the defeat of the county officials and the mayor of Covington who appointed these people,” said Cetrulo.
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander, Executive Director Martin Cothran, Senior Associate Policy Analyst