ON THE HORIZON

The South Carolina Emergency Contraception Initiative
The Foundation launched a public health education campaign about emergency birth control in 2006 in partnership with Advocates for Youth^[1]. The South Carolina Emergency Contraception Initiative^[2] is targeting young people under age 25 in four South Carolina metropolitan areas --- Greenville, Spartanburg, Columbia and Charleston --- in the first phase of a multi-year campaign.

Emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) can prevent pregnancy when taken within three days after unprotected or unwanted sex^[3]. (Some clinical research indicated that ECPs can be effective when taken within five days after intercourse.)

Commonly referred to as EC, Plan B, or "the morning-after pill", research has shown that substantial confusion exists in the marketplace, where consumers frequently mistake ECPs for the FDA-approved medication that induces a chemical abortion, mifepristone. However, emergency contraceptive pills do not contain mifepristone; rather, ECPs are a concentrated dose of the same hormones found in ordinary birth control pills. Emergency contraceptives work by preventing a pregnancy and will not cause an abortion.

The Foundation believes that, with more and better education, emergency contraceptive pills can be an accepted and accessible method of preventing unwanted pregnancies among South Carolina women.

Research
The Foundation funds various research projects, which are related to its mission.

In 2004, a grant funded South Carolina Speaks!, a survey of voters' opinions about comprehensive health education, which was later published. In 2005, as we funded another opinion survey to determine how South Carolina's voters felt about pharmacists' refusing to fill birth control prescriptions. In 2006, we made a grant to Ibis Reproductive Health of Cambridge, Massachusetts^[4] to study whether a disconnect exists between South Carolina hospitals' policies and practices in treating victims of sexual assault in their emergency rooms.

Also in 2006, the Foundation funded an analysis by the University of South Carolina's Center for Health Services & Policy Research of the annual economic impact of births to teen mothers for each of our state's 46 counties and as a whole^[5]. The Center will complete a follow-up analysis in 2007 of our state's annual investment in prevention programs at the county and state levels.

1: www.advocatesforyouth.org
2: www.morningafterinfo.org
3: Ibid.
4: www.ibisreproductivehealth.org
5: http://www.tellthemsc.org/library/sc_county_economic_fact_sheets/