emergency contraception

noun

: drugs (such as the morning-after pill) or devices (such as an IUD) that are used to prevent fertilization or delay or prevent ovulation following unprotected sexual intercourse or contraceptive failure

Emergency contraception can prevent pregnancy after you've had sex without birth control or after your birth control method has failed—say, the condom broke or slipped off, your diaphragm got knocked out of place, or you forgot to take your birth control pills.

—The Courier-Times (Roxboro, North Carolina)

There has been confusion about whether emergency contraception is an abortifacient—that is, a medication that triggers an abortion. The key difference is that the abortion pill works only when a woman is pregnant, and emergency contraception works only when she is not.

—Amie Ashcraft

Examples of emergency contraception in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The day after the election, website traffic spiked by 70% at the emergency contraception company Cadence OTC, with especially high traffic from states with more restrictive reproductive rights laws, a company spokesperson said. —Angie Leventis Lourgos, Chicago Tribune, 16 Nov. 2024

Check its availability at Walgreens' official website in addition to other emergency contraception products. —Alyssa Goldberg, The Courier-Journal, 13 Nov. 2024

Julie, a healthcare company that sells emergency contraception online and in retail stores, also experienced a stark increase in sales. —Alyssa Goldberg, USA TODAY, 11 Nov. 2024

Women have begun stocking up on emergency contraception, also often referred to as the morning-after pill. —Tina Reed, Axios, 25 Nov. 2024

In Missouri, about half of adults don’t know that emergency contraception is legal there. —Yasmine Salam, NBC News, 1 Nov. 2024

Meanwhile, a Trump administration might roll back Affordable Care Act policies that provide no-cost contraception, including emergency contraception, by reinstating moral exemptions. —Sandra Rose Salathe, Flow Space, 23 Oct. 2024

In addition to over-the-counter birth control without a prescription, the rules would also require private insurers to cover emergency contraception, condoms and spermicide at no cost, and would require insurers to disclose the new offerings to patients. —Sara Dorn, Forbes, 21 Oct. 2024

Through the end of this year, Texas is legally excluding emergency contraception from its Healthy Texas Women program, which provides care to low-income women. —Yasmine Salam, NBC News, 1 Nov. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1972, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

emergency contraception

noun

: drugs (such as the morning-after pill) or devices (such as an IUD) that are used to prevent fertilization or delay or prevent ovulation following unprotected sexual intercourse or contraceptive failure

Emergency contraception sometimes is confused with medical abortion. Medical abortion is used to terminate an existing pregnancy, whereas emergency contraception is effective only before a pregnancy is established. Emergency contraception can prevent pregnancy after sexual intercourse and is ineffective after implantation.

—American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Plan B, a progestin-only method of emergency contraception (0.75 mg of levonorgestrel within 72 hours and repeated 12 hours later), is not only better tolerated in terms of adverse effect profile, but also slightly more effective.

—Jeffrey F. Peipert, The Journal of the American Medical Association