Vitamin G

Health Controversy: If You Got Pregnant Taking a Defective Birth Control Pill, What Would You Do?

There was that big snafu last week with the recall of million-plus packs of birth control pills--they were manufactured without the correct dosages, meaning there was an increased chance of pregnancy. If you're taking pills to prevent pregnancy, that news scores as a significant "yoinks." So here's a hypothetical question for you...

... if you did end up pregnant from taking birth control pills that had been recalled, what would you do? What could you do--could you sue?

That's the question that TIME's Healthland poses--and it's a good one.

It's most likely too early to know how many women got unintentionally pregnant due to taking these defective birth control pills, but already there's a lot of speculation as to what legal recourse those women would have. According to I. Glenn Cohen, assistant professor and co-director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School:

The best chance for a case, however, would be for affected women with unwanted pregnancies to band together and bring a class-action lawsuit against Pfizer, said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. Such a case could ask for considerably more money than an individual case, and would be more attractive to lawyers, Caplan said. I'm sure some enterprising lawyer is already thinking of bringing a class-action lawsuit against the company," Cohen said.

Of course, even non-recalled birth control pills carry the risk of pregnancy: about one in 100 women get pregnant while taking them. Which means there's a good chance you know someone who did. And if you didn't...

Hi! I'm Lexi. Now you do!

So what would you do if you got pregnant due to defective pills? Would you sue? Do you know anyone who's gotten unintentionally pregnant while taking the pill?

More on birth control questions:

Health Controversy: Should Birth Control Be Free to All Women?

Photo: Thinkstock

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