PITTSBURGH—In a move that could revolutionize emergency contraception, the maker of Plan B One-Step held a press conference Thursday to introduce the new product it calls Plan B One-Leap, a space-time wormhole that allows women to travel into the past and stop intercourse from ever taking place.
Developed by the drug company Foundation Consumer Healthcare, the innovative device has received early praise from reproductive health advocates for providing women worried about an unwanted pregnancy with expanded access to an infinite number of parallel timelines in which they have not yet met their sexual partner, they have met their partner but not yet had sex, or they are currently having sex but there are still a few seconds to spare before it’s too late.
“Plan B One-Leap lets women manipulate the space-time continuum to prevent sexual activity wherever and whenever it may have occurred,” said company spokesperson Patricia Jacobsen, adding that the wormhole is easy to use and up to 96% effective when one enters its gravitation well and emerges on the other side at a point in time prior to engaging in unprotected sex. “While this method should not be used as one’s regular form of birth control, sometimes the unexpected happens, and a woman needs to go back in time, barge into the room where her past self is having sex, and warn herself to stop.”
“With One-Leap, you can avoid an unintended pregnancy by simply lurking outside your own window and making a startling noise that kills the mood during foreplay,” Jacobsen continued.
According to the manufacturer, once a consumer purchases and opens Plan B One-Leap, the fabric of space and time will fold in upon itself somewhere within a one-mile radius of the user. Upon locating and entering this temporal fissure, identifiable by its patented blue iridescent glow, the user will reportedly be sent to a predetermined moment in the past, at which point she must attempt to find herself and redirect the course of her life.
“We believe the best way for a woman to take control of her future is to take control of her past,” Jacobsen said. “That may mean a condom broke during sex and she now needs to don a dark hood and warn herself in a shadowy alley not to hook up that night, or it may mean she missed a few doses of her usual contraceptive and must now chase her past self across the city and defeat herself in hand-to-hand combat to ensure she doesn’t have sex.”
Jacobsen added that Plan B’s wormholes will be available over the counter and won’t require a visit to a doctor or quantum physicist.
Although the product is most effective when a woman stops herself from ever meeting her sexual partner in the first place, Jacobsen noted that any disruption of events can decrease the likelihood of pregnancy—from cutting short a chance encounter at a bar with a well-timed drink spill, to burning down the apartment complex where intercourse would have taken place, to sabotaging a first date by showing up and pretending to be one’s own crazy twin sister.
The Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Energy confirmed they approved the new contraceptive following months of rocky trials. Some test participants experienced nausea and migraines, while others said they felt fatigue after embarking on a high-speed race against the clock to close the time loop they had accidentally created. But all users reported feeling better after resting, rehydrating, and returning to the past one more time to prevent their partner’s birth by seducing and killing his father.
“There can be side effects, like changes in your period, lower abdominal pain, or being trapped in 1994 forever,” said research director Evelyn Lewis, who also acknowledged rare cases of chronosickness, which causes every atom in one’s body to fly apart and scatter across the cosmos. “But most women found such adverse reactions preferable to an unplanned pregnancy. There were no complaints among those transported to an alternate universe in which men, not women, bear children, or in which the human species has 17 distinct genders and reproduces through a process of asexual budding.”
“The most important thing is for users to keep a cyanide capsule on their person at all times, so they can ingest it immediately if they inadvertently initiate a sequence of paradoxes that causes the entire multiverse to collapse and brings about the end of time,” Lewis added.
At press time, the launch of Plan B One-Leap had ended prematurely after a wormhole opened behind the lectern and a scarred Jacobsen wearing an eye patch emerged, begging those present to “please, please stop” because “this was never supposed to happen.”