plan B

Almost three years after the FDA approved (a decision delayed 3 years by the Bush Administration) Plan B emergency contraception (the morning after pill) to be sold over the counter to women 18 and over, they reverse their original ruling, loosening it by allowing women (and men) 17 years old to now purchase the contraception without a doctors prescription.  As I stated when the FDA originally approved sales of Plan B OTC, the pill is shown to be safe for women even younger than 17 and with the teen pregnancy rate in our country - the highest among the most developed countries in the world - it can only well serve women, families, teens, and especially the impoverished to expand access to a safe and legal form of contraception.

The decision to reverse the ruling came after U.S. District Judge Edward Korman ruled in a New York case that Bush Administration appointees let politics, not science drive their decision to allow the over-the-counter access to these pills only to women 18 and older.  The Judge gave the agency 30 days to lower the age to 17 and separately evaluate if all age restrictions should be lifted. 

The controversy will of course rage on as the anti-choice community will use the same argument as the pro-choice community has been using all these years - we've turned this into a political issue.  Both sides have been polarized by feeling like this has been turned into a political issue at some point, but the fact of the matter is, whether you are pro-choice or anti-choice, this is a public health issue and what everyone wants is less abortions and less unwanted, unplanned pregnancies and the easiest, most cost effective, safest way to do that is to expand access to any and all forms of birth control.