FDA Approves Over The Counter Access to Morning After Pill for Women 18 and Older

From the Associated Press: FDA Eases Limits on Morning-After Pill

The good news: Women 18 and older can now obtain Plan B without a prescription. The bad news: Teenage girls still face restrictions.

A partial victory, however, is better than none at all. Readers of my private blog might recall an entry I wrote a few weeks ago about my own experiences with obtaining Plan B. In light of recent news, I have decided to repost it publicly here:

Excerpted from LiveJournal entry, “When Plan B is thrawted, what’s our Plan C?” (August 7, 2006)

I took Plan B for the first time last month. Since I’m not on the birth control pill, I wanted to play it safe when the condom slipped off. The entire process of obtaining a packet of Plan B was stressful in an already distressing situation — from locating a pharmacy that didn’t require a prescription to filling out the forms and having to use someone else’s address instead of my own. And I’m an adult who lives in Los Angeles. My experience made me empathize deeply with adolescent girls without understanding parents and with women residing in unaccommodating conservative areas. If it was such a disconcerting process for me, how terrible must it be for millions more out there?

I work, I go to Harvard, and I date guys who are MBA candidates. I’m not exactly the typical case study for the pitfalls of premarital sex. Still, if I found myself caught in a situation like that (through no fault of my own), how many other women out there are in the same position? Plan B is not just important for the poor or for the rich or for the uneducated or for the young. It’s important for all women. We shouldn’t have to suffer through an unnecessary bureaucratic struggle to locate it. Our government should be making it as easy as possible.

Will some people abuse Plan B’s over-the-counter availability, if legalized? Probably, but it’s their choice, their bodies, and their morality. That’s not for anyone else to regulate. So I find it repulsive and mind-boggling that against all common sense, the FDA continues to delay over-the-counter access to Plan B. This isn’t gun control here. This is uterus control. What happens when emergency contraception is rendered unattainable by our government? The answer: pregnancy followed by an abortion, miscarriage (not unlikely considering the stress), or childbirth, all potentially traumatizing and life-changing. How can a group of wealthy, white men decide the fate of millions of women, many of them with backgrounds unlike theirs?

Yet dishearteningly, it is proving far to difficult to obtain an abortion. For city dwellers, finding a clinic is inconvenient but not unrealistic. It’s a different story in less metropolitan areas. There is one abortion clinic left in the entire state of Mississippi. What are women supposed to do when their first option requires a prescription no one will give and their second option is virtually impossible?

There are no easy answers to these questions, though just about everyone seems to have one. There are people purporting to be the watchdogs of American morality. There are people claiming to look out for women’s health. What I don’t see is anyone taking care of women’s emotional well-being. And isn’t that what’s impacted most in the event of a pregnancy? Until legislators cease kowtowing to the religious right, women’s bodies and minds are the property of the US government.

I don’t think this is a liberal issue or a democratic issue. My Republican friends support my right to choose, as much as I support yours. We may not use this right, but it’s good to know it’s there, and I, for one, am going to be responsible about it. For millions of women, unfortunately, choice exists only in theory.