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Morning-After Pill Now Available OTC for All Ages


notacleverpony

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Or it will be within the next month. From the Grey Lady:

A federal judge ruled Friday that the government must make the most common morning-after pill available over the counter for all ages, instead of requiring a prescription for girls 16 and younger. In his ruling, he also accused the federal government of “bad faith†in dealing with the requests to make the pill universally available.

Judge Korman ordered the F.D.A. to lift any age and sale restrictions on the pill, Plan B One-Step, and its generic versions, within 30 days.

“More than 12 years have passed since the citizen petition was filed and 8 years since this lawsuit commenced,†the judge wrote. “The F.D.A. has engaged in intolerable delays in processing the petition. Indeed, it could accurately be described as an administrative agency filibuster.â€

He added, “The plaintiffs should not be forced to endure, nor should the agency’s misconduct be rewarded by, an exercise that permits the F.D.A. to engage in further delay and obstruction.â€

Score one for bodily autonomy! Four for you, Judge Korman! You go, Judge Korman! (And cue fundie batshit ravings in 3... 2... 1...)

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About fucking time!

A full range of birth control should be subsidized and easily available to all ages and genders. Period.

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Even as apro-life fundie, I'm not sure I see this as a bad thing (gasp!) As I understand it, the Morning After pill is like taking an overdose of birth control pills. It will not disturb an intact pregnancy but it will prevent you from ovulating, and thus creating a pregnancy. It is not the same thing as the pill that is taken to abort an intact pregnancy.

Pregnancy doesn't happen right after sex. That's why it's possible to prevent pregnancy even after the fact. It can take up to six days for the sperm and egg to meet after having sex. Emergency contraception pills work by keeping a woman's ovary from releasing an egg for longer than usual. Pregnancy cannot happen if there is no egg to join with sperm.
from http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health ... l-4363.asp

Of course, if you're opposed to birth control pills, you'll still have a problem with it. And, of course, there's going to be the same argument that the pill (both The Pill or the Morning After Pill) might prevent the implantation of a fertilized embryo. Most fundies I know (IFB) use BCP, so I don't see why they would fight this? I guess we have have things that we are so rabid about we don't stop and check to facts.

Note: I'm not sure the "five to six days" is accurate. From what I've learned from infertiles trying artificial insemination, it's more like 24-48 hours.

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I was coming here to post this myself. This is great news!

I love this part:

The judge specifically ruled out the agency using the rulemaking process to slow the ruling, saying that it had already engaged in "intolerable delays" in responding to the Citizen Petition asking for the drug to be made available over the counter.
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Yay!

The most common opposition I see to this kind of thing is "but kids that age shouldn't be having sex". Well, if they're looking for Plan B, it's a bit late, and kids that age shouldn't be having babies, either! And because it's so time-sensitive, requiring a prescription just decreases its effectiveness.

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One small step for the judge, one giant leap for womankind.

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Thats brilliant news. Everyone should have access to affordable birth control. Even teenagers, if theyre going to have sex, they need to be protected.

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The reason I've most often seen for opposing it (other than from people who think it's an abortion pill) is that children shouldn't be able to take such powerful drugs unsupervised. In fact, that's exactly the justification Obama and Sebelius used. This could only come from people who don't know what the drug is or how much it costs. You'd have to take a lot of Plan B for it to do much other than make you nauseated. And it is freakin' expensive!!!!! No teenager is going to use it as their regular form of birth control. By contrast, tylenol and aspirin are several orders of magnitude more dangerous and sold in vast quantities at low prices to anyone who who can reach the checkout counter.

I hope this doesn't get stayed. I hate signing the book of shame when the condom breaks. It's only happened to us a few times, but still. I'm a grown woman. I shouldn't have to sign a register that shows when I had sex.

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:happy-bouncymulticolor: :dancing-demon: :happy-partydance:

Aww yeah! Finally some good news on the bodily autonomy front! I've been able to buy stronger drugs than that OTC since I was physically able to walk up to a cash register with money - it's ridiculous that something this benign should be kept from teens.

About people who use BC being opposed to other people being able to access BC...I have this theory that people who've had sex-negative attitudes ingrained in them feel the need to slut shame others (even people who do the exact same things as them) in order to "atone" for their own sexual behaviour.

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I was coming here to post this myself. This is great news!

I love this part:

Actually, the FDA had decided in favor of making the morning after pill available for all women without prescription. They were over-ridden by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, so I'm not sure why the judge is taking it out on the FDA here.

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Now if only we could get regular ol' BCP over-the-counter without a prescription. Think that day will ever come?

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Now if only we could get regular ol' BCP over-the-counter without a prescription. Think that day will ever come?

The mini pill should be! There might be problems with the combined pill because there are quite a few contradictions. But really nothing that can't be fixed without a pharmacists checking the persons blood pressure & asking a few questions.

Fundies & pro lifers need to come to terms with promoting BC usage to reduce abortion. Do they really think that women WANT to have an abortion? Nurses know how to give needles. Why not let school nurses give students a box of condoms & a BC shot?

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