Plan B One-Step, here in the prescription for under 17s pack. Photo credit: Waltarrrr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/waltarrrrr/5248623754/
President Barack Obama is facing the wrath of his moderate liberal base, as well as women’s rights groups, Friday after he backed health secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s decision to block over-the-counter sales of Plan B One-Step, the so-called “morning-after pill”, to anyone, regardless of age.
Obama defended his decision as “common sense”, explaining, “[A]s the father of two daughters: I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine… And as I understand it, the reason Kathleen made this decision was she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going into a drugstore should be able — alongside bubble gum or batteries — be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could end up having an adverse effect. And I think most parents would probably feel the same way.”
The Plan-B One-Step is an after-the-fact contraceptive, which, if taken within 72 hours of sex can prevent pregnancy by limiting ovulation or blocking the implantation of the fertilized egg. It is currently available in the US to women ages 17 or older without a doctor’s prescription, however, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries asked the Food and Drug Administration to also make the drug available to those 16 and younger without a prescription. The FDA agreed, but Sebelius rejected that recommendation. She claimed that “there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences” between older teenage girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age and that there isn’t enough evidence that those girls wouldn’t be harmed by taking the pill.
Read Sebelius’s statement here.
Obama’s decision hasn’t gone down well with his critics, who note that not only did he criticize his predecessor for making legislation regarding contraception, but that he also promised to be a friend to both women’s right and science. This decision, they say, makes him neither.
Betrayal of science. As a candidate and early in his presidency, Obama implied that he would rely on scientists – the experts, the people who knew more than he did – to inform policy, said Michael Specter at The New Yorker. So it makes his backing of Sebelius all the more sad and frustrating. This was a decision based on emotion and how well it would play at the ballot box, not science, which has indicated that there would be no problems with making the pill more widely available. “If you don’t accept the recommendations of your most able and well-trained scientists, if you reject research results that have been endorsed heavily by dispassionate experts, then where do you end up? Once we start rejecting facts for fiction, does it really matter which facts and which fiction?”
This wasn’t a decision based on science, but it probably shouldn’t have been. Bryan Walsh, writing at TIME’s EcoCentric blog, agreed with Specter, but noted, “Ultimately, science can only tell us so much. It can tell us that there is little evidence that Plan B would pose any danger to women below the age of 18, but it can’t tell us whether it’s right that they should be able to have the drug without a prescription. Obviously, not every American feels that way—including, I suspect, President Obama, who has often leaned conservative on many social issues. I think they’re wrong—and maybe you do, too—but it’s my ethics and my values and my experience that inform that position, as much or more than any scientific study.”
Women’s health as a bartering tool. Noting that worrying about 11-year-olds taking Plan B is just a cover, Tory Hoen at BlackBook claimed that this decision stinks of “Bush-era blindness”. “What we’re really talking about is the recurrent hijacking of the women’s health debate by political entities that seek only to use it to promote their own agendas,” she wrote, flagging up recent comment suggesting that Obama may be trying to placate conservative types angered by legislation requiring that health insurance carriers provide contraception for free. “The most disconcerting takeaway here is not the government’s persistent unwillingness to let women make their own decisions, but rather, the incessant use of reproductive rights as a bartering tool in the increasingly laughable game that is American partisan politics.”
Actually, Obama’s right: Parents should be the Plan A. “Dad Obama” is right to limit young girls’ access to the morning-after pill, the New York Daily News declared in a leading editorial: “The standard for making such a product available to young people should be their capacity to make a mature, life-altering decision — not whether it is physically possible for them to bear children. Girls ages 12, 13 and 14 are too young to do that without parental counseling.”
More on teenagers and sex
- Twilight saga’s Breaking Dawn: Part One – toothsome or toothless?
- Teenagers: Not sexting as much as you thought
- No more padded bras for 8-year-olds
- Abstinence education – for girls only?
- Teen sex – not as bad as we all thought?