WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s the morning after and the controversy over how to sell emergency contraception still looms.
The Obama administration’s top health official stopped plans Wednesday to let the Plan B morning- after pill move onto drugstore shelves next to the condoms.
Overruling scientists at the Food and Drug Administration, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius decided that young girls shouldn’t be able to buy the pill on their own, saying she was worried about confusing 11-year-olds.
For now, Plan B will stay behind pharmacy counters, available without a prescription only to those 17 and older who can prove their age.
It was the latest twist in a nearly decadelong push for easier access to pills that can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex, and one with election-year implications. The move shocked women’s health advocates, a key part of President Barack Obama’s Democratic base, as well as major doctors groups that argue over-the-counter sales could lower the nation’s high number of unplanned pregnancies.
“Secretary Sebelius took this action after careful review,” Obama spokesman Nick Papas said. “As the secretary has stated, Plan B will remain available to all women who need it, and the president supports the secretary’s decision.”
Sebelius’ decision is “medically inexplicable,” said Dr. Robert Block of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“I don’t think 11-year-olds go into Rite Aid and buy anything,” much less a single pill that costs about $50, added fellow AAP member Dr. Cora Breuner, a professor of pediatric and adolescent medicine at the University of Washington.
Instead, putting the morning-after pill next to the condoms and spermicides would increase access for those of more sexually active ages “who have made a serious error in having unprotected sex and should be able to respond to that kind of lack of judgment in a way that is timely as opposed to having to suffer permanent consequences,” she said.
The move will anger many Democrats. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a member of the Senate leadership, already was asking Sebelius to explain her decision. But it also could serve to illustrate to independents, whose support will be critical in next fall’s presidential election, that Obama is not the liberal ideologue Republicans claim.
Nor will this end the emergency contraception saga. In 2009, a federal judge said the FDA had let politics, not science, drive its initial behind-the-counter age restrictions and said it should reconsider. At a hearing scheduled in federal court in New York next Tuesday, the Center for Reproductive Rights will argue the FDA should be held in contempt.
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