Partial Victory for Morning After Pill
Friday, August 25, 2006
Detroit Free Press
Editorial Partial Victory for Morning After Pill
It's not a perfect compromise, but it's a palatable one -- at least for women over 18. After three years of foot-dragging, the FDA finally made the morning-after pill available without prescription, but only for those 18 and older. This partial victory gives women a backup plan if their primary contraceptive fails or if -- through carelessness, accident or abuse -- they find themselves at risk for getting pregnant. "Getting pregnant" is a key term here. Abortion opponents like to equate the pill with abortion, but Plan B actually makes sure pregnancy doesn't ensue, by preventing ovulation or fertilization. It does not disrupt existing pregnancies. And it's not a lot of fun. There are plenty of women who can't take regular doses of birth control pills because the side effects are unpleasant -- nausea, cramping, headache and other problems. Enduring a high dose is not as simple as "popping an aspirin and making a baby go away," as critics like to claim. That's why keeping it from teen girls in the name of preventing promiscuousness seems particularly shortsighted and cruel. Teens who have sex before they are ready experience enough emotional trauma without having to hurriedly face their parents and doctors the next morning to make sure they don't get pregnant. The best way to reduce teen pregnancies is to try to get girls -- and boys -- to wait until they are older and stronger, emotionally and physically, before acting on their passions. But for those who don't wait, the smartest thing is to arm them with good birth control before they have sex -- a decision few girls take lightly -- and give them an emergency safety net. The current FDA claims the scientific evidence didn't prove the morning-after pill would be safe for anyone younger than 18, though earlier FDA advisory panels of scientists believed that it did. Susan Wood, who quit as director of the FDA's Office of Women's Health over one delay in the approval, said those with the most knowledge of the pill's effects "were completely shut out of the process." Bring them back in as American women prove the pill's safety, which dozens of other countries have already demonstrated. Then the FDA should go to back at this issue and make the pills even more accessible.
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