Why Emergency Contraceptives Must Be Sold Over-the-counter

"People drive to Reading to buy jeans."

"Even if that were the case, that you had to drive to Reading to get this [prescription], to me that does not rise to a compulsion that you have to pass laws that [doctors] have to do something,"

- Dr. Joe Kearns, former medical director of a Pennsylvania Good Samaritan Hospital , explaining why it was OK for an emergency room doctor to refuse to give a rape victim a morning-after pill when it was against his Mennonite religion.


"In Connecticut, it shouldn’t take more than a short ride to get to another hospital,"

- Sen. Joe Lieberman explaining why he believes that hospitals that refuse to give contraceptives to rape victims for "principled reasons" shouldn’t be forced to do so.

Emergency Contraceptive ("morning-after pill," sold as Plan B) is a legal drug, and yet, in Pennsylvania and other states a doctor can refuse to prescribe it and the state will back him up.

That means after you, me, your wife, daughter, sister, mother, best friend has managed to survive the trauma of a rape; makes the decision to report it and deal with being questioned by police officers; goes to an emergency room and suffers through the additional trauma of a rape kit; some doctor can tell her to "Hit the road: your medical needs conflict with my personal beliefs."

Yesterday, the FDA announced that it will reconsider making the morning-after nonprescription. The whole debate on how this pill is sold has been mired in politics:

Dozens of professional societies, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, also came out in favor of nonprescription sales, saying there is no evidence backing conservatives' claims that easier access to the drug would lead to an increase in promiscuity.

Yet in an apparent break from its tradition of hewing strictly to science, which a recent Government Accountability Office report termed "unusual," the agency repeatedly refused to approve the switch.

That refusal has persisted even as the manufacturer offered to restrict sales to women at least 16 years old; require that the drug be sold only at pharmacies and not at convenience stores or other nonmedical outlets; and mandate that it be kept behind a pharmacy counter so purchasers would have to ask for it and show proof of age. The company also proposed a plan to ensure that pharmacies enforced those rules.

Politics is also playing a role in the renewed talks on the drug:

The letter from acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach to Duramed Research Inc. of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., came just one day before von Eschenbach's Senate confirmation hearing, scheduled for this morning.

Making this drug available without prescription will ensure that no more rape victims are told to "take a hike."

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UPDATE: There's something that you can do about this right NOW:

The CARE Act (Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies) Senate Bill 990 and House Bill 2159 respectively

Once enacted, the CARE Act will improve medical care standards for victims by requiring all hospitals and healthcare facilities in Pennsylvania that treat victims of sexual assault to do the following:

- Provide medically accurate information about EC;
- Provide the full regimen of EC upon the victim's request;
- Provide information about the availability of a rape crisis counselor and the contact information of the local rape crisis center; and
- Contact the local rape crisis center upon the request of the victim so that she can have the opportunity for a personal and private consultation with the counselor while at the hospital.

You can find out all about it here.

They have lots of Action Items that you can do including signing a petition here.