The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is still dragging its heels and, as I write this, has not complied with a court order to make emergency contraception available without prescription and over-the-counter to anybody who wants it without any obstacles except normal payment.
Please excuse my using strong language, but here's the reality. At any age, women and girls seeking emergency contraception have semen already inside them. They have only 24 hours to take emergency contraception to have the best chance of preventing pregnancy. The idea that anyone should impede access to emergency contraception is utterly repugnant. I don't care what age we're talking about. Unless the woman wants to become pregnant, the only choice with sperm already swimming to find her egg is emergency contraception. Nobody sane would want otherwise for her. In fact, a parent aware of the situation who didn't try to help a young daughter avoid pregnancy should be thrown in jail as an unfit parent.
Yet the FDA is still responding to the insane who think somebody should put an obstacle in front of a woman or girl who needs this miracle medicine called Plan B that prevents unintended pregnancy. Plan B is medically proven safer than aspirin. Hundreds of medications are sold over the counter every day without anybody having to show a passport, driver's license, or birth certificate. (Most teenagers don't have those IDs.) Nobody is going to pay the selling price for Plan B to gulp them like Tic Tacs, and even Tic Tacs are more dangerous to human health.
Study after study demonstrates that Plan B doesn't encourage sexual intercourse. Not that that matters, but it doesn't. What Plan B does do is prevent abortions and unwanted babies.
Of course 13 year old girls should never have semen swimming inside them. Frankly if I had a daughter I would be delighted if she wanted to live in a convent until at least age 28. However, any girl of any age should be able to get Plan B with zero obstacles because semen swimming to find her egg is an emergency that requires no court, no consent, no debate, no bullshit. After that there may also be some idiot/criminal male thrown in prison or a gift box of condoms, but regardless of whether that happens no girl should get pregnant because some other idiot unduly influencing the FDA thinks she should show a passport in a CVS or Walgreens.
I'd go further, in fact. Plan B should be available everywhere. If Chuck E. Cheese's wants to sell Plan B, great, let them. Plan B should be available in restroom vending machines everywhere, too, including in schools. First aid kits should include Plan B as a standard item, and wherever condoms are sold Plan B should be sold as well.
Please excuse my using strong language, but here's the reality. At any age, women and girls seeking emergency contraception have semen already inside them. They have only 24 hours to take emergency contraception to have the best chance of preventing pregnancy. The idea that anyone should impede access to emergency contraception is utterly repugnant. I don't care what age we're talking about. Unless the woman wants to become pregnant, the only choice with sperm already swimming to find her egg is emergency contraception. Nobody sane would want otherwise for her. In fact, a parent aware of the situation who didn't try to help a young daughter avoid pregnancy should be thrown in jail as an unfit parent.
Yet the FDA is still responding to the insane who think somebody should put an obstacle in front of a woman or girl who needs this miracle medicine called Plan B that prevents unintended pregnancy. Plan B is medically proven safer than aspirin. Hundreds of medications are sold over the counter every day without anybody having to show a passport, driver's license, or birth certificate. (Most teenagers don't have those IDs.) Nobody is going to pay the selling price for Plan B to gulp them like Tic Tacs, and even Tic Tacs are more dangerous to human health.
Study after study demonstrates that Plan B doesn't encourage sexual intercourse. Not that that matters, but it doesn't. What Plan B does do is prevent abortions and unwanted babies.
Of course 13 year old girls should never have semen swimming inside them. Frankly if I had a daughter I would be delighted if she wanted to live in a convent until at least age 28. However, any girl of any age should be able to get Plan B with zero obstacles because semen swimming to find her egg is an emergency that requires no court, no consent, no debate, no bullshit. After that there may also be some idiot/criminal male thrown in prison or a gift box of condoms, but regardless of whether that happens no girl should get pregnant because some other idiot unduly influencing the FDA thinks she should show a passport in a CVS or Walgreens.
I'd go further, in fact. Plan B should be available everywhere. If Chuck E. Cheese's wants to sell Plan B, great, let them. Plan B should be available in restroom vending machines everywhere, too, including in schools. First aid kits should include Plan B as a standard item, and wherever condoms are sold Plan B should be sold as well.
