Plan B Forum

Judge Strikes Down Age Limits on Morning-After Pill

Easing Access to Contraception: The Times’s Pam Belluck explains how the emergency nature of the morning-after pill pushed a federal judge to increase its availability.
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: April 5, 2013 440 Comments


A federal judge on Friday ordered that the most common morning-after pill be made available over the counter for all ages, instead of requiring a prescription for girls 16 and younger. But his acidly worded decision raises a broader question about whether a cabinet secretary can decide on a drug’s availability for reasons other than its safety and effectiveness.
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In his ruling, Judge Edward R. Korman of the Eastern District of New York accused the Obama administration of putting politics ahead of science. He concluded that the administration had not made its decisions based on scientific guidelines, and that its refusal to lift restrictions on access to the pill, Plan B One-Step, was “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.”

He said that when the Health and Human Services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, countermanded a move by the Food and Drug Administration in 2011 to make the pill, which helps prevent pregnancy after sexual intercourse, universally available, “the secretary’s action was politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent.”

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Scientists, including those at the Food and Drug Administration, have recommended unrestricted access for years, as have the American Medical Association, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. They contend that the restrictions effectively keep many adolescents and younger teenagers from being able to use a safe drug in a timely way to prevent pregnancy, which carries greater safety risks than the morning-after pill.

Conservative and anti-abortion groups assailed the judge’s decision, suggesting that it may allow the pill to be given to young girls without their consent. They also say that girls who can skip the requirement to visit a doctor for a prescription may have sexually transmitted infections that go undiagnosed and untreated.

“This ruling places the health of young girls at risk,” said Anna Higgins, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council.

The judge’s decision, a rare case in which a court has weighed in to order that a drug be made available over the counter, could test the question of who gets the final say in such matters. ... "