Hey, look, Democrats rediscovered contraceptives!
F.D.A. to Weigh Over-the-Counter Sale of Contraceptive Pills
More than 60 years after the approval of oral contraceptives revolutionized women’s sexual health, the Food and Drug Administration has received its first application to supply a birth control pill over the counter — just as the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has put access to contraception more squarely at the heart of the clash over reproductive rights.
What clash regarding contraceptives? Republicans have been saying for most of this century that abortion and abortion pills are not contraceptives, that men and women should practice responsible, protected sex.
A Paris-based company, HRA Pharma, said it will announce on Monday that it has asked the F.D.A. to authorize its pill, which is available by prescription, for over-the-counter-sales in the United States. Cadence Health, another pill manufacturer that has been in close dialogue with the F.D.A. about switching its pill to over-the-counter status, said it hopes to move closer to submitting an application in the coming year.
The timing of HRA Pharma’s F.D.A. submission, just weeks after the Supreme Court decision, is “a really sad coincidence,” said Fre?de?rique Welgryn, the company’s chief strategic and innovations officer. “Birth control is not a solution for abortion access,” she said.
Well, actually, it is, because if you practice protected sex you don’t get pregnant. It’s 2022, these things are pretty advanced, and we have some very good scientific knowledge.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down Roe and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, included a concurring decision by Justice Clarence Thomas suggesting that the 1965 decision that established a right to contraception should also be overturned. On Friday, President Biden denounced the Dobbs ruling as “an exercise in raw political power,” and vowed to expand access to reproductive health care.
First, he’s just one judge, none of the others are saying the same thing. Second, there’s zero suits in the courts that could work their way to the Supreme Court. Third, he wrote ““In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” What he meant was that the Supreme Court shouldn’t invent a Right where none exists in the Constitution. That it should be the Legislative Branch which can pass a law on this. The rest of the court is not interested in doing this, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh adding in his concurrence, “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
Supporters of reproductive rights are also calling on Mr. Biden to have the F.D.A. move quickly on its review of over-the-counter contraceptives in light of the Dobbs decision. Dana Singiser, a founder of the Contraceptive Access Initiative, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the experience with Covid-19 shows that the F.D.A. “can work with urgency during a public health emergency, which is what women are facing right now with the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”
Of course, Biden is not interested in being involved. Like with most things.
Roughly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. Reproductive-rights activists view an over-the-counter birth control pill as an easy and effective tool for women in rural, poor and historically marginalized communities to avoid unwanted pregnancies, which in turn reduces the abortion rate.
Word salad included. If you’re having unprotected, irresponsible sex, why are you surprised when you get pregnant? If you drive like a fool, wearing no seat belt, why are you surprised when you get seriously hurt?
Long, long article, but, the question here is “will Democrats push to stop this?”
(USA Today) Most American women favor making the birth control pill accessible over the counter. According to a 2017 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, three-quarters of women of reproductive age support over-the-counter access to birth control pills.
So why hasn’t it happened? It must be that awful, religious-right-dominated GOP that’s standing in the way, right?
Actually, not so much.
Republicans, in fact, have repeatedly tried to make birth control pills available without a prescription, only to face opposition from . . . Democrats and Planned Parenthood.
Easily obtained contraceptives would interfere with all the money PP makes off abortions and insurance money rake off, and, if there are fewer abortion Democrats cannot yammer on about the “right to an abortion.”
Planned Parenthood is also a big donor to Democrats, who have worked to block over-the-counter birth control pills. And Democrats have fought hard, partly because they — and drug companies — want birth control pills to be subject to health insurance reimbursement, though only the more privileged among Americans get that.
Will Dems block the approval at the FDA?
Seems reasonable. While they are at it, why don’t they move anti-biotics and opioids to OTC too? If your home first aid kit doesn’t have something stronger than Acetaminophen in it, lets hope you don’t really need first aid.
Perhaps all men with no intention of ever fathering a child should reduce greatly abortions by getting a vasectomy.
That said, OTC birth control pills seems like a good idea. Currently the cost is about $240-$600 per year.
Generic Plan B is already available OTC at about $10 per use but many pro-birthers oppose the use of levonorgestrel 1.5 mg as it likely prevents implantation of the fertilized egg.
Not all women can use oral contraceptives and other methods of birth control have significant failure rates.
The Catholic Church opposes all artificial means of birth control, although most practicing US cafeteria Catholics ignore the command.
What Archie Bunker once called birth patrol pills have been prescription medication because they have serious effects on a woman’s body, and their use really should be overseen by a physician. Planned Parenthood, in one of the better things they do, helps provide the physicians’ examinations required to be prescribed the pill. It has simply not been a problem for women to see physicians to get oral contraceptives prescribed.
But, of course, the left do not actually care about the health of women and girls. Selling birth control pills over the counter is meant not to help women, but to help teenagers, perhaps as young as 12, obtain powerful medications which have serious effects on their bodies, without anybody having to know about it.
Of course, what can we expect from people who also believe it’s perfectly OK for three-year-olds to decide that they’re the wrong sex, and prescribe puberty-blockers to 10-year-olds?
Commenter: the left do not actually care about the health of women and girls. Selling birth control pills over the counter is meant not to help women but to help teenagers, perhaps as young as 12, obtain powerful medications which have serious effects on their bodies, without anybody having to know about it
OTC birth control pills will stop unwanted pregnancies which should reduce abortions. Pregnancy is more dangerous for a pre-teen than either OCs or abortion.
What is the commenter’s ‘reasoning’ that someone wants 12 year old girls to take OCs without anyone knowing about it?
Perhaps WV and KY dads want their daughters to take OCs to prevent embarrassing (for the dads) pregnancies.
Utter silliness. Underaged girls have been getting contraceptives all along, including oral contraceptives, frequently to ‘regulate their periods,’ don’t you know? But they’re still supposed to be being seen by a physician, someone who (supposedly) knows what dosage rates and pill formulations will work most efficiently and safely on pediatric patients. The idea that they should be made over-the-counter is a political, not medical judgement.
Even someone with his head stuck
up his arsein the mud ought to realize that birth control pills for a 15-year-old weighing 105 lb need to be different from those for a 35-year-old woman weighing 142 lb, but making these things available OTC means expecting that 15-year-old to pick the right brand and the right dose.Of course, when women are prescribed birth control pills, they are given instructions on how to take them, and when they will start to be effective. A clue for you: a woman’s fertility is not changed after taking her first pill, but how many 15-year-olds won’t know that, as they take one just before sliding under the bleachers with their 16-year-old horny boyfriend?
The core of conservative putics is SEX IS BAD
It is like they aren’t having good sex and they sure as he’ll don’t want anybody else getting better sex than them.
Can one person really be as ignorant as you? The core of conservative “putics”? What the fuck is that? How would you know whether or not someone is having “good” or “bad” sex? Are you some kind of nut job?
BTW, we believe getting girls pregnant is BAD. Not sex stupid. Man are you a dope. Go back to TicToc.
HAHAHAHAH! All those conservatives raising big families must be just taking one for the team.
Interestingly, the original article about the companies approaching the FDA about OTC oral contraceptives is from Dec 2021, before the Roe v Wade leak, suggesting the process started before the decision was overturned.
Decisions like this rarely initiate from the FDA but from a pharma firm.
The US FDA is deliberate, extremely professional and thorough utilizing both internal and external reviewers who will evaluate all aspects of the issue, but primarily patient health. There should be reams of evidence available since several nations have OTC OCs.
And of course, age restrictions can be applied.
Teach: Easily obtained contraceptives would interfere with all the money PP makes off abortions
from the article Teach cited: A Planned Parenthood official said on Monday that the group supported HRA’s application