Federal Judge Orders FDA To Drop Age Restrictions On Morning-After Pill

A federal court today ordered the FDA to drop the prescription requirement for girls 16 and younger that wish to purchase the over-the-counter medication Plan B, which prevents pregnancy.

In a decision in a lawsuit filed by advocates, the judge, Edward R. Korman of Federal District Court, ruled that the government’s refusal to lift restrictions on access to the pill was “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.” Judge Korman ordered the F.D.A. to lift any age and sale restrictions on the pill, Plan B One-Step, and its generic versions, within 30 days. “More than 12 years have passed since the citizen petition was filed and 8 years since this lawsuit commenced,” the judge wrote. “The F.D.A. has engaged in intolerable delays in processing the petition. Indeed, it could accurately be described as an administrative agency filibuster.”

The right wing has long mischaracterized Plan B as an "abortion-causing pill" and as an "abortifacient." In fact, the drug merely prevents ovulation.  You can expect screams of outrage across Teabagistan today.

UPDATE: Right on cue, blowhard Bill Donohue.

A 12-year-old girl in a New York City school cannot be given an aspirin by her teacher, even if she has a fever. The same girl cannot buy a large soda during lunch time because Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decreed that it is not good for her. But she can be given a pill, unbeknownst to her parents, that could arguably abort her baby. Neither Judge Korman nor Mayor Bloomberg has said what the aspirin-denying teacher should do if he sees a girl reaching for a large Coke to down her abortion-inducing pill. This is what we’ve come to in our culturally schizophrenic society. Our moral code is patently incoherent, and the contempt shown for parental rights is astonishing. Hopefully, this imperial decision will be overturned.