A federal judge's order to make the morning-after pill available without
a prescription to people of any age has drawn sharp criticism and
concern from public figures throughout the country.
“This is just a recipe for disaster,” Dennis Poust, communications
director for the New York Catholic Conference, told CNA April 5.
In response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, a
federal judge in Brooklyn, Edward Korman, ordered the FDA to make the
morning-after pill available without a prescription to people of any
age.
Spokesperson for the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Pro Life Activities,
Deirdre McQuade, said the ruling makes young girls more vulnerable to
sexual predators as well as harmful side effects of the drug.
“The court's action undermines parents' ability to protect their
daughters from such exploitation and from the adverse effects of the
drug itself,” she said in an April 5 statement.
In Dec. 2011, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius
overruled the Food and Drug Administration’s plan to make the drug
available over the counter and with no age limits citing “significant
cognitive and behavioral differences” between older adolescent girls and
the youngest girls of reproductive age.
President Barack Obama voiced support for Sebelius' “common sense”
decision saying that most other parents “would probably feel the same
way.”
According to the judge’s comments, Sebelius' original decision to block
access to the drug for children under 16 was “arbitrary, capricious and
unreasonable.”
His ruling will allow people of any age to purchase the “emergency
contraceptive,”which is a high dose of the synthetic progesterone
hormone called levonorgestrel, without a prescription.
Dr. Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life called the judge's
decision an opportunity for “big abortion industry to gamble with young
girls’ health.”
“Equally troubling, this allows young girls pressured into sex or even
abused by adults to be manipulated into taking pills that cover up what
is a criminal act,” she said in a statement.
President of Susan B. Anthony List, Marjorie Dannenfelser, called Judge
Korman's ruling “reckless” and said that it “denies girls the
protection that comes along with the involvement of parents and
doctors.”
Many opponents have raised the question of what this ruling will do to
girls who could use the drug as a birth control routine instead of
getting a prescription for the pill.
“I think we may see overuse to the point that a young girl may
seriously have her health compromised as a result or even, God forbid,
die because of misuse of these drugs,” Poust said.
Anna Higgins, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family
Research Center, said this ruling presents a “real danger” for the drug
to be forced on young women and girls without their consent.
“The involvement of parents and medical professionals act as a
safeguard for these young girls. However, this ruling removes these
commonsense protections,” she said in a statement.