The Dangers of Ignorance

From the Associated Press:

Lawmakers are again accusing the Food and Drug Administration of putting politics over science in the long-running saga over whether the morning-after pill should sell without a prescription.

A congressional audit released Monday cited "unusual" steps in the FDA's initial rejection of over-the-counter emergency contraception, including conflicting accounts of whether top officials made the decision even before scientists finished reviewing the evidence.

The FDA is reconsidering the decision on the pill, sold under the brand Plan B. While the report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, doesn't say that FDA made the wrong decision, it does raise the most serious questions to date about agency credibility — and increases pressure to settle the issue.

In case you haven't been following the story, the Plan B pill is the "morning-after" pill that can be taken by women after unprotected sex, and it has an 89% success rate at preventing unwanted pregnancies. Scientists do not consider it to be an abortion pill, since it works before the fertilized cell implants itself on the uterus, so it's essentially the same as other forms of biochemical birth control. This pill has been available by prescription for a while now, but the FDA has been investigating making it available over the counter, since studies show that the effectiveness goes up dramatically the sooner it's taken.

Of course, the people you'd expect to oppose this do - the religious right, the neocons, the anti-choice people, etc. - essentially anyone who thinks that if a penis will be inserted into a vagina for any reason, a child should result. They worry that this pill will lead to more unprotected sex, more pre-marital sex (because no married couples use birth control), etc. As usual, they couldn't be more wrong - countries where this is in use don't show marked increases in negative sociological factors - women use this pill when condoms break, when they're raped, and things like that - by and large, women who are either (a) actively trying to prevent pregnancies or (b) women who are assaulted. So how could it be a bad thing? It reduces abortions, helps younger women maintain control of their lives, and helps assault victims no have to deal with a lifelong commitment as a result of their assault.

If that was the whole story, it would just be another chapter in the "We're going to tell you that everything to do with sex is wrong, that we'd never do it, and we certainly won't provide you with any education or help in living a healthier life" story. But it gets worse.

There have been multiple resignations from the FDA over this pill, and now a GAO report comes out that accuses the politically appointees of interfering with the process that every drug goes through for purely ideological reasons. Mutliple teams of scientists and doctors have been ignored, and roadblocks which have never existed for any drug before are being thrown up. (And this from an administration that normally kowtows to the pharmaceutical companies.)

Sadly, this is just another step along a path designed to hurt women's health, and the end result, of course, will not be to reduce abortions or make people healthier, but to do the opposite while bible thumpers stand on their pulpits and scream about immorality and sin. Where's the immorality here, folks?