I’m a little confused about the kerfuffle over Plan B emergency contraception. A judge ruled that it should be available to all women, regardless of age. The FDA then approved it for girls as young as 15. Then the Justice Department announced that it is appealing the judge’s ruling and said that the administration’s new FDA guidelines should satisfy all the plaintiffs in the case. I think I have all that right.
So, basically, the administration is only arguing about girls who are old enough to get pregnant but younger than fifteen. I guess this is consistent with what Obama said back in 2011 when he was defending Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s decision to overrule the FDA and require a prescription for girls younger than seventeen.
“The reason Kathleen made this decision is that she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going to a drugstore should be able — alongside bubble gum or batteries — be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could have an adverse effect.”
Obama also noted, “I will say this, as the father of two daughters. I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine… I think most parents would probably feel the same way.”
At the time, Malia was 13 and Sasha was 10. They are now 14 and 11, but soon to be 15 and 12. Maybe it’s just a personal thing for the president who happens to have daughters of the precise age in question. I don’t know. But it doesn’t seem like sensible policy. I think the chances are pretty high that an eleven year old who has just had sex and is worried that she might get pregnant might have a legitimate reason not to want to rely on her parents to help her out. In those circumstances, the father or an uncle or some other family member might be involved. I’d just be happy that she had the wherewithal to go to the pharmacy and take some action.
This distinction probably would only result in a few unwanted pregnancies, but the girls impacted by it would be precisely the ones who couldn’t talk to their parents for some reason.
Also and related, I know kids these days are having sex at a younger age than when I was a teenager, but in my experience it was unheard of for eleven year olds to have consenting sex, twelve years olds were very rare, and fifteen years old were hopping in the sack all the time. Not that it should matter for policy, but I just think it’s less likely for girls under fifteen to have consensual intercourse, and therefore cutting them off from emergency contraception without parental consent is more likely to prevent them from getting emergency contraception than it would be for older girls because it is more likely that incest was involved.
It should be remembered that Obama was going against the science when he talked about the potential for adverse effects, so that it not a legitimate excuse.