Morning After Pill Age Limit Lifted — Judge Makes Plan B Available To All Ages – Hollywood Life

Federal Judge Rules Morning After Pill Must Be Available For All Ages

In a controversial new law on birth control, a federal judge ruled on April 5 that emergency contraception known as the morning-after pill must be available to women of all ages, not just with a prescription for girls who are 16 and younger. On April 5, a federal judge ruled that the most popular brand of morning-after pill will be available for women of all ages, not just the previous law that required girls ages 16 and younger to have a prescription. There has been a decade long fight on who should have access to the pill. Some people, including Edward R. Korman of Federal District Court was against the previous restrictions.

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April 5, 2013 5:05PM EDT
Morning After Pill Age
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Judge Korman Speaks Against Morning After Pill Age Limit

Judge Korman called the former restrictions “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable,” according to The New York Times

“More than 12 years have passed since the citizen petition was filed and 8 years since this lawsuit commenced,” he 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.”

What Plan B Pill Does

Plan B One-Step or “the morning after pill” is one pill with the ingredient levonorgestrel. It prevents fertilization therefore pregnancy and can be taken up to 72 hours after intercourse. The pill after unprotected sex, a woman has only a 1 in 40 chance of getting pregnant if she takes the morning-after pill. If she doesn’t take the morning-after pill, her chances of getting pregnant are just 1 in 20.

Scientists as well as the F.D.A. have recommended in the past to have unrestricted access to the pill and that it is safe for adolescents and young teens to take in order to prevent pregnancy.

What do YOU think of the ruling, HollyMoms?

The New York Times


— Nicole Weaver

More Controversial Contraception News:

  1. Women Are Freezing Their Ovaries — New Birth Control Method?
  2. New Contraceptive Gel Could Be Better Than The Pill: Would You Try It Out?
  3. Thousands Of Women Could Be Accidentally Pregnant After Taking ‘Faulty’ Birth Control Pills
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