Women's bodies, women's decisions(1/20/2006)

It’s 2006 and American women still struggle for the right to have accurate information about and control of our own reproductive health. A disturbing fact from Planned Parenthood is that “an estimated 22,000 U. S. pregnancies every year are the result of sexual assault and could have been prevented if all women who were raped were given emergency contraception. Yet a recent study found that fewer than half of all at-risk rape survivors treated in emergency rooms were offered emergency contraception. Ignorance may account for some of this neglect, but zealotry accounts for the rest.”

Tragically for women, the Food and Drug Administration seems to have been hijacked by so-called pro-lifers, who use the abortion issue as a ruse to deny women access to contraception. Last year, the FDA delayed a decision to allow safe, emergency contraception (known commercially as Plan B) to be sold over the counter, despite the fact that two of its advisory panels had voted 23 to 4 in favor. Barr Laboratories’ Plan B pills prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex; the pill blocks release of an egg from a woman’s ovary so no embryo forms. It is NOT an abortifacient and does not terminate an existing pregnancy. Ironically, by now blocking access to Plan B before pregnancy, the FDA encourages abortion later on.

Susan F. Wood, director of the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health, resigned in protest over the decision saying that “the scientific staff were shut out of the decision.” Several U.S. Senators issued the statement that all of this leaves the strong impression that concerns about politics have overridden concerns about public health, and they called on the Government Accountability Office to investigate the FDA’s decision-making process. The GAO, in its October draft report, concluded that the decision was highly unusual because of atypical involvement from top agency officials. The report also called the FDA rationale for rejecting the application “novel”-- in saying that Plan B’s availability would encourage young teens to become sexually active.

Historically, contraception has been controversial. In 1873 Congress passed the first Comstock Act prohibiting the use, distribution or possession of contraceptives. There were no exceptions, not even to save a woman’s life, and married couples could be arrested for using birth control in their own homes. For decades, women fought for the right to birth control. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was jailed for sending birth control information in the mail. In 1961, Estelle Griswold, executive director of Connecticut’s Planned Parenthood, was arrested for opening a birth control clinic in New Haven. She and clinic doctor Lee Buxton sued the state, and finally in1965 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Griswold and Buxton, finding the Comstock Law unconstitutional and establishing “privacy of the bedroom.” That case served as the basis for the 1973 Roe versus Wade decision. It wasn’t until 1972 that the Supreme Court, relying on the privacy rationale, had struck down state restrictions on giving or selling contraceptives to single adults.

Yet access to contraception is still under siege and blocked in many ways. For example: some pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, even when prescribed for another purpose; some medical personnel do not provide critical, accurate information; some pharmacies, such as Wal-mart’s, refuse to sell certain contraceptive products; some insurance companies exclude contraceptive coverage. And now comes this FDA tyranny. These self-anointed religious police, acting like the Taliban, have forced a symbolic burka on women. When our fertility decisions are obstructed in so many ways, all other life choices are severely restricted. What’s next? Will every woman be forced to wear a burka, that blue shroud, and to endure all the repression that goes with it?

- Judith Kohler

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