If you can get pregnant, you should be able to get Plan B

Girls under 15 can surrender their newborn for adoption without parental consent. If they wish to keep their pregnancy secret, they can give birth alone and leave their baby at a fire house. But they're incapable of deciding to take Plan B to prevent pregnancy, for that, asserts President Obama, they must have a doctor's prescription.

Obama takes this position in spite of the fact that the Food and Drug Administration pronounced Plan B safe for females of all ages. Needless to say, few girls under 15 will have the resources to go to a doctor on their own. Those who are afraid to tell their parents about their sexual encounter risk becoming pregnant and facing the more complicated consequences to follow--whether abortion, or carrying a child to term. Obama may truly be concerned with the health risks of Plan B (rather than say pandering to extremists)  but both abortion and carrying a child to term create greater health risks for young girls than Plan B.

Playing Politics with the Morning After Pill

Lorraine

We try to stay away from politics here but yesterday brought news that infuriated me: An over-the-counter and safe method of birth control called Plan B--that is, The Morning After Pill--will continue to be denied to teenage girls under 17. Under 17 you need a prescription--that is, tell a doctor who may tell your mother, and anyway, by the time you get that script, it is likely to be too late for Plan B.

But you know what? A whole lot of teens have unprotected sex the first time because they are not planning on having sex. The Obama administration's head is in the sand on this issue, only slightly less buried than the previous Bush administration's, which allowed Plan B to be sold without a script only to those 18 and over. In 2009 after a federal court judge excoriated the FDA for placing politics and ideology ahead of public health, the Obama administration lowered the age to 17.