Reproductive Justice for Young Women

A federal judge has ordered the FDA to rethink the age restriction for Plan B -- the morning after pill. The decision recognizes that during the Bush administration politics influenced policy.

A federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration yesterday to reconsider its 2006 decision to deny girls younger than 18 access to the morning-after pill Plan B without a prescription.

U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman in New York instructed the agency to make Plan B available to 17-year-olds within 30 days and to review whether to make the emergency contraceptive available to all ages without a doctor's order.

In his 52-page decision, Korman repeatedly criticized the FDA's handling of the issue, agreeing with allegations in a lawsuit that the decision was "arbitrary and capricious" and influenced by "political and ideological" considerations imposed by the Bush administration.

"These political considerations, delays and implausible justifications for decision-making are not the only evidence of a lack of good faith and reasoned agency decision-making," he wrote. "Indeed, the record is clear that the FDA's course of conduct regarding Plan B departed in significant ways from the agency's normal procedures regarding similar applications to switch a drug from prescription to non-prescription use." [...]

"We're very excited," said Suzanne Novak, a senior staff lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit. "The message is clear: The FDA has to put science first and leave politics at the door."

The slow return to sanity continues.