The Morning After Pill Conspiracy

If Bush waged a war on science then yesterday the war crime tribunal spoke. The U.S. District court of the Eastern District of New York ruled that the Bush administration had politicized a once respected regulatory agency, the FDA, for bending the law to its right wing purposes. The court's condemnation was comprehensive and brutal, all but labeling the Bushies political criminals. At issue was the FDA's decision to overrule its staff recommendation and restrict access for adolescents to one of the most effective methods of preventing unwanted pregnancy, emergency contraception. The Court, in one excoriating stroke, reversed the first (and let's hope last) ideological decision the FDA ever made.

The decision could not have been more dismissive of the Bush administration's maneuverings. Mincing no words, the Court concluded that the FDA "acted in bad faith and in response to political pressure," "departed in significant ways from the agency's normal procedures," and engaged in "repeated and unreasonable delays." The court also found that the FDA's justification for denying over-the-counter access to minors "lacks all credibility," and was based on "fanciful and wholly unsubstantiated 'enforcement' concerns." The Court ordered the FDA to reconsider it's decision based on scientific evidence alone. In the meantime, it ordered the agency to make the contraceptive available over-the-counter to 17-year-olds within 30 days as it now does for adults.

The decision comes amidst news that US teen birth rates are spiking for the second year in a row. Those Bush era virginity pledgers are shifting smoothly into teen motherhood -- the legacies of ignorance-only sex education and restricted access to and information about contraception.

The decision was prompted by a case, Tummino v. von Eschenbach, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) in 2005. The plaintiffs in the case were a grassroots groups called the Morning After Pill Conspiracy along with over 70 medical and public health organizations, scientists, and parents. For those who did not follow the case closely it's worth reviewing not only how the Bushies imposed their theological agenda, but how they indifferently bent regulatory procedures. The administration ruthlessly ignored the facts and coerced FDA scientists to implement its anti-science agenda. According to a CRR press release, "Before its action on Plan B (emergency contraception) the FDA had never restricted a non-prescription drug based on a person's age, nor had the Bush Administration ever been consulted by the FDA about an over-the-counter drug application. Depositions of senior FDA officials by the Center in 2006 indicated that the Bush Administration sought to unduly influence the agency during the Plan B application review process. Testimony also indicated that officials involved in the decision-making process were concerned about losing their jobs if they did not follow the administration's political directives." It was in other words, get with the program.

CRR continued: "Other evidence uncovered during the lawsuit showed that the agency repeatedly departed from its own established procedures during the FDA case, from filling the reproductive health committee with political "operatives" to making a decision to reject over-the-counter access to Plan B before completion of the standard review."

For years, I've been following the right's takeover of what had been a scientifically driven process. In researching a book, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America, I studied the violation of the FDA in detail. One fundamental thing I learned: anti-contraception crusaders were not just interested in limiting access for minors. Their true intent was to prevent all women from easy access to the pregnancy prevention method. Their more uncensored leaders, like Judie Brown of the American Life League, admitted as much, explaining, "the best thing the FDA can do now for the American women and their progeny is to take the next logical step and remove these pills for the market altogether."

In the service of this goal, it seemed that nothing was off limits, not scientific integrity nor the will of the majority. The decision to limit minors' access to emergency contraception was based on phony arguments put forth in particular by Bush appointee to the FDA panel, David Hager, a long-standing opponent of contraception. Hager's supposed concern was that the proven usefulness of the medication would be overshadowed by 9 and 10 year olds who would "abuse" the drug, as if it were some sort of crack for kids. During the application review process, Hager called for unavailable research to quell his "concerns" that the drug would be abused by pre-teens. "The plans for introduction of Plan B into the non-treatment setting need more evaluation if it is going to be generalizably available to a nine year old regardless, a ten year old regardless of, you know; there's no restriction," Hager explained.

This line of argument shocked other panel members. One, Dr. Abbey Berenson, a professor of pediatrics and ob/gyn at University of Texas, countered, "I would just like to make a point that it is extremely rare that the nine or ten year old has menstrual cycles and so if we're going to talk about adolescents, let's talk about the mean age of menarche in this country is 12, and I can't imagine where a nine-year-old would get $40 to go buy Plan B over the counter and who would buy it for this nine year old."

The drug had been studied as part of the effort to determine whether EC was safe. Females from twelve to fifty had been sampled, including sixty-six between the age of twelve and sixteen years old. Adolescents understood 60 to 97 percent of the drug-product package directions and materials, at a comprehension level similar to that of women as a whole and one that easily met standards previously accepted for the approval of the other over-the-counter drugs.

Hager continued to create a straw man, or in this case, straw girl, that defenseless nine or ten year old, and then imagined that she was taken advantage of. It was an argument that none of his illustrious fellow panel members thought had merit. Hager nonetheless persisted: "Well I'm sorry, but there are young women that age [under twelve] who do start menstrual cycles and although the numbers aren't large, it is enough of a concern that if there's an 11-year old who is having a menstrual period and becoming sexually active, then she chooses to access this means of emergency contraception, and my only point is not the number. It's that we don't have any information available on that younger age population."

Of course, less than six percent of girls younger than age eleven have started their menses, and 4.2 percent of girls under age thirteen are sexually active. Take that microscopic demographic and divide it by the percent that know EC even exists and who also have $40 to drop and you have the nearly non-existent basis for Hager's, and what would eventually be the FDA's, argument against extending over-the-counter access to EC for minors.

After the FDA decision to restrict minor's access to the contraceptive method, several panel members who favored over-the-counter access expressed their outrage at the decision, writing, "If groups with moral objections wish to prevent the sale of a class of drugs, they should proceed through the legislative process. They should not corrupt the scientific review process of the FDA to achieve their ends. We believe it will be very hard to put this genie back in the bottle. We squander public trust at out peril."

Today, the US district court finally got the anti-contraception genie, and some of the bullying lawless politics of the Bush era, back in the bottle, at least for now. As for the public's trust, that'll take a little longer to fix.

For breaking news on threats to birth control access and information visit birthcontrolwatch.org.

This piece originally appeared on birthcontrolwatch.org.

Comments

[Vurz]

Ah yes, hagar. Having female relatives, I was shocked that he was ever appointed.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050530/mcgarvey

[NWGuy]

As has been demonstrated throughout history, an effective way to control people is to control their sexuality. The Catholic church, Muslims - especially the more fundamental groups, etc., all use sexuality to control and to be in control.

The right wingers have been doing this whole hog -- first, don't educate young people about ways to prevent pregnancy, just tell'em not to have sex (yeah, that really works!, tell a teen not to do something!); next, don't let women use any form of birth control so that you can keep her occupied ( and out of the way) by the ol' barefoot, pregnant in the kitchen scene; next, if a woman does get pregnant, by golly, don't give her any options to do something about it. If a woman does get pregnant out of wedlock, then she must be blamed for being the promiscuous evil female she is, forcing some poor guy to get her pregnant, how dare she! Then blame her for becoming a welfare mom bringing kids into the world unsupported. They set it up so that no matter what, the woman loses, unless she plays strictly by their rules. Control.

Interesting that most of this is done by men. Men who obviously are terrified and threatened by female sexuality.

[lilyspencer]

I couldn't agree more. I think the whole issue could be far less severe if children and teens were properly educated about sex and ways to prevent pregnancy in the first place. Showing teens their options and letting them decide for themselves what they want to do actually does work out. I think restricting a woman's right to buy the EC is completely unfair. Hager brings up the issue of rape, (although, I do think it's a bit extreme to make the 'victim' a 9 or 10 year old) I think it's totally against an individual's rights to have the government prevent them from using EC to prevent the pregnancy. Not to mention that the time period in which a woman can take EC is before a baby even begins to develop, before the sperm even reaches the egg, for that matter, so yes, it is prevention, not abortion.

[pfrogger]

how many indictments for those initially responsible?
how many hearings on the practices of the FDA that led to a politicall­y-motivate­d policy decision about science? influencing members of the FDA with threats of firing them, any consequences?

so basically the rule in America is that is you obstruct science and progress, if you use political reasoning to overrule scientific decisions, if use partisan politics to influence what should have been a scientific FDA decision . . . what happens to those people???

wait for it . .

NOTHING!!! that's right. by preventing science to prevail, by actually encouraging methods that are continually proved wrong by numerous studies (ie. abstinence only programs don't work, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301003.html, Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds Teenagers Who Make Such Promises Are Just as Likely to Have Sex, and Less Likely to Use Protection, the Data Indicate - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801588.html)

this of course increases the number of pregnancies, abortions, and STDs
and what happens to the people responsible - absolutely NOTHING!
and what prevents them from doing it again, and teaching inaccurate information - NOTHING!

niceeeeeee­eeeeeeeeee­eeeeeeeeee­eee!

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

This is good news.

But let's consider how much power the FDA exudes over so many things that are dangerous to us, food, drugs and who knows whate else. Think about how much corruption actually exists in the FDA regarding these matters, and how much danger the public has been and is being exposed to becuase the FDA bends so easily to prodding and money.

[GuyRC]

We are lucky that the judicial system still functions, look at the supreme court and imagine if all the lower courts were ruined too.

[floridagator]

A woman with reproductive freedom is hard to control.

[RadicalRepublican]

BINGO! We have a winner. I find very little in common with Gator fans but you just described the whole struggle. Pro-lifers vote for wars and control of others. Their moniker is a lie and P,R. Pro-choicers vote for freedom.

[newshawk14]

It's nice to see your post, I miss the days when we had socially liberal, but
fiscally conservative republicans, instead of ideological trolls. We could
almost always work out a position that we both could agree upon. With
trolls, I'm afraid the only solution is to carry a bigger club.

[the addick]

So the Bush Administration used it's muscle to intimidate, and ultimately influence the FDA? Although this is no surprise, it is still deeply troubling.
How many more stories like this will surface over the coming months and years? I'm more than a little shaken that these zealots that "ran"(?) this country were able to, freely force their hypocritical "morals" on the nation, and no-one had the "cojones" to stand up to them?
Surely there were dissenters within the Bush government. Did none of them have the courage or common decency to at least "blow the whistle" or question the "rightness" of these things?
Bush and Cheney have more skeletons in their closets than "The Crypt Keeper" and they have the affrontery to preach their vile, venomous edict to us........­.......AND expect us to buy into it?
I'm so glad they are gone, I'll just wait for the next episode, which most likely won't be long in coming, just until another rock gets turned over.

[sisterdebmac]

I think pretty much after Joe Wilson adn Valerie Plame, no one else was going to stand up and be a whistle-blower.

[RadicalRepublican]

...ignorance-only sex education ...

Finally an honest expression for the Right Wing travesty of education and morality.

[sisterdebmac]

I love that too and I'm going to steal it!

[Clavis]

If God makes a girl fertile, he must want her to be pregnant. Right, Christians?

[nicole44]

yes, thats the whole point of having opposite sexes.

But nice try at stirring the pot.

[sisterdebmac]

Oh, THAT'S the point. Thanks for the enlightenment.

[LITU]

My dear friend, Mr./Mrs. Amoeba would take exception.

[Ankhst]

Hmmmmm... if there were a God (I'm doubtful -- at least for any hands-on, really cares what His/Her creations do), and His/Her grand motive behind the creation of sexual procreation was ONLY pregnancy... then why is it even remotely possible to have an orgasm alone?

[Counterglow]

There was a woman doctor who resigned (I'm pretty sure it was from the FDA) over this issue. I hope somebody has the common decency to find her and apologize on behalf of the US government.

The damage Bush and his fundamentalist cronies have done in service of their twisted beliefs is incalculable.

[LITU]

Whenever I attempt to formulate an argument against the intolerance of the right wing, I always come back to the fundamentalism that drives their multi-partitioned agenda. To that end, I see these issues, sadly, coming up again and again.

Conservatives, of the modern bent, have nearly zero regard for what remains of this planet.

[llisa]

If nine or ten year old girls are getting pregnant, they have a much bigger problem than access to the morning-after pill!

Good heavens, let's get ALL these children access to age-appropriate, pregnancy and disease-pr­evention-b­ased sex education. (And reality-based, of course.)

AND access to the morning-after pill for ANYone who is old enough to get pregnant. A nine or ten year old is not physically mature enough to safely carry a fetus to term. So, she needs to know how NOT to get pregnant, and who to report sexual abuse to, and who to talk to if she does get pregnant.

And, by the way, let's make the Bush administration pay child support for all these "abstinence" babies.

[Motherunit]

If a 9-10 year old girl is sexually active, it's probably not by her choice. All the more reason she needs Plan B, education, and a caring adult to protect her from abuse.

[curly2]

You are absolutely correct.

For example, the nine year old girl in Brazil who became pregnant with twins by her stepfather (the girl has since been excommunicated by the Catholic Church for having an abortion, which probably saved her life). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7926694.stm

[walk0nwalls]

Amen for this.