More from CNN...
The compromise decision is a partial victory for women's advocacy and medical groups that say eliminating sales restrictions could cut in half the nation's 3 million annual unplanned pregnancies.
The pills are a concentrated dose of the same drug found in many regular birth-control pills.
When a woman takes the pills within 72 hours of unprotected sex, they can lower the risk of pregnancy by up to 89 percent. If she already is pregnant, the pills have no effect.
I learned of this victory via an email I got from Planned Parenthood...
Plan B prevails! Today, after years of foot-dragging, the FDA put politics aside and granted over-the-counter status to emergency contraception for women 18 and older.
This victory is the result of years of pressure from the scientific and medical communities and pro-choice activists, including thousands of Planned Parenthood supporters like YOU. Thank you!
Please take a moment to thank Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA), for their indispensable leadership on this issue. http://www.ppaction.org/...?
Then, celebrate this victory by heading down to your local Planned Parenthood health center and picking up a package of emergency contraception to back up your birth control!
This is a huge, long-awaited success -- but there is still more work to be done. In its announcement, the FDA stated it will not approve over-the-counter sales of Plan B to women under 18. It continues to deny teens the benefits of greater access to emergency contraception.
Our country has a serious teen pregnancy problem. As we all know, anything that makes it harder for teens to prevent unintended pregnancy is bad medicine and bad policy.
What's more, this age restriction means pharmacies will likely keep this safe, effective backup method of birth control behind the counter, forcing all women to ask a pharmacist's permission to access it.
We will continue to work diligently to secure over-the-counter access of emergency contraception for ALL women of ALL ages -- without them needing permission from a pharmacist.
Thank you for your help in getting us this far!
Sincerely,
Cecile Richards
President
Planned Parenthood Action Fund
This is a huge victory folks. It means we no longer have to beg and grovel to take control of our own bodies. We can deal with a potential problem pregnancy in the privacy of our own homes.
We still need to battle those control-freak pharmacists who refuse to fill a birth control prescription, or carry this medicine - but for now... we celebrate this victory.
I still can't believe it took the FDA 3 years to approve this - especially after all the fuss that was made about how revolutionary blah blah blah viagra was.
But then I guess we all know where BushCo's priorities lie.
UPDATE
I know there are a couple other diaries out there on this wonderful news. I'd love to see either this one - or another make it up to the REC LIST. This is a huge story and I hope it gets discussed a lot.
I mean think of what this could mean for future elections. This one break will take away a huge wedge issue for the Goopers. They won't be able to rally around abortion clinics any more. Instead of targeting doctors, clinic, staff and their families - they'll have to focus their rage on each and every pharmacy out there.
This could make the need for abortion obsolete in 5 or 10 years. In my mind - THIS IS HUGE! Liberated doesn't even BEGIN to describe how I'm feeling this morning.
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