This Really Should Not Be An Issue
Jan. 16th, 2005 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desertvixenMore political/social ranting ahead. Enclosed in a LJ-Cut to protect those who come here to avoid the politics....
Briefly: the morning-after pill and the attempt to keep it prescription. The actual article parts are bolded, edited for conciseness.
FDA Set to Decide on Morning-After Pill
WASHINGTON - The government is considering whether to make morning-after birth control available without a prescription, and like most issues that involve sex and pregnancy, it has generated heated debate.
Thank you for that incredible understatement.
Fierce arguments have gone on inside and outside the Food and Drug Administration, which may decide as soon as this week whether drug stores can sell the emergency contraception known as Plan B without a prescription to women age 16 and older.
Each side accuses the other of manipulating science for political purpose.
Plan B supporters say the pill is a safe way to prevent thousands of unwanted pregnancies and the abortions that sometimes follow. Making the contraception available over the counter, they say, is crucial for women who might need the protection over a weekend or when it is difficult to obtain a prescription.
Plan B can prevent pregnancy for up to 72 hours after sex. The sooner the pill is taken, the more effective it is.
"Women's reproductive rights shouldn't hinge on someone else's schedule. We should have this at our fingertips. It should be next to condoms in drug stores," said Kelly Mangan, 22, president of the University of Florida's chapter of the National Organization for Women. She was arrested this month in a protest outside the FDA's headquarters in suburban Maryland.
Amen, sister. Although I would point out that there is such a thing as Planned Parenthood and birth control that one takes daily, if one has already decided that abstinence is not happening.
Opponents worry that the drug encourages women — teenagers in particular — to have risky sex. If over-the-counter sales are permitted, older teenagers or adults might buy the pills for some of their younger friends or their sexual partners, critics say.
"It encourages risky sexual activity with the promise `just pop a pill in the morning and you don't need to worry about pregnancy,'" said Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of America, a conservative group that focuses on social issues.
"What we're concerned about is a number of young people who are not engaged in sexual activity who feel tremendous pressure, and this will only add to the pressure that is on them," Wright said.
I'm not buying this. Women are smarter than this. Being on birth control didn't make me "easy". It didn't increase the pressure on me to be sexually active. If we taught our daughters to believe in themselves, and not be swayed by desiring the approval of teenage males, *that* would do nice things for the rate of teen sexual activity.
Not contested, by either side, is that the drug is drug is safe or effective. Some who work for the FDA believed that questions about people's sexual behavior were overwhelming scientific ones, according to an internal agency memo written last year.
"Some staff have expressed the concern that this decision is based on non-medical implications of teen sexual behavior, or judgments about the propriety of this activity," said the memo by the FDA's acting drug chief, Dr. Steven Galson.
You think? /sarcasm.
The FDA said it worried that there was not enough data about the pill's use by young teenagers. The agency promised to reconsider if the pill's manufacturer, Barr Laboratories of Pomona, N.Y., figured out how to sell over the counter only to those 16 and older.
In July, Barr again applied for approval. The company now proposes that drug stores check customers' ages to be certain that buyers are at least 16, an approach the FDA has not approved before. Younger teenagers could continue to get the drug with a doctor's prescription.
Makes sense to me. I'm sure some people will lie about it, but come on, it's not like people don't lie now to get cigarettes and alcohol.
"In this case, there is no medical dispute," the wrote. "Rather, the delay results from the concern of some groups ... that the availability of the drug may have a corrupting influence on sexual behavior. If easy access to the drug could have such an influence, it would seem that the battle had already been lost."
I have a news flash here: making the pill unavailable is not going to somehow save morals in America. Teens are going to have sex. Ideally, they're going to do it with protection, but... yeah. Not an ideal world, last time I checked.
DV
Briefly: the morning-after pill and the attempt to keep it prescription. The actual article parts are bolded, edited for conciseness.
FDA Set to Decide on Morning-After Pill
WASHINGTON - The government is considering whether to make morning-after birth control available without a prescription, and like most issues that involve sex and pregnancy, it has generated heated debate.
Thank you for that incredible understatement.
Fierce arguments have gone on inside and outside the Food and Drug Administration, which may decide as soon as this week whether drug stores can sell the emergency contraception known as Plan B without a prescription to women age 16 and older.
Each side accuses the other of manipulating science for political purpose.
Plan B supporters say the pill is a safe way to prevent thousands of unwanted pregnancies and the abortions that sometimes follow. Making the contraception available over the counter, they say, is crucial for women who might need the protection over a weekend or when it is difficult to obtain a prescription.
Plan B can prevent pregnancy for up to 72 hours after sex. The sooner the pill is taken, the more effective it is.
"Women's reproductive rights shouldn't hinge on someone else's schedule. We should have this at our fingertips. It should be next to condoms in drug stores," said Kelly Mangan, 22, president of the University of Florida's chapter of the National Organization for Women. She was arrested this month in a protest outside the FDA's headquarters in suburban Maryland.
Amen, sister. Although I would point out that there is such a thing as Planned Parenthood and birth control that one takes daily, if one has already decided that abstinence is not happening.
Opponents worry that the drug encourages women — teenagers in particular — to have risky sex. If over-the-counter sales are permitted, older teenagers or adults might buy the pills for some of their younger friends or their sexual partners, critics say.
"It encourages risky sexual activity with the promise `just pop a pill in the morning and you don't need to worry about pregnancy,'" said Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of America, a conservative group that focuses on social issues.
"What we're concerned about is a number of young people who are not engaged in sexual activity who feel tremendous pressure, and this will only add to the pressure that is on them," Wright said.
I'm not buying this. Women are smarter than this. Being on birth control didn't make me "easy". It didn't increase the pressure on me to be sexually active. If we taught our daughters to believe in themselves, and not be swayed by desiring the approval of teenage males, *that* would do nice things for the rate of teen sexual activity.
Not contested, by either side, is that the drug is drug is safe or effective. Some who work for the FDA believed that questions about people's sexual behavior were overwhelming scientific ones, according to an internal agency memo written last year.
"Some staff have expressed the concern that this decision is based on non-medical implications of teen sexual behavior, or judgments about the propriety of this activity," said the memo by the FDA's acting drug chief, Dr. Steven Galson.
You think? /sarcasm.
The FDA said it worried that there was not enough data about the pill's use by young teenagers. The agency promised to reconsider if the pill's manufacturer, Barr Laboratories of Pomona, N.Y., figured out how to sell over the counter only to those 16 and older.
In July, Barr again applied for approval. The company now proposes that drug stores check customers' ages to be certain that buyers are at least 16, an approach the FDA has not approved before. Younger teenagers could continue to get the drug with a doctor's prescription.
Makes sense to me. I'm sure some people will lie about it, but come on, it's not like people don't lie now to get cigarettes and alcohol.
"In this case, there is no medical dispute," the wrote. "Rather, the delay results from the concern of some groups ... that the availability of the drug may have a corrupting influence on sexual behavior. If easy access to the drug could have such an influence, it would seem that the battle had already been lost."
I have a news flash here: making the pill unavailable is not going to somehow save morals in America. Teens are going to have sex. Ideally, they're going to do it with protection, but... yeah. Not an ideal world, last time I checked.
DV
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-01-16 09:01 pm (UTC)Making it prescription kinda defeats the "morning after" aspect given how hard it is to get an appointment with a doctor these days.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 01:45 pm (UTC)Religious views should be kept out of the pharmacy. No one needs a sermon when all they need is a prescription.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 01:22 pm (UTC)I HATE THAT. UUUUGGGGH.
I get so hot whenever I read something like that, and most of the time it's followed by some religious rhetoric or "if we don't teach them, they won't know, so they won't 'do it'" implicated theory to go with it.
This is why we need mandatory sex education in schools. If I ran this country, you would NOT be able to graduate from high school without a sex education class, multiple ones, at that. AT LEAST once in junior high and once in high school. And no, I don't care about ANYONE'S religious preference, because that does is NOT a deterent from a teenager having sex. (Generally speaking, of course.)
Teenagers need to be taught about every STD/I from herpes to chlamydia to HIV/AIDS. They need to know about pregnancy and what goes into raising a child emotionally and financially - something teenagers are NOT equipped to do. They need to be taught about every form of birth control from the pill to the patch to the shot. They need to be taught about every form of contraception out there form condoms (male and female) to vaginal foam to dental damns and how to use them PROPERLY. And yes, I do believe they should also still be taught about abstinence. Because that is the only 100% effective way to not get pregnant or contract an STD.
I don't know WHY people still believe that if we keep them in the dark about sex, contraception, and birth control they won't have sex. They're going to have sex. Maybe not at 16, but they could do it at 18 and still be as uninformed as when they were 12. People need to know.
That wouldn't be an issue if we actually got aggressive with GOOD sex education (I should just say sex education, period, as it's barely taught anyway) in schools.
Sorry if that rant was WAY off topic.
*breathes deep*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 04:30 pm (UTC)Not off topic at all.
I guess I just don't get the "birth control = InstaSlut" connection.
Do I enjoy sex more knowing that the odds of an unplanned pregnancy are much much less? Yes. Does that mean I'm just out randomly screwing around? No.
I think the single biggest thing that would solve the sex and teens issue is teaching girls this fact: OUR HONOR/VALUE DOES NOT LIE BETWEEN OUR LEGS. Girls who have confidence in themselves are less likely to sleep with guys who give them tired lines. No condom used to equal no sex (which led to an entertaining moment or two in my single period - nothing like a desperate man trying to find the nearest drug store), although since I'm now married, not so much an issue.
DV
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 01:43 pm (UTC)Also, it's shocking at what a lot of people actually believe. There was a good program about sex and STDs on MTV one time, and they were interviewing people. One guy actually said he could tell if a person had an STD just by looking at them and that if he had an STD, he'd know because there would be symptoms.
WRONG.
Most STDs show little-to-no symptoms - especially in females. And with that, with females, if they do have an STD that does show symptoms, they're often confused with menstrual cramping because they're usually that slight when they do have symptoms.
Studies also show that teenagers who receieved abstinance only training were just as likely, if not more, to have sex. The promise to abstinance rarely changed anything and delayed their entries into the realm of sex by not much time. The same study showed that these same teenagers had a higher infection rate of STDs and a higher unplanned/unwanted pregnancy rate.
The group of teenagers who received actual sex education on STDs, pregnancy, birth control, and different forms of contraception (and how to use it properly), had lower STD infection rates, and fewer unplanned/unwanted pregnancies. I believe it also had a higher rate of teenagers who actually had sex and decided to hold off (but don't quote me on that one).
You think that would open people's eyes, but sadly, it hasn't. It's better that teenagers be informed than uninformed. Because they will talk about sex and have sex anyway, and they can either be informed and go into it informed, or they can be uninformed and we have to deal with the spread of disease and teenagers having kids when they have no business having them.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 02:07 pm (UTC)>> Studies also show that teenagers who receieved abstinance only training were just as likely, if not more, to have sex. The promise to abstinance rarely changed anything and delayed their entries into the realm of sex by not much time. The same study showed that these same teenagers had a higher infection rate of STDs and a higher unplanned/unwanted pregnancy rate. >>
It works for some. I won't deny that. I applaud that. I'm for anything that reduces the supidity of teens dealing with rampant hormones. I was there ; I remember, and some of it... I regret. But the people it doesn't work with get the whole, "well, it won't do any good anyway, so why bother?"
Oh yeah, you can totally tell someone has an STD just by looking at them. Didn't you know one of the symptoms is a giant Scarlet S appearing on your forehead? Excuse me but... WTF?
And I'm sure you already know this, but you know you can't assume military men are clean, right? (They look so cute and clean-cut, but yeah... get 'em tested. PSA from someone who's been down that road.)
DV