The FDA approves Plan B for OTC

Finally some good news. The FDA did in fact approve OTC sales of Plan B for women 18 years or older. I can't emphasize enough how important these sorts of steps are in an era where many of women's rights are being challenged or retrenched. What should be common ground between the pro-choice and pro-life side--reducing the number of abortions performed in this country--all too often gets completely trumped by hyberbolic rhetoric on both sides. While my sympathies will always lie with the Pro-choice crowd, I get impatient when pro-choicers forget to emphasize that abortion rates fall when greater reproductive rights exist for women. Moreover, reproductive freedom encompasses far more than abortion rights. Women are fighting for better pre-natal care, comprehensive sexual education, access to family planning services that are affordable, and quality day care.

When you empower women to make better decisions about their bodies and when you treat them as part of the decision making process and not fill their heads with a bunch of abstinence-only--shame-based--sex education, all families benefit. Educating women and freeing them from shame about their bodies makes for better mothers.