Fed Judge Orders FDA to Make Morning After Pill Available Over the Counter for All Ages

There is no question: the morning after pill should be available over the counter to women of all ages, said a federal judge in Brooklyn in a direct order to the Food and Drug Administration.  

U.S. District Judge Edward Korman made the bold ruling in federal court Friday, overturning a controversial decision from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in 2011 that required girls under the age of 17-years-old to have a prescription to obtain the morning after pill Plan B One-Step, and its generic iterations. 

Korman was ruling on a case filed by reproductive-rights activists who called for an end to age and other restrictions required to purchase the morning after pill. Sold primarily as Plan B, the pill can prevent a pregnancy up to 72 hours following unprotected sex.

Korman told the FDA that his ruling has to be put into practice within one month, and chastised the agency for its failure to help craft appropriate restrictions in order to "adopt an age-restricted marketing regime," characterizing the FDA's regulations on the pill as "arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable."

The federal judge said the FDA had purposefully set up road blocks to hinder progress that is in the best interest of women's health. "More than 12 years have passed since the citizen petition was filed and 8 years since this lawsuit commenced," Judge Korman wrote in his decision. "The F.D.A. has engaged in intolerable delays in processing the petition. Indeed, it could accurately be described as an administrative agency filibuster."

The judge said the FDA had only stymied efforts to do away with the useless restrictions on Plan B because they were concerned about potential abuses of the morning after pill by 11-year-olds. However, that logic missed the point entirely, Korman argued. He said the the morning after pill would one of the safest drugs sold over the counter and that chances of abuse were insignificant.

Judge Korman concluded: "The plaintiffs should not be forced to endure, nor should the agency's misconduct be rewarded by, an exercise that permits the F.D.A. to engage in further delay and obstruction."

Medical professionals - some FDA members included - have long supported ending the age restrictions on the morning after pill. The American Medical Association, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have all called to make the pill readily available to women of all ages over the counter, according to the New York Times.

The FDA and and the Department of Health and Human Services said they will not comment on the ruling, citing the case's ongoing status. It's unclear at this time if either agency will appeal Korman's decision.