Federal Judge Requires Non-Prescription Access to Morning-After Pill in a Month

U.S. District Judge Edward Korman (Eastern District of New York) has ruled that the FDA must make the multiple versions of the morning-after pill available over-the-counter without a prescription and without age restrictions within one month. The FDA had previously decided to make the morning-after pill available to girls younger that 17, but Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebellius overruled the FDA in 2011, setting the age restriction of 17 or older.

The court decision comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights. According to CNN, Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, responded to the decision by saying, “Today science has finally prevailed over politics. This landmark court decision has struck a huge blow to the deep-seated discrimination that has for too long denied women access to a full range of safe and effective birth control methods.”

I actually believe Northrup has it wrong. Politics has prevailed in this instance to the detriment of girls and young women across the country. Since the sexual revolution, there has been a movement to separate sexual activity from marriage. The goal has been to make sexual expression the epitome of freedom. Instead, girls and young women are going to find themselves shackled with more emotional baggage and more sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, girls may experience “coerced” or even “forced” use of the morning-after pill by boyfriends, casual partners, or even parents wishing to “limit the damage” from their sexual expression. This is not freedom–it is bondage to culture.

Judge Korman even makes an interesting remark toward Sebellius and the FDA in his judgment. He states:

The FDA has engaged in intolerable delays in processing the petition. Indeed, it could accurately be described as an administrative agency filibuster. Moreover, one of the devices the FDA has employed to stall proceedings was to seek public comment on whether or not it needed to engage in rulemaking in order to adopt an age-restricted marketing regime. After eating up eleven months, 47,000 public comments, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars, it decided that it did not need rulemaking after all. The plaintiffs should not be forced to endure, nor should the agency’s misconduct be rewarded by, an exercise that permits the FDA to engage in further delay and obstruction.

Does Judge Korman not believe that the FDA may have actually been seeking the well-being of young girls? His commentary in the court order is chilling. The fact that the FDA was seeking public comment and input on whether or not this was good for 10-16 year old girls is a good thing. However, Korman views it as agency misconduct.

From the outset of creation, God has declared that the sexual relationship is properly expressed only within marriage. This is one way in which marriage is ordered to procreation. The vast majority of individuals seeking the use of these abortion-inducing drugs will not be married adults. They will instead be young people pursuing unhindered sexual freedom who suddenly find themselves shackled by the consequences of their behavior. When you add the category of girls who will be coerced into taking these drugs by those who “love” them, the damage becomes overwhelming.

This decision further undermines the institution of marriage and elevates abortion to the status of relieving a headache with Tylenol. This is a sad commentary on the culture of the “New America.”

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Edward Korman, Tumino vs. Hamburg, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, April 4, 2013.

“Judges orders morning-after pill available without prescription,” CNN, April 5, 2013.

“Federal judge rules morning-after pill must be available for women of all ages,” Fox News, April 5, 2013.

For more information about the impact of the sexual culture on young women, pick up a copy of Girls Uncovered: New Research on What America’s Sexual Culture Does to Young Women by Joe S. McIlhaney, Jr., and Freda McKissic Bush.