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Over-the-Counter Contraception Is Immensely Popular. But Democrats Have Doomed It


Muda69

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http://reason.com/archives/2019/01/16/deregulate-the-pill/

Quote

If you live in the United States, you can't obtain birth control pills without a prescription from a doctor. This federal requirement means that the roughly 10.6 million American women on oral contraception must accept regular, invasive, and unnecessary medical care as part of preventing pregnancy.

When the pill first came to the U.S. in 1960, such prescription-only status made some sense. Medical professionals were uncertain how many women would react physiologically. And hormone levels in the first commercially available brand were incredibly high—10,000 micrograms progestin and 50–150 micrograms estrogen, compared to 50–150 micrograms progestin and 20–50 micrograms estrogen on average recently.

But in the nearly 70 years since then, pill formulations have become at least as benign as your average drugstore-aisle offering. Decades of research favors the idea that over-the-counter (OTC) oral contraceptives are safe. They're sold without a prescription in nations across the world, and high-dose emergency contraception has been sold over-the-counter in the U.S. for years. Safety isn't the issue.

 

Nor is there an obvious political impediment. Republicans believe (at least sporadically) in individual rights and deregulation, and a number of GOP lawmakers have recently supported ending the prescription requirement. Democrats often wax on about a woman's right to take control of her reproductive destiny, and in the past many have pushed for freeing the pill, too. So legalizing OTC contraception should represent common policy ground.

Yet the prescription requirement remains on the books. Why?

For years, blame could be cast on the traditional villains of progressive politics: social conservatives who opposed the pill, the Bible thumpers in the Republican Party who pandered to them, and drug companies with no incentive to do anything that might puncture their profits.

But recently, thanks to Obamacare, Democrats have become the primary impediment to freeing up rules around the sale of contraception. In 2019, it's liberals, not conservatives, who are holding the pill hostage for political gain.

..

Since taking office, President Trump has tried to expand the list of organizations that can be exempted from the contraception mandate. A new set of rules were set to take effect this month, but the details are still being fought over in court. This week, a federal judge has blocked them from taking effect in 18 states and Washington, D.C.

Perhaps now is the time to once again leave old birth-control battle lines behind. January 2019 ushered in a new Congress, and left-right alliances in the Trump era are still being rewritten. Political conditions could finally be right for achieving OTC sales of standard birth control pills.

Under Trump, the left has begun to look for ways to allow for undocumented access to medical care. Social conservatives, meanwhile, have embraced a more libertarian approach to these policy battles, fighting to be free from forced participation in things like birth control coverage or gay weddings but not against others' ability to participate.

Today's Republican leaders largely want to be seen as anti-abortion and pro–religious liberty, but not as religious ideologues, prudes, or people standing in the way of pregnancy prevention—which makes embracing OTC pills a pretty safe bet for them if it's built up as a bipartisan affair. Democratic lawmakers could stand out as both champions of women's rights and bipartisan problem solvers. Instead, the left seems content to remain mired in counterproductive Obamacare politics, at the expense of the women they claim to support.

It's time to leave all that behind. Rather than endless rounds of religious freedom vs. women's health care and partisan posture vs. partisan posture, advocates should be concentrating on making it legal to sell birth control pills over the counter. It's the one thing that could truly ensure widespread access, untethered to a person's ability to afford insurance or ability to make it to the doctor on a regular basis, and unassailable by the whims of pharmacists, physicians, employers, and political administrations.

Women deserve better than politically motivated paternalism, but until birth control can be obtained without permission, that's what we're stuck with.

Government trying to control individuals,  color me shocked.

 

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