Invoking Bush's predilection for politics over science, Michael Specter sides with Traister against the Obama administration. A reader tries to follow the ban's logic:
Teenagers can't get Plan B without a prescription. Therefore they won't use it. We know that because prohibition has worked well for so many other drugs.
Scott Lemieux digs into the data:
[T]he most recent data I could find, of the roughly 758,000 teen pregnancies a year 212 of these involved girls 12 and younger. If you’re getting into a debate about Plan B and 12-year-olds you’re being played for a sucker. The relevant Plan B debate is about 15- and 16-year olds, and people who are bringing up the 0% of teenage pregnancies among 11-year olds are trying to make paternalistic regulations seem more reasonable.
Harold Pollack weighs in:
I emailed this weekend with several experienced clinicians in this area. They report that Plan B has an award-winning easy-to-read label, that there are very few medical contraindications to this medication. My colleague Melissa Gilliam is section chief for the Section of Family Planning and Contraceptive Research at the University of Chicago. She has extensive experience treating sexual and reproductive health issues that arise among young women. Gilliam comments: “We seem to be saying that a young teen can increase her risk of becoming a parent (which entails lots of reading and complex tasks) but not read a label.”
Lauren Collins provides a counterpoint to Specter and Traister and shifts the debate:
To this thirty-one-year-old woman, the real absurdity is that birth-control pills … are not available without a prescription.
As the Daily Beast reported, a study in the journal Contraception found that sixty-eight per cent of women surveyed wanted to be able to buy the Pill over the counter. Who hasn’t experienced the panic of trying to replace pills that have gone missing on a work trip, or the hassle of trying find a pharmacy that’s open on Sunday, the day that doctors recommend you begin your pill pack? … It makes no sense that the government deems its female citizens smart enough to figure out how to use contraception safely in emergencies, but not in everyday life.
The Dish 