This is a day old, but still of interest. For a few years it seemed like RU-486, a.k.a. the Morning After Pill was going to be made over-the-counter for all women in the current administration, a position I found incomprehensible. I mean let's put aside completely whatever one feels about abortion. Love it or hate it, let's ignore that moral component and focus solely on the issue of the woman's health.
I mean let me personalize this because it is personal. Early in my marriage, my wife was pregnant. We were very happy, so much so that I had a name picked out if it was a girl within a week and pretty soon we told her family the good news. And you know, in this Filipino culture it's an even bigger deal than it is in the culture I come from. And then literally the next day she miscarried. We probably are never going to have children, except very likely by adoption.
And you see, that is what an abortion is, an artificially-induced miscarriage. And having seen what an awful experience it was—I mean wholly apart from the emotions surrounding the loss of her baby, it was a real physical trauma and the hormonal shifts were rough—I am extremely skeptical of the claim that any woman should be getting an abortion without at least a doctor's prescription. But what the FDA proposed was beyond the pale. Right now a woman over the age of sixteen (meaning seventeen or older) can obtain the drug over-the-counter, while girls who are younger than that had to obtain a prescription. The FDA recommended changing the rule to allow all girls to obtain it over the counter and to the credit of Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Health and Human services, she overruled the FDA. And one need only read from the official press release to see how morally incomprehensible the FDA's position was:
The average age of the onset of menstruation for girls in the United States is 12.4 years. However, about ten percent of girls are physically capable of bearing children by 11.1 years of age. It is common knowledge that there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age. If the application were approved, the product would be available, without prescription, for all girls of reproductive age.
And asking a girl who is only eleven years old to deal with a drug like this without any guidance from a physician seems insane. Again, putting aside what you think about abortion, and I suppose what you think about girls having abortions without their parents' consent, an eleven year old girl is just not ready to handle those kind of weighty issues.
Now the Secretary also states in the official press release that this is in part about comprehension of labeling:
Today's action reflects my conclusion that the data provided as part of the actual use study and the label comprehension study are not sufficient to support making Plan B One-Step available to all girls 16 and younger, without talking to a health care professional. Plan B One-Step will still be available over the counter to women ages 17 and older.
So that leaves the door open to later change her mind. But let's hope that the common sense understanding that a girl as young as 11 is just not ready to deal with these decisions continues to prevail. I am extremely skeptical of the decision to ever make it an over-the-counter drug, but I am gratified that they will provide it to girls who have reached a certain level of maturity.
But there is a curious holes in that. I mean this is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the only concern she sees when an eleven year old girl wants to get an abortion is whether she will use the pill correctly. How about the fact that in virtually every state this would mean that this girl is very likely to have been statutorily raped (if not forcibly as well)? Isn't that a relevant consideration? If she can get the pill without any responsible adult having an input, then that means an eleven year old girl can be raped, get scared of getting pregnant and obtain an abortion, all without anyone knowing. Is this the "feminist" thing to do, to set things up so that little girls can be raped without detection? Because if I didn't know better, I would think this was misogynist, instead.
Of course we have seen pro-life groups prove that many in Planned Parenthood takes the attitude that they are so terrified that a girl might get a back alley abortion that they will look the other way regarding evidence of statutory rape, so it should come as no surprise that the FDA was ready to approve it and it was in fact a historically rare occurrence for the Secretary to have vetoed it.
You might also rationally say that it is not the Federal Government's business to enforce local statutory rape laws. And if I thought there was a principled federalism argument behind Sebelius' decision to completely ignore that issue, I wouldn't be overly critical of it. But given that the liberal view is that your health is a matter of federal dominion, as represented by Obamacare, this blind spot shouldn't exist. And wholly apart from the evil of raping a little girl, such an act creates health problems, too. For instance, this is extremely strong language, but consider this passage from Kennedy v. LA, describing the after effects of the rape of an eight year old girl:
L.H. was transported to the Children's Hospital. An expert in pediatric forensic medicine testified that L. H.'s injuries were the most severe he had seen from a sexual assault in his four years of practice. A laceration to the left wall of the vagina had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into the vaginal structure. Her entire perineum was torn from the posterior fourchette to the anus. The injuries required emergency surgery.
The court later notes that as a result of this assault, this unnamed girl will never have children. Wholly apart from our moral revulsion at that case—I continue to find it stunning that the Supreme Court decided that it was wrong to execute the perpetrator of this crime because the death penalty should be reserved for murder only—this has harmed her health, and it is curious that a liberal who endorses federal dominion over our health is silent about this element of the issue.
Still although curiously blind in some ways, it is a step back toward sanity on this point, for which the Secretary should receive credit.
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Sidebar: Also I am waiting for liberals to claim that this regulation is raaaaacist. I mean after all, if pharmacists must require the person to be at least 17 before getting the drug, then how on earth will they verify that person's age. Oh, right, with photo ID. And we all know that the official liberal position is that racial minorities are uniquely incapable of obtaining a photo ID. Put aside the fact that the official liberal position on this subject relies on racist assumptions about the capabilities of minorities, but consider the implications of that argument. If it is racist to require a photo ID before voting, then isn't this RU-486 regulation racist too? Shouldn't all the good feminists be upset that racial minorities would be disproportionately saddled with unwanted children?
(I know that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger would be appalled at the idea of minorities having more children than white people. But I don't think they will be quoting her on this point any time soon.)
Indeed whenever I go to buy pseudoephedrine, I have to produce a photo ID. So apparently the evil racists want minorities to suffer from more sinus headaches. Raaaaacists!
Of course I am being tongue-in-cheek here. Obviously this is not racist, but it's curious that liberals only think requiring an ID is racist when voting is involved. It's almost as if this fear of racism is overhyped and this is all really just a smokescreen in order to protect voter fraud.
But it couldn't be that, could it?
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