FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE—April 7, 2005
Morning-After
Pill Conspiracy
Kelly
Mangan, Chair, Florida NOW Young Feminist Task
Force, cell 850-445-4273
Stephanie Seguin, Gainesville (Fla.) Women's Liberation, cell
352-281-7454
Erin Mahoney, Chair, Women's Liberation Birth-Control Project,
cell
917-842-5306
Lead Plaintiffs in
Lawsuit Against FDA Support Senators' Decision to Hold Crawford's
Confirmation
as FDA Head
Statement of Annie Tummino,
lead plaintiff of Tummino v. Crawford
We oppose the confirmation of Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Food and
Drug
Administration Lester Crawford, who is blocking women’s access to the
Morning-After Pill – a safe, effective form of birth control. Crawford
is unfit
for this post. We are suing Crawford because he has applied a sexist
double-standard to the Morning-After Pill and disregarded his own
agency’s
medical experts. The full text of the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Annie
Tummino
and eight other women from the Morning-After Pill Conspiracy (including
all
contacts listed above) can be found at www.reproductiverights.org/press.html.
We support senator Clinton and Senator Murray’s hold on Crawford’s confirmation and we call on the Senate to reject his appointment until he stops holding women’s health hostage. Crawford and the FDA have violated the rights of American women by withholding access to this safe, effective form of birth control. His nomination is an insult to the women of the U.S.
We also reject any attempt to give the Morning-After Pill behind-the-counter status in order to impose a medically unnecessary age restriction. Behind-the-counter status still creates obstacles to women’s access by forcing us to find a pharmacy that stocks it and a pharmacist that is willing to dispense it to us. We refuse to be carded for birth control or allow ourselves to be separated off from young women. If you are old enough to get pregnant, you are old enough to decide not to get pregnant.
More than 70 medical organizations- including the American Medical Association & the New England Journal of Medicine- support over-the-counter access to the Morning-After Pill. The FDA’s own medical advisory committees voted 23-4 that the Morning-After Pill should go over-the-counter, and voted unanimously that it is safe for over-the-counter sales. In 38 other countries, this drug is available without a doctor’s prescriptions, but in the U.S. women have to jump through hoops to get it.
I needed the Morning-After pill after I went away for a long weekend and got a couple of days behind on my daily birth control pills. I had sex with my boyfriend after I got back and realized I was in trouble. I needed the Morning-After Pill as back-up and I didn’t have it at my fingertips. First I called my doctor’s office – it’s a small office with irregular hours, and it was closed when I called. I went online and found a list of NYC clinics, but I began to panic. I help my boss run a small business and she was out of the office that day. We are the only two employees, and one of us has to be there. There was no way I could skip work and wait in a clinic for hours to be seen. I thought about asking my friends who might have an extra package of Plan B in their medicine cabinet or a prescription with refills left. Even then, I would have to wait until the end of the day to do anything about it. The clock was ticking. Thankfully, I found a NYC hotline where you talk to a doctor over the phone and they will call in a prescription to a pharmacy for you without actually seeing you in person. I took Plan B, the emergency contraceptive that is being considered for over-the-counter status, and had no side effects at all.
Because the Morning-After Pill is most effective at preventing pregnancy within 24 hours after sex, it’s vital that women have immediate, over-the-counter access to it. Women know when we don’t want to get pregnant- we shouldn’t need a doctor’s permission to control our lives.
In
January, nine women from the Morning-After Pill
Conspiracy were arrested for sitting in at the FDA and demanding the
Morning-After Pill go over-the-counter for all women. We have defied
the
prescription requirement by illegally distributing the Morning-After
Pill and
more than 2,300 women from across the country have pledges to do the
same. (For
more info go to www.mapconspiracy.org).
We pledge further acts of civil disobedience if Lester Crawford
continues to
hold hostage women’s access to birth control.
Background:
According to the New York Times, Senate
Democrats questioned
Dr. Lester
M. Crawford, President Bush's
choice to lead the Food and
Drug Administration,
about why the agency had so far refused to allow over-the-counter
sales of the morning-after pill Plan B.
''What has disturbed many of us
is what appears is political
interference in a scientific process,'' said Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. ''We rely on the F.D.A.
for
everything we take, and I am hopeful that we
will reverse what
appears to be a dangerous slide into political opinion as
opposed to scientific evidence.'' (Gardiner Harris, New York Times,
3/18/05)
The
Morning-After Pill (MAP), or "emergency contraception," is simply a
higher dose of regular birth control pills. It prevents pregnancy when
taken up
to 5 days after sex, but it is most effective when taken within the
first 24
hours. (It is not the same as RU-486, the abortion pill.)
Plan B (TM) is manufactured by Barr Laboratories, which applied for
over-the-counter status.
The Journal of the American Medical Association published a UCSF study
on Jan.
5 showing that increased access to the Morning-After Pill doesn’t cause
women
to engage in more risky sex.
The FDA has been quick to get drugs on the market like Vioxx (TM),
which
scientists objected to, but when it comes to drugs that benefit women,
political pressure trumps medical science.
The Morning After Pill is available without a prescription in 38 other
countries.
The FDA’s own advisory panels voted in December 2003 that the drug is
safe and
voted 23-4 to approve it for over the counter use in the U.S.
Who is the
Morning-After Pill Conspiracy?
The MAP Conspiracy is a coalition of feminist
organizations leading the grassroots movement to make the Morning-After
Pill an
over-the-counter drug. The name is a reference to the fact that women
have to
conspire to break the law just to get the Morning-After Pill. The FDA’s
prescription requirement forces us to rely on friends who may have it
because
we cannot get MAP when the need arises. We started passing out the
pills
publicly in defiance of the prescription requirement on Feb. 15, 2004.
Our
campaign seeks to highlight the injustice of the prescription
requirement, and
we use speak-outs where women speak from their own experience, to show
that
women are the real experts on why women need unrestricted access to the
Morning-After Pill. We have held speak-outs and handed out MAP in New
York
City; Washington D.C; Rockville, Maryland; and Gainesville, Fla. More
than
2,000 women around the country have signed the pledge to "Give a friend
the Morning-After Pill," defying the prescription requirement. The
pledge
is available online at www.mapconspiracy.org.