The Morning-After Pill Conspiracy is continuing to work for full access to all forms of
birth-control. We thank the nearly 4500 women and men who have stood with us, and
we encourage everyone to stand with us in our ongoing fight for women’s rights. We
say to the FDA: Take away the unfair barriers that drive up the cost and block timely
access to Morning-After Pill!  Free up our access to the Morning-After Pill
by making it over-the-counter for all women! We say to the administration: Stop
erecting obstructions to birth-control and stop chipping away our right to a safe abortion.

To this end, and in light of the blatant anti-birth control sentiments of the right-wing
and its puppet, the Bush Administration,

We the undersigned, pledge to support the Morning-After Pill Conspiracy in its efforts to compel the FDA to grant full over-the-counter status to Plan B and to provide full access to all forms of birth control.

We further demand:

• National legislation requiring that pharmacists fill prescriptions for Birth Control.
• Free abortion on demand.
• Men do their share of pregnancy preventing, including wearing condoms without resistance or having to be asked, and paying for at least half of whatever method we use.

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Background

For more than three years, the Morning-After Pill Conspiracy has worked to get the
Morning-After Pill over-the-counter. For more than three years, under the guise of concern for
young women, the FDA continued to throw up roadblocks and stall the decision.

Since 1999, to acquire the Morning-After Pill, women were required to make a doctor’s
appointment, take off time from work or classes to attend, pay for the appointment, rush to a
pharmacy to fill the prescription and then endure possible intrusive questioning from the
pharmacist. The prescription status was unjust, time-consuming, offensive, and expensive.
We knew that women across the country regularly broke the law by giving their friends the
Morning-After Pill when they needed it. We decided to go public with this civil disobedience
by drafting the “Pledge to Give Your Friend the Morning-After Pill.” By signing this pledge,
over 4400 women, from every state in the union and from several other countries, pledged to
defy the prescription requirement and hand over her pills to a friend. Every time we reached
another 100 names, the list was sent to the FDA as proof of our continued dedication to this
issue. Our pledge and its signers have been entered into the FDA’s official documents about
Plan B, the brand name of the Morning-After Pill.

In January of 2005, nine of us were arrested outside of FDA headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. We blocked access to the building to demonstrate how they were blocking access to safe and effective birth control. Following the arrest, we were contacted by the
Center for Reproductive Rights, and asked to join them in a lawsuit against the FDA,
citing sexual discrimination in the agency’s handling of the Plan B petition.
(Tummino vs. von Eschenbach)

In August 2006, our feminist organizing efforts paid off. On the very eve of acting FDA
commissioner Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach’s confirmation hearing in the senate, the
FDA announced a compromise decision. It would allow women 18 and up to get it without
a doctor’s prescription. The FDA knew they couldn’t deny access completely, so this
compromise was designed to answer to American women and yet appease the current
administration’s anti-birth control policies.

Why is this still an issue to feminists? This decision puts the Morning-After Pill
“behind-the-counter” not over-the-counter, a status that makes it available from a pharmacist
only. Behind the counter means that the Morning-After Pill is not on the shelves at your
neighborhood grocery store, but only at a pharmacy; it’s not available at the 24-hour
convenience store, but only during pharmacy hours; it’s not available to all women, but
only to those older than 18. Because of this, it is obvious that all women will have to
show ID to a pharmacist to receive the Morning-After Pill. We object to this age restriction -
any woman old enough to get pregnant is old enough to decide that she doesn’t want to
be pregnant!

The decision is further exacerbated by the “pharmacist refusal clauses” that a few states
have passed and more are attempting. This gives any pharmacist the right to refuse to
hand out the Morning-After Pill or any birth control. This approach is sexist, condescending,
and puts our rights in the hands of pharmacists. Pharmacists for Life and other anti-woman
movements already refuse to fill women’s prescriptions for regular birth control. Even those
pharmacists who are willing to hand it out may continue to make it difficult by prying into
our private lives and asking impertinent questions regarding our sexual history and practices.
Some state laws even allow for the store clerk to refuse to ring it up. If it were on store shelves, we could buy it along with aspirin and shampoo, with no questions asked.

We know how vital full availability is to all women. There is no medical reason to refuse
over-the-counter status for the Morning-After Pill to young women. There is no medical difference between a 17 year-old woman and a 19 year-old. The FDA’s own Advisory Committees overwhelmingly recommended that the Morning-After Pill be available without a prescription (23 to 4), as did more than 70 national medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Women in more than 46 other countries can get the Morning-After Pill without a prescription. Why not here?

Reproductive choices belong in women’s hands— not in the hands of pharmacists, doctors,
or politicians. The right to control when and if we have children is central to directing our lives,
and all women should have  all reproductive tools available to them.

We need your support! Click here to add your name to the pledge. An email
will open. Just sign your name and address in the body of the email, then
hit "send". Your name will be added to the pledge!