FDA Chickens Out

Well isn't this a surprise. It looks like the FDA is going to bow out of the Plan B decision altogether and allow the states to decide whether or not to allow Plan B to be OTC.

In truth this is minorly preferable to the simply foot-dragging that was going on before where it was not over the counter anywhere - but not by too bloody much. Living in a state that has a remarkably SD-like bill just waiting for the appropriate moment to launch, I don't have much faith that we'll be seeing Plan B OTC in a drugstore near me anytime this decade. What always makes me puzzled though, is that the people fighting Plan B are nearly always the same ones who are virulently anti-abortion. Is it too big a mental leap for them to realize that the availability of Plan B would reduce the number of abortions? Surely no unwanted pregnancies would be preferable to them? (I realize the answer is not just "No", but "NO!!". I simply can't fathom the thinking.)

I do think the legislature here (and hopefully in SD) may be in for a nasty surprise come voting time. There are a lot of us who are pro-choice who as a rule vote based on a slew of different considerations. Those voting habits are gonna change in a hurry when we're staring down the barrel of a gun - which is exactly how I feel about the legislation. No health exception for the mother - what, for the love of kumquats, are they thinking? Outlawing abortion is bad enough, and more than enough to get my blood boiling to start with, but to deliberately endanger grown women in favor of a ball of cells in outrageous.

Check out anti-abortion legislation. I have yet to see any that does not have as a side-effect causing more late term abortions. You give women more hurdles to leap through, it takes longer, they abort later. You reduce the number of clinics, it takes longer to make the travel arrangements, get the money, take the leave from work, abortions happen later. If they have to go to another state - same problem, abortions come later in pregnancy. Unless you think that cute little blastocyte is exactly the same as a fetus with a heartbeat, is exactly the same as a neonate, is exactly the same as a grown woman - why would you support that?

If you do think that a fertilized egg is the moral equivalent of a grown human being, then I despair of the human race.