Bubblegum and the Date Rape Cocktail, Mark Morford

Panic! Fainting! Pearls-clutching galore among the easily terrified and the never-orgasmic as it was announced that a federal judge just spanked the Obama Administration – Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius in particular – for being so surprisingly backasswards when it comes to emergency contraception for women.

Did you hear? After years and ridiculous politicking and inexplicable delays, a federal judge just ordered Sibelius’ FDA to finally allow emergency contraception (Plan B, et al) to be made available over the counter for women and girls of all ages.

It’s true. And it’s sort of a big deal. Barring an appeal, girls under 17 can soon get emergency contraception without a prescription, without their parent’s permission, without any sort of pinched howling from the religious right who would far prefer to snuff out all young women for daring to have an active uterus in the first place.

It must be hereby noted: The stuffy FDA first recommended such contraception be made available over-the-counter to all ages back in 2011, years after such drugs have been proven safe, years after they’ve been readily available to women in smarter countries all over the world. Women’s groups in the U.S. have been clamoring for easy availability for over a decade; but, being America, the PTB fretted and delayed due almost exclusively to the flat-out ignorance and hysteria of the religious right.

The rest: http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/04/09/bubblegum-and-the-date-rape-cocktail/