08 May 2004
Morning-After-Pill Ruling Defies Norm

I support a woman's right to choose (although I hate that term, much as I despise the fetus people calling themselves "pro-life" while pushing the death penalty), but to an extent, the commissioner in question has a point: why use a condom when you can just pop over to Walgreen's the next morning a take a pill? Well, you use condoms to prevent disease, of course, but how many teens are going to think like that? Furthermore, it's nearly impossible to insure that OTC meds are taken as intended, by those who need them, anyway. Were this to be approved, I wonder what the reaction would be when it's discovered, five years down the road, that pre-teen girls are taking one every day to enhance their bosums (or something along those lines)? Have they tested massive dosing on pubescent humans?

I find the trend towards seeing all problems as solvable by taking a pill as terribly disturbing. Not happy today? Take a pill? Forgot your rubber thingy? Take a pill. Is Junior running apeshit in the back yard? Give him a pill! Need to run faster for sports? Take another pill!

Smoothing the rough edges to life and it's consequences with pharmacology is starting to distort and pervert our very conceptions about what it means to be human.

A top federal drug official overruled both an advisory committee and staff recommendations in refusing to allow the pill to be sold over the counter.

(link) [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

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