Women, Morning-after Pill | featured news

A federal judge ruled Friday that the government must make the most common morning-after pill available over the counter for all ages, instead of requiring a prescription for girls 16 and younger. In his ruling, he also accused the federal government of “bad faith” in dealing with the requests to make the pill universally available, and said its actions had been politically motivated.

Women used emergency contraception because they doubted other methods, a report says.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied a request to block part of the federal health care law that requires employee health-care plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception pills.

Pediatricians treating teenaged girls should consider writing just-in-case prescriptions for the morning-after pill, the the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said on Monday. It’s the second recommendation in a week from a major doctor’s group that would make contraception more widely available to women. Last week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended making all birth control pills available over the counter.

Advocates for unfettered access to the “morning-after pill” Plan B One-Step took their case to President Obama’s chief science adviser Friday, asking him to find out the basis for the administration’s controversial decision last month to continue requiring that young girls get the drug only by prescription.

Federal health officials on Friday approved a new type of morning-after contraceptive that works longer than the current leading drug on the market.