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During the Bush administration, I was frankly stunned that we got Plan-B to the OTC market at all - and I was thrilled when a court ruled that the FDA acted in bad faith when it had restricted the sale of emergency contraception to women over 18 because of political considerations, even though their own scientists had deemed it safe and effective for all ages.
I was so happy about the victory for the women in my daughters' peer group that I failed to consider my own sisters - the women who serve - both in uniform and as the supportive spouse - when billeted overseas.
Plan B is excluded from the list of what military dispensaries are required to stock. Stateside, this isn't much of a problem, but overseas, that could prevent a significant challenge for families that rely solely on on-base facilities for OTC medications.
Over 160,000 female Soldiers, Sailors Airmen and Marines have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East since Bush took us to war, and over 2500 of those women are known to have been sexually assaulted in 2007 alone. What can possibly justify limiting the rights of these women to prevent unwanted pregnancies as a result of being victims of a criminal assault? It's simply unconscionable.
That is, of course, a rhetorical question. It was Bush-league politics, pure and simple.
In 2002, Plan B was approved by the DoD for it's Basic Care Formulary, and that approval would have mandated it be stocked at all military treatment facilities and dispensaries. It was quickly quashed as soon as it showed up on the radar screen of Bush political appointees - kinda like what happened at the FDA when you stop to think about it. What science supports, politics casts asunder.
I encourage you to contact the White House and urge the President to direct Secretary Gates to make Plan B available to our servicewomen - and female military dependents - world wide. |
