NARAL PRO-CHOICE COLORADO GIVES MIXED REVIEW OF FDA DECISION ALLOWING EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION TO BE SOLD WITHOUT A PRESCRIPTION
For Immediate Release
Friday, August 25, 2006
Contact: Kathryn Wittneben
NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado
Office: 303.394.1973, ext. 12
kwittneben@ProChoiceColorado.org NARAL PRO-CHOICE COLORADO GIVES MIXED REVIEW OF FDA DECISION ALLOWING
EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION TO BE SOLD WITHOUT A PRESCRIPTION DENVER (Aug. 25) – Today, women across Colorado and the country benefited from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to allow emergency contraception, Plan B®, to be sold over-the-counter. “We applaud the FDA for finally putting science before politics with regard to women’s health,” said Kathryn Wittneben, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. “The FDA’s decision to allow emergency contraception (EC) to be sold without a prescription is long overdue. EC is a critical tool to help women make personal, private decisions about their own health care and to prevent unintended pregnancies and the need for abortion.” NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado (NPCC) gathered over 10,000 petitions throughout the state this summer urging the FDA to act immediately to approve the sale of EC over-the-counter for all women. “It’s estimated that emergency contraception, once more widely available, could reduce the number of abortions by half – a commonsense goal that should be supported by everyone,” said Jeff McDowell, chairman of the board for NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. NPCC has worked with state legislators and coalition partners over the past three years to provide greater access to EC in Colorado. Most recently, NPCC worked to pass H.B. 1212, sponsored by Senators Betty Boyd (SD-21) and Jennifer Veiga (SD-31), to allow pharmacists to write EC prescriptions. This bill was vetoed by Colorado Governor Bill Owens. The FDA’s decision allows Plan B®, which is manufactured by Barr Laboratories, to be sold without a prescription to women 18 years and older. Women under the age of 18 still need to obtain a prescription from a health-care provider to access EC – a decision NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado condemns. “While we applaud FDA’s approval of Plan B to be sold without a prescription, NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado opposes the FDA’s decision to arbitrarily restrict sales to those under 18,” Wittneben said. “Teens are our most vulnerable population and have the least access to tools to prevent unintended pregnancy. Scientific and medical experts have repeatedly testified that Plan B is safe for use by women of all ages. Instead of protecting teens, the FDA’s arbitrary age restriction forces young women who have had unprotected sex to decide between pregnancy and abortion. Instead of promoting mechanisms to reduce unintended pregnancies among teen girls, the FDA decision leaves a significant hurdle for young women to overcome.” According to research conducted by NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado, more than 4,000 prescriptions for emergency contraception were filled in Colorado in 2004, the most recent year for which data are available. However, one-quarter of Colorado counties did not have pharmacies where prescriptions for EC could be filled. Ten Colorado counties did not have identifiable health-care providers where women could access prescriptions for, or receive, emergency contraception, making the need for EC to be sold without a prescription essential in those areas. (See attached table for information about EC access in Colorado counties.) . Plan B® has been proven to be up to 95 percent effective at preventing pregnancy when taken within 24 hours. EC is not RU 486, a different pill regimen that terminates an existing pregnancy. Rather, EC prevents a potential pregnancy by inhibiting ovulation. NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado works to educate health-care providers, women and others in Colorado’s reproductive-health field about the availability of emergency contraception. In November 2006, NPCC published a bilingual resource, The Emergency Contraception (EC) Resource Handbook for Colorado, which describes emergency contraception, when to use it, and where it is available in Colorado. NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado (NPCC) is the political action arm of the pro-choice movement in Colorado. NPCC has more than 30,000 supporters statewide and works to develop and sustain a constituency that uses the political process to guarantee every woman the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive health choices, including preventing unintended pregnancies, bearing healthy children and choosing legal abortion.
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