Mourning After: Local Orgs React to FDA’s Approval of Plan B Pill for Fifteen-Year-Olds

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced yesterday the approval of the Plan B One Step (“morning after pill”) for use without prescription by girls and women 15 years of age and older. The pill was previously only available over-the-counter to women 17 years of age and older. The controversial drug acts as a contraceptive and in some cases causes abortions.

Reacting to the decision, Jasper’s North Georgia Pregnancy Center Director Patti Page called it a very sad day. Page, who helps run the Jasper non-profit, said the FDA’s decision today opens the door to abortions without parental consent in the near future.

“Girls don’t know what they’re doing with that pill,”

she said. Additionally, Page brought up the legal issue of pregnant fifteen year olds, questioning whether or nor the new regulation challenges statutory rape laws.

Page also talked about the lasting effects of abortion and abortion causing drugs, like Plan B, which she said cause spiritual, emotional and psychological effects, damaging and detrimental to girls and women who survive these experiences. Her comments reflect a passage from Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical Letter, Humanae Vitae, on the dignity of life.

“(In procreation) both its natural, earthly aspects and its supernatural, eternal aspects (must be considered),”

the Pontiff writes. Page says the center counsel girls who need it with the message of hope and forgiveness with the help of God’s mercy. She says much of what the center does is counseling, in addition to administering pregnancy tests and ultra-sounds. Regarding FDA’s decision, though, Page says it won’t legally affect the center very much.

Georgia Right to Life also lamented the decision. In a press release, the group called the decision unconscionable and a slap in the face to parents.

“School nurses can’t even give 15-year-olds an aspirin without parental consent,”

GRTL President Dan Becker said.

“This powerful drug is potentially dangerous, and in some cases may cause the death of a pre-born child.”

Becker goes on to say a single dose of Plan B is 50 times stronger than one low-dose birth control pill.

“It’s mindboggling,”

he said,

“that adults need a prescription for standard birth control pills, but a 15-year-old girl can get a much stronger, and potentially dangerous, that medication with no parental or medical advice at all,”

Becker said. He also referenced the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which says there is not enough information to determine the long-term side effects on young girls.

“Possible side effects include: cervical cancer; breast cancer; heart attack and stroke; migraines; gallbladder disease; benign liver tumors; and infertility.
Equally important, the drug may cause the death of a pre-born child by destroying fertilized egg, which embryologists recognize as a human being,”

the press release stated.