It's Time to Offer the Pill Over-the-Counter
Source: Change.org By: Alex DiBranco Have you ever carefully packed for a holiday vacation, then realized after getting on the plane that you forgot those precious pregnancy-deterring pills? As responsible user of birth control, you don't like forgetting a single pill. You know that if you miss a few days while trying to get a hold of somebody who can call in a prescription, hormonal birth control becomes drastically less effective, raising your risk of pregnancy and making other forms of back-up contraception necessary. Wouldn't it be nice if all you needed to do was drop by Hawaii's closest pharmacy and pick up an over-the-counter replacement package of pills? Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health, a nonprofit research organization, asks: Well, why shouldn't you? In a recent New York Times editorial, "Let the Pill Go Free," Blanchard says that, half-a-century after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the birth control pill for use with a prescription, it's time to reassign it to OTC status. In most cases, getting a prescription for the pill is little more than an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. Sexually active or planning to be? Don't want to be pregnant? A gyno will scribble their illegible doctor's signature on a prescription form and send you on your merry way. "Women don’t need a doctor to tell them if they need cold medicine or condoms, and they shouldn’t need a doctor’s permission to take the pill," Blanchard writes. "Over-the-counter sales would expand access to safe, effective contraception, and help women take control over their sexual and reproductive lives." The pill is as or more safe as most OTC medications already out there; Blanchard states that swallowing a handful of them might make you queasy, but unlike other easily available drugs, an overdose is not life-endangering. The pill is not addictive, directions for use are simple, and while there are a few conditions that make using hormonal birth control a bad choice for a given person, women have demonstrated that they can accurately self-screen for such risk factors. Hey, some people shouldn't take aspirin, but we don't make doctors write constant prescriptions for minor headache relief; to a certain extent, we rely on people (and proper warning labels) to know their own health and bodies. So why hasn't the pill already been set free from the need for a prescription? Perhaps something to do with our sex-negative society and pressure from the Religious Right? No matter: now's the time for change. Tell the FDA that it's time to offer the pill over-the-counter. |
