Tony Pervkins

You can always rely on the Family Research Council to come up with the most outlandish and brutal sexual fantasy when any common sense solution is offered for our country's high rate of unintended pregnancy. It's most recent has been inspired by the FDA's apparent willingness to re-reconsider the emergency contraception over-the-counter (OTC) application, this time only for women 18 and older. The Family Research Council explains that by considering making a contraceptive that's 85% effective at preventing abortion available over-the-counter to adult women, "the Administration is considering making it easier for statutory rapists to obtain Plan B, the "morning after pill," by granting over-the-counter (OTC) status for women 18 years and older." How can a contraceptive available over-the-counter only to women, that's those 18 and older, aid statutory rapists? Only the depraved minds at the Family Research Council seem to know. And even though the Family Research Council opposes it, which usually means it's something you can enthusiastically support, many reproductive rights advocates view the administration's new interest in EC OTC as a transparent attempt to allow Von Eschenbach's nomination to head the FDA proceed later this week. After all, Von Eschenbach's has already weighed in on the EC OTC application -- offering an a surefire plan to deepsix the new version too. Von Eschenbach wrote on July 31 (yesterday), that unless Barr (the EC OTC applicant) can guarantee that no woman under 18 will use the drug without medical supervision, the product will remain "Rx Only". This would hold Barr to an impossible standard--thereby creating a reason to once again delay or deny the application.