Blog for Choice: Emergency contraception battle takes to the states

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February 27, 2006

Emergency contraception battle takes to the states

The Washington Post has a great piece today on how the fight for access to EC is largely being fought on a state-level--mostly due to the inadequacy that is the FDA these days.

More than 60 bills concerning EC have already been filed in state legislature this year, some seeking to increase access and some seeking to limit it.

The resulting tug of war is creating an availability map for the pill that looks increasingly similar to the map of "red states" and "blue states" in the past two presidential elections -- with increased access in the blue states and greater restrictions in the red ones.

Shocking, I know.

"The FDA made this a major issue for state legislatures," said Sharon Camp, president of the Guttmacher Institute, a women's health research organization. "For the first seven years Plan B was on the market, this largely didn't happen."

Click here for a timeline of the FDA’s (non)action on emergency contraception and here for NARAL’s state profiles.

Posted by Jessica at February 27, 2006 10:43 AM

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Comments

Weird. According to NARAL, 41 percent of California counties have no abortion provider -- but Cali as a whole still gets an A+ ...

Posted by: greenlagirl at February 28, 2006 1:05 AM