Round-Up: Obama Betrays Women & Science Over Plan B Birth Control

-- Who died and made Barack Obama daddy in charge of teenage girls? -- Katha Pollitt: HHS: Let's Treat ALL Women Like Children

-- Good news. It looks like we've finally gotten the long awaited post-partisan achievement: the Democrats have joined the war on science. And women! It's a twofer. -- Digby: Postpartisan depression: The Democrats join the War On Women

-- The president shamefully uses his daughters to justify limiting the healthcare options of America's young women -- Rebecca Traister: Obama’s woman problem

-- So, since it's "common knowledge" that girls under 17 are too stupid and/or immature to undertand how to read a label, it's safer for them if they have to first get to a doctor who will write them a prescription they can take to the pharmacy — all within 72 hours. Which should be easy for a kid to do, right? -- Kaili Joy Gray via Daily Kos: Health and Human Services says teen girls too dumb to use morning after pill without prescription

NOW President Terry O'Neill: Emergency Contraception Betrayal: Does President Obama Really Oppose Family Planning? -- In a stunning betrayal of women, the Obama administration has sided with radical right politics in rejecting the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) decision to remove an age restriction on emergency contraception...During the Bush years, women's reproductive health was under constant attack. We don't need more of the same from the Obama administration.

ABC News: Women’s Groups Incensed Over Obama Morning-After Pill Decision --“My computer was burning up with people saying, ‘I am done,’” said Judy Waxman, vice-president of health and reproductive rights for the National Women’s Law Center. “The fury is really unmatched in anything I have seen.”

Lorraine Berry via RH Reality Check: Denying Access to Plan B: An Act of Political Cowardice -- I'm an idiot. I keep hoping against hope that you're not going to throw women under the bus. That you can stand up to the ladies who swoon at the Concerned Women for America. You think they're going to vote for you because you said no to Plan B?

Jodi Jacobson via RH Reality Check: In Astounding Move, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Overrules FDA Recommendation to Make Plan B Over-the-Counter -- Because apparently the health and rights of women do not matter, but placating the far right does.

New York Times Editorial: Politics and the Morning-After Pill -- And it is hard not to see this as anything but an effort to blunt Republican criticism in the presidential campaign or shield the FDA budget from retaliation. Unfortunately, the losers will be young girls who need easy access to the pill.

CRR Responds to President Obama’s Comments on Recent Rejection of Plan B One-Step for Over-the-Counter Sale without Age Restriction -- "The president and HHS secretary's recent comments would suggest that no drugs that the FDA has approved as safe and effective—including Tylenol, Sudafed, and many others-should be on drug store shelves."

NY Times: Obama Endorses Decision to Limit Morning-After Pill -- President Obama, who took office pledging to put science ahead of politics, averted a skirmish with conservatives in the nation’s culture wars on Thursday by endorsing his health secretary’s decision to block over-the-counter sales of an after-sex contraceptive pill to girls under age 17.

Jezebel: Five Common Drugs More Dangerous Than Plan B -- Tylenol: Possible side effects: allergic reaction, Overdose effects: possible liver failure and death. Over-the-counter? Yes

E. J. Graff: Occupy Our Ovaries -- I don't know exactly how, but Democratic women are going to break up with this administration. Pickets? Fence-chaining? "Occupy Our Ovaries" protests? Something's gonna boil over. Remember that you read it here first.

Lindsay Beyerstein: Obama Overrules FDA on Plan B -- The president is ritually pissing off his base for no good reason. It must be an election year.

Michelle Goldberg: Obama's Restrictions on Morning-After Pill Are Politically Driven -- Already under fire from Catholics, the Obama administration clearly caved to conservative pressure when it overruled an FDA decision to expand the accessibility of a morning-after pill.

Washington Post Editorial Board: Obama administration’s bad call on Plan B -- [T]he administration’s decision will decrease access for all women, because the medication will continue to be kept behind the pharmacy counter so that the age of the buyer can be verified. As a result, access will be limited to hours when the pharmacy is open. That does not constitute common sense.

Fox News: Obama Defends Decision on Morning-After Pill -- "As the father of two daughters," he said, "I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine."

Tory Hoen: Et Tu, Obama? Morning-After Pill Decision Is Reminiscent of Bush-Era Blindness -- “I’m flabbergasted. If I close my eyes for a minute, I might think I was in the Bush era.”

The Hill: Left 'Speechless' As Seblius Overrules FDA On Access To Morning-After Pill -- In a decision steeped in 2012 politics, President Obama's top health official on Wednesday overruled government scientists to block wider access to the so-called "morning-after pill."

NY Times: Plan To Widen Availability Of Morning – After Pill Is Rejected --The decision avoided what could have been a bruising political battle over parental control and contraception during a presidential election season.

NPR: Women's Groups Outraged By Ruling On Morning-After Pill

Mother Jones: Morning After Pill Remains a Political Football -- This is the first time an HHS secretary has ever overruled the FDA, and it's a blow to those of us who believe that Democratic administrations are more willing to be guided by scientific evidence than Republican ones.

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