A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that about 20 percent of 17-year-olds who called in to a pharmacy to ask for emergency contraception that day were unable to receive it. Seventeen-year-old women legally have access to the morning after pill, also known as Plan B, without a prescription. The decision would have removed a prescription requirement for any woman seeking emergency contraception.

According to the study:

The availability of emergency contraception did not differ based on neighborhood income. However, in 19 percent (n = 138) of calls, the adolescent was told she could not obtain emergency contraception under any circumstance. This misinformation occurred more often (23.7 percent vs 14.6 percent) among pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods. When callers queried the age threshold for over-the-counter access, they were given the correct age less often by pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods (50.0 percent vs 62.8 percent. In all but 11 calls, the incorrect age was stated as erroneously too high, potentially restricting access.

The researchers concluded that “although we found approximately 80 percent same-day availability of emergency contraception in US metropolitan areas, misinformation regarding access was common—particularly in low-income neighborhoods.”

Immediate access to emergency contraception is vital to its effectiveness. Prolonged wait times or other types of barriers to same-day access can lead to an unplanned pregnancy, which is why many women’s health advocates have criticized the federal government for intervening in the FDA’s request.

Since Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced her decision, reproductive health advocates and policy-makers have expressed disappointment with the decision and claim it was based on political calculations, and not on scientific research. Last week, more than 35,000 signatures were sent to President Obama denouncing the decision.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has already sought legal action challenging the federal agency’s decision and a judge is considering hearing it.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (FLORIDA INDEPENDENT/ Cooper Levey-Baker)

Former presidential contender and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has teamed up with Citizens United to promote “fetal personhood,” a movement sweeping the country in the form of amendments that aim to define as beginning at the moment of conception.

Huckabee acts as narrator in Gift of Life, a film that promotes legislative action meant to overturn the landmark abortion rights act Roe v. Wade. He spoke about the film during a segment that aired last Saturday on his eponymous Fox News program, saying he had a recent discussion with his 5-year-old grandson about his passion for abortion issues.

Huckabee says that the film, which he helped produce, will remind voters that, “while the economy and jobs are center stage, treating every human with worth and dignity is still essential in selecting a leader.” Throughout the film, Huckabee espouses his support for fetal personhood bills, which have become increasingly divisive. Though supporters argue they only want to outlaw abortion, critics have argued that defining life in such broad terms could lead to a variety of unintended consequences and have wide-ranging impacts on cancer research as well as in vitro fertilization.

The issue is even more urgent, Huckabee says, because of the recent FDA approval of over-the-counter sales of the Plan B pill — which Huckabee called “a drug that kills a developing baby.”

The personhood movement has had its setbacks recently — an attempt at an amendment in Florida never yielded enough signatures for ballot placement and, despite support from state legislators, a personhood amendment in Mississippi on the state’s November ballot failed.

A Personhood Florida spokesman told The Florida Independent that, despite those recent setbacks, his group would again attempt an initiative for 2014.

Since Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced her decision, reproductive health advocates and policy-makers have expressed disappointment with the decision and claim it was based on political calculations, and not on scientific research.

According to the group’s press release:

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, today sent a letter signed by 35,194 Americans to President Obama opposing the administration’s recent decision to overrule a recommendation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to follow medical experts’ recommendations to remove a restriction on the Plan B® emergency contraceptive.

“We had a major opportunity to improve young women’s access to contraception, which is the best way to reduce unintended abortions and thus the need for abortion, and the Obama administration missed the mark,” Keenan said. “We will continue to call on the administration to follow sound science and recommendations from health experts.”

The grassroots letter, which comes almost a week later, is leading a grassroots public-education and advocacy campaign to mobilize grassroots supporters to take action in response to the administration’s decision reject the FDA’s recommendation. NARAL Pro-Choice America leveraged its activist network to launch a public-education effort immediately after the administration’s decision was announced. The group’s efforts also came as senators, led by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and members, led by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), sent letters to the administration expressing their disapproval of this action.

Since U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced her decision, reproductive health advocates have expressed disappointment and claim that the decision was based on political calculations, and not on scientific research.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has reopened “its 2005 lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for imposing unnecessary age restrictions on emergency contraceptives, and seek immediate relief to allow broader access to available drugs,” a new press release from the group states.

The group has also sought to add “Sebelius as a defendant in the reopened case for her role in overruling the FDA’s approval of Plan B One-Step last week,” according to the press release.

According to the group:

This fight is far from over. We intend to take every legal step necessary to hold the FDA and this administration accountable for its extraordinary actions to block women from safe, effective emergency contraception,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEP for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “It has been ten years of battling to bring emergency contraception out from behind the pharmacy counter. The FDA cannot simply continue moving the goal posts down the field for women’s reproductive health care.”

While U.S. District Court Judge Edward Korman found the contempt motion moot because late last night, the FDA decided to deny the 2001 Citizen Petition to lift age restrictions on emergency contraceptives— two years after the judge had ordered the agency to fairly reconsider the petition— he proceeded to invite the Center to reopen its 2005 lawsuit and agreed that the Center could add Secretary Sebelius as a defendant.

During the hearing, Judge Korman repeatedly noted the striking similarities between recent events —including last night’s denial of the Citizen Petition and Secretary Sebelius’ unprecedented decision to intervene and block the unrestricted sale of the drug—and the findings in 2009 that the FDA under the Bush Administration had “acted in bad faith and in response to political pressure.”

“The FDA has essentially been holding women’s reproductive health hostage to political calculations,” said Suzanne Novak, the senior staff attorney who argued for the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The Washington Post reports today that “Korman said he was willing to hear arguments over whether the agency should have allowed the sale of the morning-after pill to girls younger than 17 without a prescription, and he instructed advocacy groups to file the appropriate legal motions.”

In a statement announcing her decision, Sebelius said that although “the science has confirmed the drug to be safe and effective with appropriate use, the switch from prescription to over the counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately. ”

“I do not believe that Teva’s application met that standard. The label comprehension and actual use studies did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use,” she said.

Reproductive rights advocates immediately denounced the decision. Numerous groups have already released statements and written letters to Sebelius and the White House expressing disagreement with the decision.

The Washington Post reports that now a group of U.S. senators have written a letter to Sebelius requesting an explanation.

According to the letter:

We feel strongly that FDA regulations should be based on science. We write to you today to ask that you provide us with the rationale for this decision.

As numerous medical societies and patient advocates have argued, improved access to birth control, including emergency contraception, has been proven to reduce unintended pregnancies. Nearly half of all pregnancies that occur in the United States each year are unintended. Keeping Plan B behind the counter makes it harder for all women to obtain a safe and effective product they may need to prevent an unintended pregnancy.

We ask that you share with us your specific rationale and the scientific data you relied on for the decision to overrule the FDA recommendation. On behalf of the millions of women we represent, we want to be assured that this and future decisions affecting women’s health will be based on medical and scientific evidence.

President Obama has publicly supported Sebelius’ decision.

President Barack Obama (Photo: Flickr/The White House)

Women’s health advocates all over the country were stunned yesterday when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reversed an FDA request to expand access to over-the-counter emergency contraception for teenagers under the age of 17. In press releases denouncing the decision, a common theme has emerged: President Obama has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, George W. Bush, on the heated issue of emergency contraception.

The political fight during the Bush administration over Plan B, also known as the morning after pill or emergency contraception, was a volatile one. Conservatives were dead-set against the FDA’s approval of the drug and did all they could to stall access to it once it was approved.

As feminist writer Jessica Valenti has written on the subject:

As you may remember, the concerns the FDA cited over emergency contraception were not about women’s health or the safety of efficacy of the drug. Instead, they were worried about young women getting all slutty. Dr. W. David Hager, one of the FDA committee members who voted against EC’s over-the-counter approval and a key player in making sure Plan B got held up, told The New York Times: “What we heard today was frequently about individuals who did not want to take responsibility for their actions and wanted a medication to relieve those consequences.” Some things to keep in mind about Hager: in suggested in a book he wrote that women could cure PMS with prayer, and his wife accused him of rape. So yeah, a bit scary that he was in charge of women’s health.

It later came to light that FDA medical official Janet Woodcock wrote in an internal memo that over-the-counter status for Plan B could cause “extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.” It has Lifetime Original Movie written all over it. Of course this but-it-will-make-girls-slutty argument is hardly new. It’s the same excuse legislators have given when attempting to limit women’s access to birth control, and more recently, to the HPV vaccine.

Because the argument against emergency contraception wasn’t rooted in any medical or scientific argument, advocates were sure the Obama administration would uphold the recommendation. Furthermore, it was unlikely that a health secretary would publicly overrule the FDA.

According to The New York Times:

Although Ms. Sebelius had the legal authority to overrule the F.D.A., no health secretary had ever publicly done so, an F.D.A. spokeswoman said. Nor had such a disagreement been the subject of such extraordinary dueling press statements. Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the F.D.A.’s commissioner, issued a lengthy statement saying it was safe to sell Plan B over the counter, while Ms. Sebelius countered that the drug’s manufacturer had failed to study whether girls as young as 11 years old could safely use Plan B.

However, the conversation about whether to remove the barrier of a required prescription for girls under the age of 17 was about making sure emergency contraception was available to all sexually active women in an emergency. Requiring a prescription for a young girl could remove Plan B as an option altogether.

Women’s advocates also expected Sebelius and the Obama administration to protect women’s health issues, no matter the political fallout. The administration took a hit from politically powerful Catholic groups when it upheld a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine to include contraception in a list of preventive medicines to be covered without co-payments.

But in the months since the decision to include contraception in the list was made, reproductive justice advocates have been less sure that the administration will stand its ground, and they now consider yesterday’s decision a sign of things to come. Worse, advocates now see the Obama administration as continuing the politics of the Bush administration.

Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, wrote in a press release yesterday that the group “expected this kind of action from the Bush administration, so it’s doubly disheartening and unacceptable that this administration chose to follow this path.”

“We had a major opportunity to improve young women’s access to contraception,” Keenan said in a statement, “which is the best way to reduce the need for abortion, and the Obama administration missed the mark.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights released a statement saying, “Six years ago, we sued the Bush administration for rejecting science and playing politics with women’s health by denying emergency contraception for over-the-counter sale.”

“We are stunned to see the same behavior from the Obama administration,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. ”It is unacceptable that the approval for drugs supporting women’s reproductive health is held to a completely different standard.”

One of the country’s oldest feminist groups, the National Organization for Women, aslo said in a statement that:

It is an unusual and infuriating move for the Obama administration to overrule that decision, especially at a time when rumors are flying that the president is on the brink of caving in to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops by expanding religiously affiliated employers’ ability to deny contraceptive coverage to women under the Affordable Care Act.

NOW calls on the president to stop playing politics with the lives of women and girls. During the Bush years, women’s reproductive health was under constant attack. We don’t need more of the same from the Obama administration.

The Center for Reproductive Rights will be in federal court on Tuesday, according to their stament, continuing to fight for over-the-counter emergency contraception. The group filed a petition years ago, “along with attorneys Andrea Costello of Florida Institutional Legal Services and Natalie Maxwell of Southern Legal Counsel on behalf of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP), National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, grassroots activists, and parents who seek over-the-counter access for their daughters.”

A federal court ordered the FDA to reconsider and rule on the petition filed by the Center in 2001. However, the FDA has yet to follow the order, the Center says.

Groups expect to hear whether Sebelius will uphold her decision to include contraception in a list of preventive services some time this week.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. (Photo: http://degette.house.gov)

“I have always been committed to ensuring all our health policy decisions are grounded in sound science. The FDA’s review process was clearly extensive and thorough, and the data shared with HHS made clear that Plan B is safe and effective for its intended use,” DeGette wrote in a release. “Access to reliable and safe contraception is a fundamental component of health care and bringing Plan B from behind the pharmacy counter onto the shelves with other contraceptive methods would have been a victory for women’s health.”

DeGette looked forward to expanding access to the drug as a great victory for women’s health care and Sebelius’ move clearly came as a surprise.

Writing at the Huffington Post this week in anticipation of the decision, DeGette said expanding access to the Plan B pill to high school girls would be a great victory for women’s health.

If they approve this move, as we hope they will, it would be a great victory for women’s health care; when a woman can plan how and when she wants to have her family, there are proven health, economic and social benefits to her, her family, and indeed our society overall…

If the FDA approves this step, it will reflect the proven science of an important contraceptive innovation for American women. Access to reliable and safe contraception is a fundamental component of basic health care.

DeGette noted that, as with so much related to women’s reproductive health, the topic of the “morning after pill” was fraught. She warned against bad information.

[D]irectly in conflict with that science, many ideologues are once again trying to stand in the way of this advancement for women’s health care…

To be clear — emergency contraception is not a so-called “abortion pill.” Much like the traditional birth-control pill, Plan B One-step works to prevent fertilization, and therefore, pregnancy. Despite false declarations from extreme opponents, Plan B One-step does not work if the woman is already pregnant.

The Plan B pill is currently available without a prescription to any woman 17 or older with a photo ID. Reproductive rights advocates have long warned that this type of age restriction creates ill-advised longer wait times for young women seeking emergency contraception.

Teva Pharmaceuticals had applied to make its pill the first over-the-counter form of emergency contraception.

Secretary Sebelius explained that she thought that women as young as 11 might seek out the pill and she was unsure such young women could use the pill properly.

Although “the science has confirmed the drug to be safe and effective with appropriate use,” she said, “the switch from prescription to over the counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately. ”

“I do not believe that Teva’s application met that standard. The label comprehension and actual use studies did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use,” she said in a statement today.

According to her statement:

FDA has recommended approval of this application in its Summary Review for Regulatory Action on Plan B One-Step. After careful consideration of the FDA Summary Review, I have concluded that the data, submitted by Teva, do not conclusively establish that Plan B One-Step should be made available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age.

The average age of the onset of menstruation for girls in the United States is 12.4 years. However, about ten percent of girls are physically capable of bearing children by 11.1 years of age. It is common knowledge that there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age. If the application were approved, the product would be available, without prescription, for all girls of reproductive age.

The surprise move by a member of the pro-choice Obama administration had many analysts suggesting the rejection of the FDA recommendation should be seen as political maneuvering. They said the White House might be trading access to the morning after pill for conservative support for initiatives it considers more pressing, initiatives likely tied to relieving the economic pressure of the recession.

If there’s any truth to such speculation and if the health care reform debate is any measure, analysts point to the need to win over conservative Democrats on matters related to abortion for an extension of unemployment benefits, for example.

John Tomasic contributed to this report.

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Despite recent reports suggesting the FDA’s screening process for gulf seafood contaminants leaves room for improvement, state officials remain confident in the product’s safety.

Last week, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonpartisan environmental advocacy group, filed a petition with the FDA, demanding that the agency “recognize the hazards posed by PAHs in seafood and set a health protective standard.” Researchers with the NRDC suggest that the FDA has failed to properly assess levels of PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) in seafood that was likely affected by last year’s gulf oil spill.

According to Jo Marie Cook, chief of the Bureau of Chemical Residue Laboratories for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the FDA limits weren’t established “in a vacuum.”

“There was a lot of work done to establish those levels, especially in the Southern states,” she says. “The levels of concern were established in a very open forum with a lot of scientists present to give them input. But it’s a very, very complicated issue.”

The state complies with the limits set forth by the FDA and has, since August 2010, tested 358 samples of Gulf seafood — including lobster, clams, oysters, fin fish and shrimp. Cook says the state currently collects about 20 samples per week to test for PAHs and dispersants. The department intends to increase its samplings once additional staff is trained, which should occur within the year. State laboratories also plan to expand their screening of seafood to include metals sometime in the near future. A portion of BP funds given to the state will be used to add staff and to continue monitoring potentially affected seafood.

“We aren’t finding anything,” says Cook. “If we find anything at all, it’s extremely low levels, like 1/1,000th of any level of concern. So most of what we do are non-detects.”

When asked whether the FDA’s methods are, perhaps, not good enough, Cook says she remains so confident in the safety of Florida’s seafood that she consumes it herself.

“There are certain limited populations that live right on the coast, and they may eat seafood day in and day out as part of their diet,” she says. “So that’s got to be evaluated by the statisticians that do risk assessment.”

The state has had to battle the perceptions of unsafe gulf seafood since the April 2010 explosion and fire aboard BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling unit. Though the spill occurred over a year ago, consumer confidence in seafood has remained low. An April 2011 survey found that 63 percent of Floridians had concerns over seafood safety, up from 48 percent in January.

Just last month, the state’s Department of Agriculture launched an online training program for Florida restaurant workers to learn to answer common questions about the safety of gulf seafood.

According to a campaign press release:

“Voices from the Womb” marks the beginning of the end for Roe v. Wade as members of Congress will have the chance to clearly see the humanity of the child and work together to end the violence of abortion and establish human rights and justice for all.

After October 13, “Voices from the Womb” will begin a national tour performing live ultrasounds in schools, churches state capitals, legislative hearings and public events.

Members of the anti-abortion campaign invited all “535 members of Congress and the public” to the presentation.

The Federal Food and Drug Administration has warned women against undergoing unnecessary ultrasound procedures. Because the long-term effects of repeated ultrasound exposures on a fetus is not fully known, the FDA has warned that it is best to not have one unless it is medically necessary.

Ultrasounds have become a political tool used by the anti-abortion movement in the past couple of years. Anti-abortion advocates have pushed for states to require women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound procedure, whether it is medically necessary or not, in a effort to dissuade them from having abortions. A law of this kind went into effect in Florida this year.

“Voices from the Womb” is being sponsored by is the Stanton Project, the Christian Defense Coalition and the National Pro-life Center.

The Christian Defense Coalition has held over-the-top anti-abortion demonstrations on Capitol Hill in the past. One of the group’s last events featured a display of “white sheets,” a symbol of the Ku Klux Klan, in front of House Speaker John Boehner’s office in an effort to highlight what they claim is Planned Parenthood racism.

In statement for the Catholic Church’s “Respect Life Month,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo released a statement saying that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is exhibiting antagonism toward religion and has displayed a “distorted view of sexuality.”

DiNardo, who is the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, has taken issue with a decision by Health and Human Services to include birth control in a list of preventive care services.

Even though the department included a religious exemption in the decision, the Bishops’ feel it is “too limited.” The group recently released a 35-page comment claiming that the decision violates the First Amendment’s religion clause, and they requested that the mandate be rescinded “in its entirety.”

In his comment (.pdf) released yesterday, DiNardo criticized Health and Human Services and also went after birth control and contraception:

The same forces, aided by advertising and entertainment media, promote a selfish and demeaning view of human sexuality, by extolling the alleged good of sexual activity without love or commitment. This view of sex as “free” of commitment or consequences has no place for openness to new life. Hence contraceptives are promoted even to young teens as though they were essential to women’s well-being, and abortion defended as the “necessary” back-up plan when contraceptives fail. And fail they do. Studies report that most women seeking abortions were using contraception in the month they became pregnant. Again and again, studies show that increasing access to contraception fails to reduce rates of unplanned pregnancies and abortions.

Both these trends—a distorted view of sexuality and a disdain for the role of religion—are exhibited by the Department of Health and Human Services’ recent decision on the “preventive services” to be mandated in virtually all private health plans under the new health care law. The Department ruled that such mandated services will include surgical sterilization and all FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and devices—including the abortifacient drug “Ella,” a close analogue to the abortion pill RU-486.

The decision is wrong on many levels. Preventive services are aimed at preventing diseases (e.g., by vaccinations) or detecting them early to aid prompt treatment (e.g., screening for diabetes or cancer). But pregnancy is not a disease. It is the normal, healthy state by which each of us came into the world. Far from preventing disease, contraceptives can have serious health consequences of their own, for example, increasing the risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease, such as AIDS, increasing the risk of breast cancer from excess estrogen, and of blood clots that can lead to stroke from synthetic progestin. Mandating such coverage shows neither respect for women’s health or freedom, nor respect for the consciences of those who do not want to take part in such problematic initiatives.

The “religious employer” exemption offered by the Department is so extremely narrow that it protects almost no one. Catholic institutions providing health care and other services to the needy could be forced to fire their non-Catholic employees and cease serving the poor and vulnerable of other faiths—or stop providing health coverage at all. It has been said that Jesus himself, or the Good Samaritan of his famous parable, would not qualify as “religious enough” for the exemption, since they insisted on helping people who did not share their view of God.

The decision to include contraception in a list of preventive care forces insurance companies to cover birth control without requiring co-pays. For many women, steep co-pays have deterred them from purchasing family planning services.

Jon O’Brien, the president of Catholics for Choice, has previously pointed out that the majority of Catholic women have not been convinced by the Church’s hard line on birth control.

“What’s really going on,” O’Brien said, “is that they have failed to convince Catholics in their own churches. So, [the Bishops] have to go through political lobbying to stop Catholics from using contraception.”

Polling found that 66 percent of Americans agree with the federal government’s recent decision to include birth control in its list of preventive services. Furthermore, according to  research conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, about “98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used contraceptive methods banned by the church.”