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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Watch part of the interview:

Leading up the interview, In the Arena’s blog posted an excerpt from Paul’s new book Liberty Defined: Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom, in which Paul explains his anti-abortion rights stance from the perspective of an OB/GYN and suggests that America has overstepped ”the bounds of morality by picking and choosing who should live and who should die.”

Addressing abortion as a constitutional right, Paul asserts that the federal government should not have authority to “grant permission to destroy [life]” but writes that states should be able to enact their own laws dealing with abortion. For example, he suggests victims of incest or rape — rather than having abortions to terminate their pregnancies — should take emergency contraception, such as the morning-after pill, to prevent pregnancy.

From Liberty Defined:

On one occasion in the 1960s when abortion was still illegal, I witnessed, while visiting a surgical suite as an OB/GYN resident, the abortion of a fetus that weighed approximately two pounds.

It was placed in a bucket, crying and struggling to breathe, and the medical personnel pretended not to notice.

Soon the crying stopped. This harrowing event forced me to think more seriously about this important issue.

That same day in the OB suite, an early delivery occurred and the infant born was only slightly larger than the one that was just aborted.

But in this room everybody did everything conceivable to save this child’s life. My conclusion that day was that we were overstepping the bounds of morality by picking and choosing who should live and who should die.

These were human lives. There was no consistent moral basis to the value of life under these circumstances.

Some people believe that being pro-choice is being on the side of freedom. I’ve never understood how an act of violence, killing a human being, albeit a small one in a special place, is portrayed as a precious right.

To speak only of the mother’s cost in carrying a baby to term ignores all thought of any legal rights of the unborn. I believe that the moral consequence of cavalierly accepting abortion diminishes the value of all life.

It is now widely accepted that there’s a constitutional right to abort a human fetus. Of course, the Constitution says nothing about abortion, murder, manslaughter, or any other acts of violence.

There are only four crimes listed in the Constitution: counterfeiting, piracy, treason, and slavery. Criminal and civil laws were deliberately left to the states.

It’s a giant leap for the federal courts to declare abortion a constitutional right and overrule all state laws regulating the procedure. If anything, the federal government has a responsibility to protect life—not grant permission to destroy it.

If a state were to legalize infanticide, it could be charged with not maintaining a republican form of government, which is required by the Constitution.

If we, for the sake of discussion, ignore the legal arguments for or against abortion and have no laws prohibiting it, serious social ramifications would remain. There are still profound moral issues, issues of consent, and fundamental questions about the origin of life and the rights of individuals.

There are two arguments that clash. Some argue that any abortion after conception should be illegal. Others argue that the mother has a right to her body and no one should interfere with her decision.

It’s amazing to me that many people I have spoken to in the pro-choice group rarely care about choice in other circumstances. Almost all regulations by the federal government to protect us from ourselves (laws against smoking, bans on narcotics, and mandatory seat belts, for example) are readily supported by the left/liberals who demand “choice.”

Of course, to the pro-choice group, the precious choice we debate is limited to the mother and not to the unborn.

The fact is that the fetus has legal rights—inheritance, a right not to be injured or aborted by unwise medical treatment, violence, or accidents. Ignoring these rights is arbitrary and places relative rights on a small, living human being.

The only issue that should be debated is the moral one: whether or not a fetus has any right to life. Scientifically, there’s no debate over whether the fetus is alive and human—if not killed, it matures into an adult human being.

[...]

So if we are ever to have fewer abortions, society must change again. The law will not accomplish that. However, that does not mean that the states shouldn’t be allowed to write laws dealing with abortion. Very early pregnancies and victims of rape can be treated with the day after pill, which is nothing more than using birth control pills in a special manner. These very early pregnancies could never be policed, regardless. Such circumstances would be dealt with by each individual making his or her own moral choice.

Read the full excerpt here.

Whether or not her attacks on Obama are valid — which they’re not — is one story.

The extent to which her own claims about her “commitment to life” as governor here are accurate proves just as interesting.

There is no doubt she is an outspoken critic of abortion — against it even in incidents of rape and incest.

But Palin may have gone too far in her speech at a rally in Johnstown, Pa., this weekend.

“As governor,” Palin said at the beginning of her speech, “what I’ve been able to do is kind of manifest my commitment to life.”

While Palin ran on a pro-life platform for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, she tapped-danced around abortion when running for governor — generally bringing it up only at supportive venues.

Alaska tends to have a libertarian streak — part of it’s frontier ethos. There is an explicit right to privacy in its constitution. Abortion was legalized in Alaska before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. So abortion as an issue doesn’t galvanize a majority of voters.

That may explain why, as governor, Palin hasn’t worked to diminish access to abortion.

“In the short time that [Palin] has been the governor, she hasn’t taken any action,” Clover Simon, the head of Planned Parenthood Alaska, told me.

Simon noted that two abortion-related bills, one on parental notification and the other on late-term, or so-called “partial-birth,” abortion, failed in the state legislature. Palin did not press for a special session on the bills. Nor, according to Planned Parenthood, did she lobby for the bills’ passage.

The only policy that might be tied to Palin’s abortion views dates to her time as mayor in Wasilla, where the morning-after pill may have been the reason her police department billed rape victims for forensic exams.

News reports show that the state of Alaska stepped in and passed legislation making it illegal to charge a rape victim for evidence collection.

Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat from Anchorage, who no longer serves in the legislature, introduced the bill after the issue came up in a local anti-sexual-assault group’s meetings.

“We kept hearing reports from our in-the-field social workers that clients were getting charged,” Croft said in a recent interview. “We had some talk about — should we get a poster child? Not only is that a shameless use of somebody, it also wasn’t necessary. We decided to just fight on the pure idea of the thing. It became less important why or how much — just shouldn’t.”

Croft noted that Wasilla pushed back throughout the six months it took to get the bill through the legislature. Even after it was signed into law, Wasilla’s police chief cited the cost of the kits as an unreasonable burden on taxpayers.

Estimates at the time were that the kits would cost about $5,000 to $14,000 a year, based on the number of reported sexual assaults in the area. Between 1995 and 2000, the Wasilla Police Dept. says that between five and 18 sexual assaults were reported each year.

“It never made sense to me that it was something worth the fight,” Croft said, “unless it was more about the fact that at the very end of the rape-kit procedure, [the victim is offered] a morning-after pill. If you really believe the hardcore pro-life position…it’s a government-funded abortion.”

Croft added, “I don’t know if for sure that that was the case.”

Palin’s campaign sent an email recently to her local paper responding to questions about her stand on requiring rape victims to pay for their kits.

“The entire notion of making a victim of a crime pay for anything is crazy,” Palin wrote. ” I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test.”

Palin may claim she didn’t know about the controversy — but she appointed the police chief, Charlie Fannon, who was quoted as saying that Wasilla rape victims are routinely charged for exams.

“I just don’t want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer,” Fannon told the Frontiersman in 2000.