Plan B has been approved for prescription use since 1999, but delays in over-the-counter approval and age restrictions left the emergency contraception in a gray limbo of regulation. One FDA official, Dr. Susan Wood, resigned after the FDA announced in 2005 that it would delay over-the-counter sales of the drug indefinitely. She called the motivation to stall the drug's over-the-counter sale "political."

Once the drug was finally approved, it could only be sold to women 18 and older. As a Newsweek article explains:

This put the drug into a very small category of medications with a two-tiered, age-based system. Others include Sudafed, which can be made into methamphetamine, and aids to quit smoking, like Nicorette, since it's illegal for those under 18 to buy nicotine products.

Because the drug was approved for OTC access in 2006, it "reset the clock" for Barr Laboratories' 3-year exclusive sale of the drug. Now, that exclusivity has expired. Still, the generic version, Watson Pharmaceuticals' Next Choice is usually only 10 percent cheaper. In the Newsweek article, they pointed out that a pharmacy might sell Plan B for $45 and Next Choice for $41. Barr Laboratories is also developing a version of Plan B that can be administered in one dose, unlike the current version, which requires users to take two pills.

With a combination of bureaucratic roadblocks and FDA regulators playing politics with access to reproductive choice, women are left with confusing and inconsistent access to emergency contraception. Not to mention that pro-choice advocates spend a lot of time debunking the myth that emergency contraception is the same as abortion. While the FDA and anti-choice groups argue about the way emergency contraception is dispensed, women may miss their opportunity to use it and end up facing a much bigger decision.

Plan B's Complicated History [Newsweek]
FDA Official Quits Over Delay On Plan B [Washington Post]
How Emergency Contraception Works [Not 2 Late]

Ron James is a social worker at a retirement home (caring profession!) who, when his 13-year-marriage ended, joined JDate the same month (really?). He says he wanted to "get back on the horse" (fair enough) and so he "signed up to meet all women ages 30 to 50 who lived within 50 miles of his Westchester apartment, including Manhattan." (Hmm.) "In 18 months, he e-mailed 500 to 600 women and dated 40 to 50. On a social worker's salary, it became expensive: the train to Grand Central Terminal, the dates, a $39.99 monthly JDate fee." So he'd stack his dates, arranging one on top of another at a centrally-located Starbucks, eating between dates to save money and avoid the women seeing one another and being hurt. (What the baristas thought is an open question.)

While online dating has long since lost its sad-sack stigma, and JDate is a popular choice, as the article mentions, amongst the Boomer set, James' aggressive approach was still unusually thorough. Indeed, a non-psychiatrist might regard it as a coping mechanism, or a means from distracting from the pain of a divorce. And yet, to hear James tell it, it was all worth it. A year and a half into his full-time dating, he met Cheryl Daija, who, while she'd only been on three JDates, shared other interests of his: community activism, music, an "old bohemian" ethos. She was his second date of the day - he'd been taken in, the first time, by a woman who wore sunglasses in her photo - and he liked her ripped jeans. They fell in love and, when they realized both their first marriages had had the same anniversary, they decided to marry each other on the same date - which, if nothing else, would seem to make the math very easy.

At the end of the day, it's a happy ending, and who doesn't love that? The couple is in love, has made a life together, show once again that, despite the impersonal morass that is the internet, human connection can happen. And yet, I couldn't help but wonder (and what a passive-aggressive written tic that is, by the way; the disingenuous abdication of the perennial girl-woman): why share this? Why make the sausage in quite such a public forum, to add an even uglier image? Why the hundreds of dates, unsatisfactory, "dishonest" woman before he finds his bohemian princess? What of those hags hiding behind their sunglasses, failing to meet his so-high standards, who will read this and recognize themselves as one of the hundreds he saw in a day? The ends, James would have us know, justify the means: he's found love - everything that came before was, like so much on the internet, impermanent, ephemeral, somehow not real. Is this a happy ending modern love story? Sure. But nothing nowadays is really that simple.

His 50 First Dates (or in Her Case, 3) [NY Times]

The generic, made by Watson Pharmaceuticals and called Next Choice, will be prescription only and aimed at women 17 and younger until August 24, when Duramed Pharmaceuticals's exclusive contract to market over-the-counter plan Plan B. At that time, the generic will be available over-the-counter, a fact that will most likely be a boon to women who find the cost of brand-name Plan B prohibitive.

While the FDA's decision to allow the over-the-counter sale of Plan B to girls 17 and younger has improved access, not everyone can buy the drug. A Missouri law, for instance, allows pharmacies to refuse to sell Plan B. Similar laws exist in Idaho, Illinois, and Washington. Military women, too, have difficulty accessing the drug, as it is not on the list of medications that must be stocked at military pharmacies. As Nancy Northup of RHRealityCheck points out, this means that women who are assaulted during their military service (there were 2,668 assaults reported in 2007) may have no way of getting emergency contraception, especially if they are stationed at a base overseas.

In a moving editorial after over-the-counter sales were extended to girls under 17, Elizabeth Garber-Paul wrote,

My first trip for a Plan B pill was a cold, dreary bus ride up Lake Shore Drive to the Planned Parenthood in downtown Chicago. I remember looking out over the frozen lake, wondering what would happen if I couldn't get the pill that afternoon. I was 15, and not ready to deal with making the decision between pregnancy and abortion. (At 22, I can confidently say that I'm still not.)

Luckily, as a teen I was informed enough to know what to do. It took me two attempts to make it to the center when it was open-closed every other Sunday-and the longer I waited, the less effective I knew the pills would be. I can't imagine how much terror would have been avoided had I been able to stop into the 24 hour Walgreens with my boyfriend immediately after the condom broke.

The availability of a generic option, when it becomes over the counter, should make emergency contraception easier. However, it's still not available to everyone. Garber-Paul writes, "a lonely bus is no place for a scared girl." Nor is a pharmacy a place for ideology.

FDA Approves Generic Version Of Plan B [Wall Street Journal]
EC Still Inaccessible For Military Women [RHRealityCheck]
Watson Gets FDA Approval For Generic Plan B [AP]
Missouri House OKs Amendment To Let Pharmacies Refuse Contraception Pills [Missourian]
Planned Parenthood Applauds FDA On Plan B [Planned Parenthood]
Washington Pharmacists Can Refuse To Dispense Plan B Contraception [Wall Street Journal]
Plan B: Trouble In Illinois [Broadsheet]

It seems no matter how you advertise the morning after pill (or how many times it's explained that it's not the abortion pill) conservative groups are going to freak out, at least as evidenced by this Plan B commercial.

The reasons we like the commercial, which AdRants spotted, are probably the same reasons that parents were disturbed. The animated ad shows a woman waking up with a loser musician boy and the words, "the 'condom split' one" flash on the screen. While riding the bus with a screaming baby, the woman thinks, "the 'I'm not ready for that' one." Upon arriving at the pharmacy, the woman is greeted by a sassy bespecled woman who gladly sells her, "the 'only over the counter' one," Levonelle One Step.

Brand Republic reports that one mom complained, "This trivialises a very important issue. Something as important as pregnancy should not be devalued for profit." It's true that the pink-toned animation makes the situation less horrifying than in some other unplanned-pregnancy related ads, and we're not sure what's up with the chirpy song with the lyrics, "no way to explain it, nothing I could say." But, for a 30 second commercial, the fact that the woman is troubled by the possibility that she's pregnant and her reasons for not wanting a child are pretty clear: the condom broke, her partner is flakey, and she knows she's not capable of caring for a fussy baby.

One father said, "Even though it was shown after 9pm my teenage daughters were watching. The worst thing is it makes it seem normal to go and get this pill. We've crossed a moral line with this." Apparently knowing about the existence of this legal form of contraception, and that a pharmacist should sell it to you over the counter with no judgment, is encouraging Britain's teen girls to have wanton protected sex with grody rockers. If the dad is really that concerned, he could always talk to his girls about his feelings on safe sex and abstinence. But, it's probably better that they don't have that talk, thus increasing the chances that his daughter will bring home that sketchy dude and tell dad he's "the one."

It's Not Prince Charming You Need; It's A Really Good Plan B. [AdRants]
'Moral Line Crossed' As Parents Jam Phones With Morning-After Pill Complaints [Brand Republic]

Earlier: Plan B's Advertising Pleases Us, Pisses Off Conservatives

Galanos argues that distributing Plan B to teenage girls will, naturally, increase their slut levels from 0-100, as everyone knows that high school girls are just looking for a shot to accidentally get pregnant. "We are making it available to high school girls," Galanos argues, "We're enabling teenagers to act carelessly with an easy way out. Don't tell me high school dynamics won't play in here. The boyfriend will talk his girlfriend into unprotected sex with the promise of buying the 'morning after pill' the next day. Any 17-year-old boy will be able to buy this drug, just as any 17-year-old girl will. Yes, this could encourage unprotected sex and that means a greater risk for sexually transmitted diseases." I wonder if Galanos has the same issues with 17-year-olds buying condoms?

Galanos bases his entire argument on the notion that Plan B is some kind of gateway drug that will allow teenage girls to slut it up without consequences. He says nothing about proper sexual education, nothing about teaching kids to use protection and have safe sex so as not to find one's self in a Plan B situation, and says nothing about how even the most responsible sexually active teenagers might have an accident that requires the medicine.

In his view, 17-year-olds are all idiotic skanks who don't know the first thing about safe sex and responsibility. As Vanessa at Feministing points out: "Ah yes, now we see what Galanos is really getting at: 17-year old women are not only not responsible enough to make decisions about their bodies, but will use EC as a means to have all The Sex they want and get away with it!"

"Do we really want our daughters putting something like this in their bodies without a doctor? I still want Mom and Dad in on this," Galanos argues, "Some argue that a girl can get an abortion without parental notification in some states, so why not Plan B? But just because those states got it wrong by leaving parents out of the loop doesn't mean others should follow suit. And the larger point is, society must help parents, not undermine their rights by keeping them in the dark on their child's life-changing decision."

But Galanos also fails to mention that parental consent laws have led, in several cases, to life-ending decisions, as young women who could not access "morning after pills" or abortion clinics turned to illegal methods of terminating a pregnancy, as was the case for 17-year-old Becky Bell, who died after a botched back-alley abortion that she sought out because she was too afraid to ask her parents for permission.

As someone who actually was a 17-year-old girl at one point, unlike Galanos, the idea of supplying minors with Plan B, should they need it, is a tremendous step forward, in that it allows young women to make responsible choices regarding their sexual behavior. Perhaps we should concentrate more on education, awareness, and support for teenagers, especially those on the brink of adulthood, instead of constantly attempting to push them back into a state of adolescence, where their parents make every choice for them. Galanos bases his argument on not being able to trust teenagers, which is why his argument fails. Maybe if we stop trying to shame them, and start trying to guide them to a responsible view on sex and its consequences, we'd be much better off.

That's Why They Call It Plan B, Asshole [Feministing]
Plan B Risky For 17 Year Old Girls [CNN]
In Remembrance: Women Who Died From Illegal And Unsafe Abortions [NOW]

The gist of the commercial is that all women have to deal with this alone, so actually, in a way, we're all in it together. We also like that, unlike most birth control pill commercials, many of the women in this commercial are single.

We caught this when it aired during Bad Girls Club on Oxygen, but, according to a piece in today's AdAge, conservative groups like Concerned Women for America are making a stink over the fact that a web banner ad for Plan B is running on MTV.com, with one "Concerned" woman saying, "Plan B makes it sound like you can make a mistake and have a do-over, it's irresponsible." (The ad isn't explicit, and merely directs people to the Plan B website with the tagline "Because the unexpected happens.")

'Morning-After Pill' Catches Flak For MTV.com Ad [Ad Age]

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Plan B "centers on a single woman who conceives twins through artificial insemination (her Plan B) only to meet the man of her dreams (her Plan A) on the very same day." Is the writer of this dreck not aware that colloquially "Plan B" means something almost diametrically opposed to the plot of her movie? Does she know and not care? Is it supposed to be ironic? Will it be an abortion of good taste? So many questions! But also intriguing is the fact that she's not the only one to use the name "Plan B" for something non-hormonal pill related. Behold!


Plan B Entertainment: The production company co-founded by Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey. Maybe an appropriate name because the partnership was "aborted" after Brad and Jen split — Brad stuck with plan B, and Jennifer has moved on to form her own company called Echo Films.


Plan B —The Album: By Huey Lewis and the News, circa 2001. Includes such classic tracks as "The Rhythm Ranch." However, in musicland there is also a Dexy's Midnight Runners song called "Plan B" and a British rapper called Plan B, whose first single was called "Mama (Loves A Crackhead)." How heartwarming!


Plan B — The Magazine: A London-based Indie music and culture magazine. The editor-in-chief is music journalist Everett True, who (at least according to Wikipedia), "Thackray is also renowned for being a champion of equality within music, whether sexual, gender-based or racial. Indeed, detractors have in the past labelled his supposed bias towards female-helmed bands to be over-zealous." This sounds like a Plan B we can get behind!


Plan B — The Original: the morning after pill that keeps those pesky possibly-fertilized eggs from implanting. We are grateful for its continued legality in the United States!








Jennifer Lopez Pencils In 'Plan B [Hollywood Reporter]

Why hello there, dear. The words that come to mind immediately are "exquisite corpse." Yeah, it means something else, but damn. She is dead in the eyes. The lip gloss is purty, though! And positioning her mouth thusly doesn't make me think of swollen labia, no, not at all!!

Okay, so the copy claims that this product is "the end of overprocessed blonde," but over there on the right, Ms. Johansson's hair looks sorta overprocessed. To me. I know it's in the light, but is it supposed to look like cotton candy? Or is she imagining better tresses, hence the title "Dream Blonde"? Also, L'Oreal, You Have Taken The Title Case Thing Too Far, Methinks.

Look, I have no idea what the hell goes on under the hood of a car, but I do know that you don't need sunglasses to check out an engine. It's like they're trying to be pro-woman with a bad-ass chick mechanic, but from the way she's holding that wrench to the faux grease on her arms, it's clear she doesn't know what the fuck she's doing. "Genuine since 1937." Really? Also, this whole image is very Herb Ritts circa 1990, when Carre Otis was hot. Show me something new.

Guess what? If my birth control method fails I am not going to "Be Calm." I am going to freak the fuck out. Then I'm gonna read that thing Moe wrote about Plan B and throw up.

You know what else makes me freak out? When someone suggests that "we girls" should freak out less. We make less money than men, are expected to be thin and hairless and we have the crampy bleeds every 26 days. A body wash solves nothing. Fuck off.

Correct me if I am wrong, but waxing is not an orgasmic, kick up your heels, throw-your-head-back-in-ecstasy experience as illustrated here, is it?

The copy reads, "Unleash the enchantment of Brazil," and there's some sort of kudzu emerging from her crotch.

As a rule, if you have to put the word "SEXY" in electric lights behind you, then you are not sexy. And this is no exception. These ladies, none of whom are wearing pants, want me to believe that "big hair is sexy," and they appear to be in possession of yards and yards of extensions. And the bedraggled, voluminous crazytown hair, frankly, looks like crap. Try to count the number of times the word "sexy" appears, then ask yourself: Why is there so much going on in an ad for hairspray?

Pinocchio's sister dreams that someday, Diet Coke will turn her into a real girl. And cure migraines.

Haha, wow, OMG you guys, not having cellulite looks like SO MUCH FUN!

Aww, nostalgia! These happy white people have been in this same Newport ad since I was a kid. There's another one with happy black people. The greatest thing about Newport ads is how white everyone's teeth are. Smoking other cigarettes may discolor and rot your gums and give you oral cancer, but Newports are basically Crest White Strips!

I didn't actually remember that, but I had a friend who grew up in Oklahoma and he told me about it. Anyway, the point is that I told you that I was going to say something nice about this country I am staying in, and fuck if I wouldn't trade the inability to buy tampons at certain times of the day (and maybe even liberal access to Adderall) for a national health system run by sane people who for whatever reason aren't constantly asserting their right to a conscience. (Who wired these people's consciences, anyway?) (And how much do you want to bet these guys all turn out to be key hubs in a massive meth supply chain a few years down the road?) (Okay, yes I miss America again.)

"Pro-Life" Drugstores Market Beliefs [Washington Post]

Okay, so this is the graphic that I wanted to use instead of the Lucy one, as the still for the video, but Anna liked Lucy better. What do you think of it?

Every now and then, though, Aubert wonders: What if his first girlfriend had not aborted? How would his life look different? He might have endured a loveless marriage and, perhaps, a sad divorce. He might have been saddled with child support as he tried to build his legal practice. He might never have met his wife. Their children — Christine, Kyle, Roch, Paul, Vance — might not exist."I wouldn't have the blessings I have now," Aubert said. So in a way, he said, the two abortions may have cleared his path to future happiness.

"That's an intellectual debate I have with myself," he said. "I struggle with it."

In the end, Aubert says his moral objection to abortion always wins. If he could go back in time, he would try to save the babies.

But would his long-ago girlfriends agree? Or might they also consider the abortions a choice that set them on a better path?

Aubert looks startled. "I never really thought about it for the woman," he says slowly.

Changing Abortion's Pronoun [LA Times]

From YTTRI
The "I should have stuck to women" pill

From DRGIRLFRIEND
The "I Thought Granny Panties Would be Deterrent Enough" pill

From MAGGLES
The "He Said He'd Just Put The Tip In, Just To See How It Felt" pill

From WRING
The "He Said Douching Will Help" pill

From MELINDERR
The "That Last Whiskey and Soda Wasn't a Good Idea" pill

From LESBIANSAYSWHAT
The "Lesbians Don't Have To Worry About This So You Should Switch Teams" pill

From ONEMARTINIAWAY
The "You Missed My Mouth By One Hole" pill

From JAYNE
The "I am allergic to latex and polyurethane condoms are kinda fucking unreliable" pill

From BURGUNDYYEARS
The "At least HPV isn't a mouth to feed" pill

And our personal fave:
From THEGREATLADIES
The "What was plan A again?" pill

Earlier: Plan B: The "I Just Should've Swallowed" Pill

• The I Should've Just Swallowed Pill
  
• The What Was I Thinking Pill
  
• The You'd Think A Musician Would Be Better At The Rhythm Method Pill
  
• The I Gotta Stop Shaving My Legs As I Have No Self Control Pill
  
• The I Though If I Was On Top Gravity Would Take Over Pill

The I Should've Stuck With My Vibrator Pill

• Is smoking weed a guy thing? Charlize Theron and her homemade apple bong beg to differ! While we can think of plenty of female stoners we know personally, we're not too big on the ganj ourselves. The munchies are a brutal affront to bikini season. [The Stranger]
  
• Breast density and high levels of circulating sex hormones have largely gone hand in hand as risk factors for breast cancer, however a new study shows that they are independent risk factors as well. Of course they are. God forbid we actually get some good news about our tits. [NY Times]
  
• Seriously, can we please shut the fuck up about all this girls love the color pink nonsense and spend our super experimentation funds on something useful, like finding out why men like to leave nasty wet towels on the bed? Thanks. Also, we like orange. [Guardian]
  
• The UN has released an extremely disturbing report about sexual crimes against women in Darfur, mostly committed by soldiers and government militia. Everyone should read it. Yes, that means you. [NEWS.com.au]

• Kids with incarcerated moms can go to summer camp at the clink so that mom can prove she's still is a good role model, even after busting a cap in someone's ass. Great news for Foxy Brown! [NY Times]
• Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari was finally released from an Iranian jail yesterday, but has not been given permission to leave the country. What's kind of odd is that Ms. Edfandiari's elderly mother, who lives off her dead husband's pension, put up the $300,000+ bail money, rather than Edfandiari's own husband. WTF? [NY Times]
• A woman in Russia, who was cohabitating with her ex-husband — a common practice in the country because of insane housing prices — set fire to his penis as he sat naked on the couch watching TV and drinking vodka. OMG, is it bad that we kind of sort of giggled? [Reuters]
• Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein sums up Hillary Clinton's political life over the last 40 years — biggest (not-so-much-a) shocker? Bill's been foolin' around on her since before they were married. [AlterNet]
• Republican Mitt Romney has been spewing some rather covert anti-birth control rhetoric to his most right wing supporters. Okay, so if birth control is bad because it stops the egg and the sperm from meeting, isn't jerking off in the shower every morning a bunch of little abortions, you stupid prick? [Baltimore Sun]
• Congratulations, Plan B, on Your First Anniversary! Sure wish we could have met that one day last summer, when we forgot our ID at home and the pharmacist told us you weren't available unless we could prove that our old face was indeed over 18. [Salon]
• This is cool: the newly formed Afghan Midwives Association recruits and trains midwives to help combat the country's high maternal mortality rate. Poor women caring for other poor women, now that's feminism. [Our Bodies Our Blog]

• Oprah's golden retriever Gracie died in May after an unfortunate choking incident and still Oprah is talking about it, only now she's putting that Oprah-branded spin on it saying that Gracie's death was really a hidden message that she needed to slow down and take more time to appreciate her own life. Seriously, we don't even have a response to this. [USA Today]
  
• Oh yes: That's what's missing in the EU — machismo! [BBC]
  
• Memo to People magazine: Please do not ever ever put that Jenny McCarthy eats nachos as an item under the tag "breaking news". Ever. [People.com]
  
• Not shocking: Republicans don't want to pull out (from Iraq). But they don't want to give a Plan B either. Draw your own conclusions from this heavy-handed metaphor. [CNN]

• The Island of Britain, scientists have discovered, was created over 200,000 years ago by massive flooding. We think that's just past the timeline for which Al Gore can drop one of his global warming "I told you so!'s." [BBC]
• President Bush has called for the establishment of a new panel to review new safety precautions for imported foods. He says this is totally not all about China. Even a novice in Bush-speak knows that "no" always means "yes," so sorry, China, Bushie has it in for you! [CNN]
• Anyone else skeptical that North Korea seems to be volunteering for nuclear disarmament a little too easily? [NYT]
• Breaking news! Hootie and the Blowfish have delayed the start of their summer tour! Wait a second — Hootie and the Blowfish are still around? How the fuck is that possible? [USA Today]
• 1 U.S. casualty identified. [DoD]