The following is from an editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times:
The Obama administration overstepped its legal authority — and injected politics into what should have been a scientific decision — when it ordered the FDA to limit the availability of a common morning-after contraceptive without prescription to girls and women 17 and older.
The FDA had already evaluated the drug and determined that it was safe for females of all ages.
That's why U.S. District Court Judge Edward Korman last month overruled the administration's decision and ordered that the drug be made available without prescription to females regardless of age.
The judge was absolutely right. And the Justice Department's decision to appeal that ruling is a mistake.
As the judge noted, scientists had found the drug — Plan B One-Step — safe and effective for adolescent females. He found that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius had overruled the FDA in an area Congress has specifically entrusted to the FDA. He bluntly scoffed at the secretary's reasoning: "This case is not about the potential misuse of Plan B by 11-year-olds. These emergency contraceptives would be among the safest drugs sold over-the-counter," he wrote.
The real issue underlying what should be a simple case about whether this drug is safe (and who should decide whether it is) is a more complicated and emotional one that has to do with parents and children and when young people should or shouldn't begin having sex. But no matter where you come out on that question, the reality is that banning the morning-after pill will not deter girls from having sex.
All it will do is force some of them into unwanted pregnancies.