Proposed Law Assumes Women Can’t Be Trusted to Take the Morning After Pill Without Supervision
Yesterday, an Alabama Senate panel approved a measure that will require women who take the morning after pill to do so in the presence of a physician. The pill’s available over the counter to women 17 and over and it could not be simpler to take unless you absorbed it by thinking spermy thoughts, so either Alabama state Senators think that women are so stupid that they can’t be trusted to swallow a single pill without accidentally putting it in their eyes or butts, or they’re enacting yet more laws to interfere with a sexually active woman’s right to not be pregnant. I’m not into gambling, but if I was, $10 says it’s the latter.
The measure will now proceed to the full Senate for a vote, and if recent behavior of the Alabama legislature is any indicator of how they’ll handle this, it’ll probably die, but only after they embarrass themselves debating it for awhile. This isn’t even the worst iteration of the Women Can’t Take Their Own Damn Pills bill; an earlier version would have required ladies to undergo a completely unnecessary medical exam before taking the pill.
It’s not rocket science to understand that this measure isn’t designed to promote anyone’s health; it’s just designed to inconvenience women who are already in a stressful Morning After Pill situation and waste precious time, which is of the essence after the condom breaks. Forcing women to make an appointment with a doctor and then wait and then take the pill in front of the doctor isn’t “protecting life,” it’s just “promoting unwanted pregnancy” and “making getting emergency contraception a huge pain in the ass.” And I’m sure doctors don’t appreciate being told what to do by moralizing, votemongering legislators, either.
