The Morning-After Pill: A Case Study

Decision making is a process that involves evaluating pros and cons, considering benefits and drawbacks, and taking into account varying scenarios. On the government scale, reaching conclusions comes with much more complexity as varying politics, ethics, perspectives, arguments, social beliefs, laws, rights, and people of all different backgrounds are thrown into the mix. Controversy is common as a result of all of the different angles to be considered. One controversy in particular that has received much attention is on the issue of emergency contraceptives, or the morning-after pill. In 2013, the FDA approved the Plan B One-Step pill to be available to women ages 15 and older without a prescription. What factors went into making this decision, …show more content…
The same applies to the 2013 decision of the FDA to make the morning-after pill available to women 15 and older. The role of the FDA is to protect public health by “assuring the safety, effectiveness, quality, and security” of medications, biological products, vaccines, and other medical devices (FDA, 2015). Although this is the explicitly stated job of the FDA, it also plays a very political role as the department must also take into consideration certain rights and ethics of the age in order to please the public. In the case of emergency contraception, reproductive and womens’ rights, appropriate roles and responsibilities of the government, and morals all had to be discussed and evaluated. As it may seem, this is a very complicated process and the FDA had to consider not only the safety of the Plan B pill, but who would and would not support the decision on the political front. It is naïve to assume that the FDA is not influenced by politics, as it is a direct department of the government and ultimately under the power of the