 |
(This is what a slut looks like, apparently./Jonathan H. Adler / Volokh) Virginia Postrel suggests an easy way to expand access to contraception without risking any imposition on religious institutions: Make oral contraceptives available without a prescription.
True, making the pill available over the counter could reduce the amount of outrage and invective available for entertaining radio audiences, spurring political fundraising and otherwise amusing the American public. But the medical risks are quite low.
Partly because birth-control pills are available only by prescription, people tend to think they’re more dangerous and less well understood than they actually are. In fact, “more is known about the safety of oral contraceptives than has been known about any other drug in the history of medicine,” declared an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health back in 1993. That editorial accompanied an article arguing for over-the-counter sales.
Unlike most medications, the article noted, birth-control pills require no medical diagnosis: “A woman herself determines her need for oral contraception; she assesses her own risk of pregnancy … and the costs and benefits of both pregnancy and alternative contraceptions.” Nearly two decades later, birth- control pills look even safer than they did then, and recent research indicates that women are both able and eager to manage their own purchase decisions.
How does this solution stand up to medical marijuana then? why would you need a prescription for this? Obviously plenty is known about Marijuana and it's positive uses. This thinking would essentially give people the power to decide their own consumption of chemicals.
