Update- (Washington, D.C.) The Justice Department is appealling a judge’s order removing age limits to purchase the Plan-B pill.
Previoudly,the pill could only be sold to those 17 or older.
Tuesday, the FDA lowered the age to 15.
The pill can sometimes stop fertilization from tsking place.
Plan-B is different from RU-486, also known as ‘the abortion pill,’ which can cause an abortion early in a pregnancy.
The Justice Department claims the judge exceeded his authority and his decision should be suspeneded while the appeal is underway.
(Memphis) With a high teen pregnancy rate in the city of Memphis, the discussion on how new rules allowing access to emergency contraceptive to those 15 and older will have an impact on pregnancy rates.
“Planned Parenthood believes that removing barriers to access to Plan B for younger women is a great idea and we do think it will reduce rates of unintended pregnancy,” said Ashley Coffield, President of Planned Parenthood of Memphis.
“It’s an additional hurdle we believe to using emergency to require valid id to show proof of age. That’s a barrier for women of all ages because many women don‘t have a valid identification,” said Coffield.
However, Jeremy Sanders with Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital Teen Pregnancy Prevention said the relaxed rules is concerning, “It makes it extremely difficult because now you’ve given them ammunition to say I will just take this and everything will be fine or go away and it’s not that simple.”
Sanders spends his day in Memphis City Schools educating students about pregnancy prevention and sexually transmitted disease prevention through the “Be Proud! Be Responsible!” program.
Sanders is concerned that teens will use Plan B as their primary source of protection, “You’re looking at about 1200 between the ages of 13-18 that contracted an STI. That’s an alarming number,” said Sanders about teens in Memphis.”
Both Planned Parenthood and Sanders said if you need Plan B you also need to be tested for STIs.
