According to a new study just released by the American Medical Association, Plan B --a form of emergency contraception -- does not lead to an increase in pregnancy rates, an increase in unprotected sex or cause women to give up their regular birth control, reports Women’s eNews yesterday.

The study released by the American Medical Association showed that women with the most access to EC were more likely to use it, but that didn’t lead changes in their sexual behavior compared to subjects whose access was more restricted. These findings are strong evidence against anti-EC policymakers who claim that making it that accessible will lead to misuse of the medication.

This information was released just two weeks before the Food and Drug Administration is due to (finally) make a decision on whether Plan B should be sold over-the-counter -- but only for women 16 and older. Should we be surprised? Actually, yes. As Jessica said in a past post on Plan B-- if you want to prevent teen pregnancy, shouldn’t you want young teenagers to have access to this pill? Just another contradiction in the world o’ conserves.

As of now, Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, New Mexico and Washington are the only 6 states in the country that allow over-the-counter sales of EC. The FDA has actually been approached with this proposal before. In fact, emergency contraception was deemed safe for over-the-counter status by their expert advisory panels with a vote of 23-4 in December 2003. Yet the ruling of early May last year showed their expert opinion apparently wasn’t good enough, and the proposal was denied.

Dr. Tina Raine, the lead researcher of the study and assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California at San Francisco, says that the study clearly shows that "giving increased access is not affecting behavior...I think the FDA’s decision not to make emergency contraception an over-the-counter medication wasn’t driven by available data. There is definitely a conservative ideology that education will promote sexual activity."

Uh, yeah! Well, I guess we’ll see what pans out for the coming decision. Yet even if a decision is made in our favor, we’ll still have to fight for our younger ladies who won’t have that right. Will the obstacles ever cease?