Women will now be able to purchase over-the-counter hormonal birth control. The Food and Drug Administration approved Opill today, a move whose benefits the FDA says far outweigh the risks of keeping pills prescription-only. Activists say the option will help women who have difficulty getting a doctor’s appointment or prescription. But almost every young female I know has been prescribed birth control pills as early as age twelve for acne, heavy periods, or menstrual cramps.
Although the Wall Street Journal reported that one-third of hormonal-birth-control users have missed a pill because they couldn’t get their next supply on time, the same study found that for reasons why women don’t use birth control, “couldn’t get an appointment” wasn’t a statistically relevant data point.
The National Catholic Bioethics Center wrote a letter opposing the non-prescription drug, adding that Opill’s failure rate is higher than other hormonal contraceptive methods and could result in increased unintended pregnancies and abortions, and that physician care is still necessary to monitor sexually transmitted infections.
Now that some hormonal-birth-control drugs have been classified as cancer-causing, class-1 carcinogens, right up there with tobacco smoke and formaldehyde, the last thing doctors should support is an over-the-counter option that will leave women more uninformed about what’s going in their bodies. At least women have the chance with prescription birth control to consult doctors about side effects, even if it’s not information health-care professionals always divulge honestly.
Doctors barely warn women about the pill’s side effects (even progestin-only birth control, such as Opill), which include breast cancer, infertility, blood clots, vaginal bleeding, ovarian cysts, menstrual irregularity, depression, and more. Opill executives said they made sure the drug label was specific in instructing women on how to use the pill, but that undercuts the severity of taking birth control; many women go through multiple options before settling on a pill that doesn’t cause side effects, and many more wish they had been better informed about long-term hormone usage.