Washington: Reversing a politically
sensitive policy of the previous Bush administration involving
women`s health, the Pentagon will make available the morning-
after pill at all American military hospitals and clinics
around the world.
The Department of Defence will begin making the morning
-after pill Plan B available at all of its hospitals and
health clinics around the world, officials said.
The decision came after a recommendation by the
Pentagon`s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, an advisory
panel that voted in November to include Plan B and the generic
Next Choice on the list of drugs all military facilities
should stock. The Pentagon accepted the recommendation Feb. 3,
Washington Post quoted a Pentagon spokeswoman as saying.
The decision is the latest the Obama administration has
made reversing politically sensitive policies involving
women`s health that were implemented during President George
W. Bush`s administration.
Previously, the Obama administration has lifted federal
restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research and has
restored funding to international family-planning groups.
Women`s health advocates had long been pushing the Obama
administration to allow the sale of the morning-after pill at
military facilities. The same panel made a similar
recommendation in 2002, but the policy was never implemented.
The morning-after pills consist of higher doses of a
hormone found in many standard birth-control pills. Taken
within 72 hours of unprotected sex, it has been shown to be
highly effective at preventing pregnancy.
While most medical experts consider the drug to be a form
of emergency contraception, some abortion opponents consider
it equivalent to a surgical abortion.
"It`s a tragedy that women in uniform have been denied
such basic health care," said Nancy Keenan of NARAL Pro-Choice
America, which estimated that the decision would affect more
than 350,000 women in the military.
"We applaud the medical experts for standing up for
military women," she said.
PTI