SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – East Bay Rep. Barbara Lee is urging the Food and Drug Administration to quickly approve an application that would make birth control medication available over the counter.
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The FDA on Monday received an application from HRA Pharma, a Paris-based pharmaceutical company, asking for approval to make the first oral contraceptive available in the U.S. without a prescription.
Lee, a Democrat who represents most of Alameda County, said making contraception universally accessible is a "critical" effort in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last month.
"We have a rogue Supreme Court, and we have a Supreme Court which continues to constantly erode personal freedoms and personal liberties. They are going after women, people of color, LGBTQ people, they're taking away every personal freedom, every personal effort to make decisions about our own body," she told KCBS Radio's Melissa Culross on Thursday. "So we have to do what we can do quickly and we have to fight back."
Many politicians, health care companies, and rights organizations across the country have mobilized in the days since the historic case was struck down, fearing that the end of the constitutional right to an abortion is the the first of many attacks on women's rights.
"Who knows what's next, because will it be birth control?" Lee said. "So we want to make sure that regardless of what they do right bow, that people have access to over the counter birth controls because it’s very clear that people have the right to make their own reproductive health care decisions, which include abortion access, birth control, family planning, whatever relates to reproductive freedoms."
Hormone-based pills are the most common form of birth control in the United States, however they have historically required a prescription so health care providers can screen for conditions that raise the risk for a rare, but dangerous, blood clot.
However, Lee argued that the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which Pharma claimed was unrelated to the timing of their application, has triggered an alarm.
"This is an emergency," she said. "We're urging the FDA to consider applications for over the counter birth control pills because low income people, people of color, rural people, may or may not have access to health care, they may or may not have access to physicians."
"We've got to work out a funding mechanism. There may be a sliding fee scale, who knows. But that's something that we're looking at now.”
HRA executives said they expect a decision by the FDA in the first half of 2023. Their review process is expected to focus on safety considerations and possible side effects.
Lee added that she hopes evaluation will be non-partisan and she and her colleagues will fight to ensure the agency understands "they are responsible for the health and safety of everyone, regardless of their political affiliation."
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