Washington, February 06: 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.
—-PTI