Flash Mob Stages Protest For Access to Morning-After Pill

Impact

Demonstrators staged a flash mob in New York City on Tuesday to creatively protest the lack of access to emergency contraception.

In 2011, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the FDA's recommendation that emergency contraception be sold without a prescription for women ages 16 and younger. The controversial decision has been protested ever since. Democracy Now reports that the flash mobbers are demanding that the morning-after pill become available to all women over the counter:

"The group National Women’s Liberation has been fighting for universal access to the morning-after pill through a federal lawsuit with a decision expected in the next week. At Tuesday’s action, dozens of people stocked boxes of Plan B on the shelves and called for it to be in front of the counter — not behind it."

Brooke Eliazar-Macke, one of the plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit, told Democracy Now that access to emergency contraception is a pressing health issue for women:

"As a teenager, I needed the morning-after pill, and I couldn't get it. Because of the age requirement, I couldn't buy it on my own. And so I risked pregnancy rather than being able to buy a safe and effective form of birth control. And no girl or woman should have to do that."

Activists highlighted that the morning-after pill is available without a prescription in 63 countries, and demand that the same access be given to women in the United States.  

 

Tuesday's flash-mob definitely got people talking. Now let's just hope policy-makers listen.