New York Federal Judge Edward Korman "wisely ordered" FDA to make the morning-after pill Plan B "available without prescription to women as young as 17 and to consider approving it for girls of any age, as major medical groups have long advocated," a New York Times editorial states, adding that the "Bush administration delayed easy, nonprescription access" to Plan B for "political and ideological reasons, not from a desire to protect the public's health."

According to the editorial, the World Health Organization and a "slew of American health groups had urged that the pill be made available without prescription and without age restrictions, and virtually all major industrialized nations did so years ago." However, the Bush administration, through FDA, "found excuse after excuse for delaying a decision and narrowing its ultimate scope, presumably to placate Mr. Bush's base of social and religious conservatives."

The editorial adds that the "harder question is whether to remove all age and other restrictions," concluding that the "judge sensibly left that issue to the FDA, which can presumably be trusted to make a fair assessment now that it will be under new leadership" (New York Times, 3/25).

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