This is big news, from the New York Times:
The Obama administration has decided to stop trying to block over-the-counter availability of the most popular morning-after contraceptive pill for all women and girls, a move fraught with political repercussions for President Obama.
The reversal by the government means that anyone, no matter how young, will soon be able to walk into a drugstore and buy the pill, Plan B One-Step, without a prescription.
The Justice Department had been fighting to prevent that outcome, but said late Monday afternoon that it would drop its appeal of a judge’s order to make the drug more widely available.
For fuck's sake, THANK YOU. Apparently Obama gave up the fight because "the Justice Department appears to have concluded that it might lose its case with the appeals court," the article says.
Maybe Obama was just calculating his chances—but whatever the bullshit politics coming from the right, he knows that over-the-counter access to Plan B is not about high-fiving sluts, kissing Jesus good-bye, and opening a new era of free love. It's about offering women and girls a little more control over their biology, which can seem like it's lying in wait to destroy your health/career/savings account/life goals.
This decision is one more step toward a world where your womb isn't such a liability—financially, emotionally, physically—that can alter the course of your life at any moment. It offers rape victims more security that they won't have to carry their rapist's child. This walking-around-with-a-womb thing shouldn't be such a factor in how much money you make, if you can keep your job, where your life takes you. But it is, it fucking is, and it's scary.