Judge again rejects limits on emergency contraception

In yet another scathing critique of government health officials, a federal judge refused Friday to stay his order making emergency contraceptives available to consumers of all ages without a prescription.

Calling government efforts to restrict the sale of drugs such as Plan B "frivolous and taken for the purpose of delay," U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman of New York wrote that the medications would be available to all unless the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled otherwise by noon Eastern time on Monday.

The action was the latest in a long battle between reproductive rights advocates and two White House administrations that have sought to restrict the sale of so-called morning-after pills to minors.

In a 17-page ruling, Korman said the actions of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were in "bad faith" and "politically motivated," and that government lawyers were functioning in "an alternate reality" when they requested the stay.

Korman wrote that Sebelius lacked "any medical or scientific expertise" and that she undermined the nation's drug approval process when she overruled a decision by the Food and Drug Administration to allow the drug to be sold to everyone without a prescription.

"The FDA is not the problem," Korman wrote. "The cause of the rejection of over-the-counter sale of emergency contraceptives was the secretary of Health and Human Services."

The Justice Department, which has argued the government's case, declined to comment Friday on Korman's ruling.

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, the New York-based advocacy group that is the plaintiff in the case, welcomed the order.

"Judge Korman's sound ruling simply orders the government to do what the experts at FDA have been trying to do for years: to put politics aside and let science guide us to a policy that makes emergency contraception readily accessible to all women when they need it most urgently," she said in a statement.

Plan B and the related Plan B One-Step are manufactured by the Israel-based company Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Generic versions of the drugs are also available.

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Judge again rejects limits on emergency contraception