Kathleen Sebelius

The Obama Administration has made a final decision on contraceptive coverage under health reform, ensuring that virtually all women with health insurance will now have access to the full range of preventive services originally recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), including all FDA-approved forms of contraception.

Follow Jodi Jacobson on Twitter, @jljacobson

One of the most difficult things to do is tell a friend that we are disappointed or upset with them, but that is what we are doing here today.

Sadly, only about a quarter of the relevant agencies have developed scientific integrity policies as required under White House guidelines and publicly released them.

To the FDA, the evidence is clear: Plan B is safe for women of all ages. Yet in a dangerous precedent, the Secretary overturned the decision based on pseudo-scientific concerns about misuse among younger adolescents.

Dr. Susan Wood discusses the recent misuse of science and data as part of the decision by the Secretary of HHS to overrule the scientific determination by the FDA Commissioner on bringing Plan B fully over the counter.

The Administration's decision to ignore medical and scientific evidence and deny increased access to Plan-B suggests a failure to understand and acknowledge the effects of this decision on Latinas, women of color, undocumented immigrants and low-income women.

We cannot let the Democrats, let our president, lose sight of what this decades-old debate about access to all forms of reproductive healthcare is really about; that is, for women to have any sort of autonomy and self-determination within our society. 

I got to thinking about what else the President’s decision portends. The essence of successful politicians like, say, Margaret Hamburg and Kathleen Sebelius, is three-fold. What starts all over every morning is the (political) big leagues ballgame. What starts over every day in these big leagues, just like the baseball ones, is a game that is played only one way: the hardball way.

Follow Rebecca Sive on Twitter, @RebeccaSive

Whether President Obama was compelled to weave the bubble gum narrative for political gain or because it truly reflects his thinking, the result is the same. Complex sexual health issues get overly simplified, society focuses on stigma more than solution, and young people are left with policy decisions that don't begin to match the weight of their lived experiences nor keep them "safe."