The fight for access to the morning-after pill (testimony from NWL’s 2021 Roe v. Wade Anniversary Fundraiser)

I have a long history with the morning after pill. In 1990, I was co-leading the University of Florida Campus National Organization for Women chapter when we got word of a campus pharmacist refusing to dispense the morning after pill on religious grounds. Women were being turned away. Back then you could not just walk into CVS and get it, you had to get a prescription. After lots of protests and bad press the pharmacist “resigned.” This was the first of a few struggles with UF Health Services, which continued to turn women away who needed the pill. They even made women sign a degrading form promising to use birth control from now on, as though they were bad girls for having sex without it, or because a condom broke…or worse, because they were raped.

Men didn’t have to sign any form. I started working at the Gainesville Women’s Health Center, a non-profit women’s clinic. The pay was terrible, but we did get free health care as a bonus. We dispensed morning after pills, and they were free to us employees! I was a strict condom user but sometimes one would break or slip off. I always helped myself to a morning after pill when that happened. I took it many times throughout my 20s with no side effects or accidental pregnancies.

Later, as a married mom of two and member of National Women’s Liberation I needed the morning after pill. NWL had been fighting for full over the counter access for almost ten years by then with partial success– you did not need a prescription anymore, but the pill was behind the counter and you had to ask for it and show id to prove you were 17 or older. I walked into the CVS holding my son’s hand and with my toddler daughter on my hip, and asked the pharmacist for the pill. He carded me! I was 40. In no universe did I look 17. This dumb rule no longer exists and there are no longer any age restrictions.

Now I am 52 and free from both periods and the possibility of pregnancy. It’s pretty great. I won a morning after pill in a raffle a couple years back which was not a useful prize for me, but kept it for my teenage son and daughter.

My daughter, now 14, recently asked me if I had any morning after pills, for an anonymous friend who needed one. I was able to help. I also asked if her friend was safe, and offered help getting regular birth control or an STD screen. I ordered more pills online for future emergencies, for less than $10 each!
It’s great that the morning after pill is so much more accessible now. Still, walking into work and grabbing one for free like I could is not a typical experience– but it SHOULD be. It should be that easy to prevent pregnancy. Even now, the cost in a drug store ($50) and the embarrassment of going to get it are real barriers, and not just for young women like my daughter’s friend. And when you need it, there’s no time to wait for an online order. What about the teenagers who are NOT friends with my daughter? We still have a lot of work to do to make sure the morning after pill, and all forms of contraception, are truly accessible to everyone.

Amy, 52, white