Mid-South doctors praise FDA’s approval for over-the-counter birth control pills

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - Mid-South doctors are calling the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of over-the-counter birth control pills a “tremendous advance for the state, and community.”

“It is going to predominantly help the uninsured, the underinsured, and the underrepresented minorities that are most at risk for unintended pregnancy,” Dr. John Schorge said.

Dr. Schorge is the OBGYN chair at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

“Right now, to be able to get a birth control pill you have to go to the doctor’s office,” Dr. Schorge said. “You have to have somebody watch the kids, you have to take time off from work, you have to wait in line, you have to have insurance or at least pay money to go do it and then that can take a couple of months.”

Aside from convenience, Dr. Schorge says the move by the FDA makes it easier for women to make decisions about their reproductive health.

Something that’s been greatly impacted by the Dobb’s decision, which effectively ended nearly all abortions in the state of Tennessee and many other southern states.

About half of all births in the country are unintended,” he said. “Many of those have to do with lack of access to contraception.”

According to Vanderbilt University’s Unity Pole, 73 percent of Americans agree with the FDA’S approval of the abortion pill.

“If you ask people about whether women should have access to abortion if their health is at risk there’s overwhelming support for it across the state,” Dr. John Geer said. About 82 percent for example, and even among Republicans that percentage support is over 70 percent. Democrats are 90 percent.”

Dr. John Geer says, who’s director of the Unity Pole says, that polling data is not being reflected in the state legislature.

“Between the Dobbs’s decision, between the decision about the so-called abortion pill, we’ve seen a retrenchment of some basic rights that are a cause of concern,” Dr. Geer said. “And we saw that concern play out in the 2022 election.”

That’s why Dr. Schorge says, OTC birth control will make a tremendous impact.

“If you think about it, just going to CVS and picking up Tylenol and go home with it, pretty simple,” he said. And if the pill was that widely available (and it should be) then it really increases access and allows women to make their own choices about contraception.”

Dr. Schorge also says it’s important parents talk to their teenagers (younger teens especially) right now about contraception before the Opill becomes available next year.

“There’s still a variety of other options for contraception,” he said. The IUD, Norplant, and none of those things would go away, this doesn’t replace any of those but by and large oral contraceptives are the most common form of reversible contraception, and this just increases access and allows women to make their own choices.”

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