April 24, 2009

The Food and Drug Administration, which clearly is under new management, has approved a drug called “Plan B.” It’s a so-called morning after pill for women who have had, as they say, unprotected sex. It keeps the fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.

The news is that the FDA has lowered from the age at which the drug is approved 18 to 17. The drug is also being made available over the counter, which means teenage girls can get it for themselves and give to younger girls without parental knowledge or permission.

As with other drugs and surgical procedures that are part of the anti-life industry, look for complications to arise when girls this young start taking these drugs. But they will be hushed-up, or explained away by the pro-abortion lobby.

My question is, why 17? Who set that limit and on what basis? Why not give them to girls as young as 12 or 13? Isn’t the government pushing an arbitrary morality on some people?

The answer is there are no cultural standards. As the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed, we are defining deviancy downward.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.