WOMEN'S HEALTH ADVOCATES PLAN TO TEST
WAL-MART'S PLEDGE TO STOCK PLAN B

“Spot Checks” at Retail Chain Among Activities Planned Nationwide
To Promote Awareness of and Access to Emergency Contraception

NEW YORK, NY – On Tuesday, March 21, women’s health advocates across the country will begin visiting Wal-Mart stores to assess whether the retailer is keeping its promise to carry Plan B, an emergency contraceptive method that is highly effective at preventing pregnancy up to 120 hours after sex. Commencing the day after the company’s self-imposed March 20th deadline, the site visits will be conducted as part of the fifth annual Back Up Your Birth Control day of action. The public awareness campaign – which is sponsored by a coalition of more than 100 women’s health and medical organizations – involves a host of activities coast to coast to increase knowledge of emergency contraception and improve women’s chances of getting it in time if they need a second chance to prevent pregnancy.

“Emergency contraception has an enormous – but unfulfilled – potential to make a real impact on preventing unintended pregnancy,” said Destiny Lopez, Vice President of Programs at the Institute for Reproductive Health Access, coordinator of the Back Up Your Birth Control campaign. “Educating women about emergency contraception is a hollow undertaking if her local pharmacy does not stock it or her local pharmacist will not fill her prescription.”

In recent months, women’s ability to fill prescriptions for Plan B at their local pharmacies has increasingly been called into question. Although the actual numbers of women affected are difficult to track, women in states ranging from Washington to Wisconsin to Massachusetts have reported that they were unable to obtain emergency contraception either because the medication is not stocked or a pharmacist is not honoring their prescription.

Wal-Mart’s March 3rd announcement that it would move to stock Plan B came amid growing pressure on the retailer, evidenced by a complaint filed by women in Boston who discovered area stores did not carry the product and requirements to sell it in Illinois and Massachusetts. (Last spring, Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich ordered all pharmacists in the state to fill legitimate Plan B prescriptions after reports that women seeking emergency contraception were turned away). Already this year, proposals have been introduced in nine state legislatures (AZ, MD, MN, MO, NJ, NY, PA, WV, WI) to protect a woman’s ability to obtain Plan B at a pharmacy in a timely fashion, while legislation proposed in 18 states (AL, GA, IL, IN, MI, MN, MO, NH, NJ, NY, OK, RI, SD, TN, VT, WA, WI, WV) would allow pharmacists to shirk their duty to fill the prescriptions – policies currently on the books in just four states (AR, GA, MS, SD).

The critical role that pharmacies and pharmacists play in providing Plan B has taken on greater significance as women’s health advocates await the long-overdue ruling on whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will approve this back-up birth control method for over-the-counter use, a move widely endorsed by the nation’s leading medical and public health organizations and supported by overwhelming scientific evidence. Despite a recent finding by the Government Accountability Office that the FDA’s process of evaluating the over-the-counter application for Plan B was rife with irregularities, the agency continues to delay a decision on whether to make this emergency contraceptive method available without a prescription.

To improve women’s access to emergency contraception despite the FDA delay, the Back Up Your Birth Control day of activism will feature activities in at least a dozen states – ranging from a Back Up Your Birth Control van that will educate local pharmacists in California to campus education initiatives in North Carolina – in addition to the Wal-Mart visits. These activities dovetail with other legislative initiatives this year to improve access to emergency contraception, including proposals in seven legislatures (CO, IL, KY, MD, NJ, NY, VT) to empower pharmacists to dispense Plan B directly to women (without requiring a prescription from a physician) – a policy in already in effect in eight states (AK, CA, HI, ME, MA, NH, NM, WA). Legislation introduced in a dozen states (AZ, CT, FL, HI, IL, MN, MO, PA, SD, TN, WI, WV) would ensure that hospitals provide back-up birth control information or services to survivors of sexual assault; to date, nine states (CA, IL, MA, NJ, NM, NY, SC, TX, WA) have adopted similar requirements.

Plan B contains progestin, the same hormone found in most daily birth control pills. Emergency contraception works like other hormonal contraceptive methods to prevent pregnancy by delaying or inhibiting ovulation, inhibiting fertilization, or blocking implantation of a fertilized egg. And the sooner Plan B is taken, the better it works: When used within the first 24 hours after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure, Plan B can prevent up to 95 percent of expected pregnancies. Plan B does not work if a woman is already pregnant and should not be confused with Mifeprex (also known as RU-486), a drug used to terminate an early pregnancy.

More information about emergency contraception and the Back Up Your Birth Control Campaign can be found at www.backupyourbirthcontrol.org.