This is a first: in no time in history has an American Secretary of Health and Human Services overruled a recommendation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just did so, overturning an FDA recommendation that all women of reproductive age be allowed access to the “Plan B” emergency contraceptive pill without a doctor’s prescription. Free access holds for women 17 and older, but the FDA recommended extended non-prescription access for younger women. (The pill, which contains progesterone, halves the chance of pregnancy if taken within three days of intercourse.)

According to the New York Times:

The pill’s maker, Teva Pharmaceuticals, had applied to make Plan B easily accessible to everyone. In a statement, the commissioner of the drug administration [i.e., the head of the FDA] Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, wrote that all the studies and experts agreed that young women would benefit from having easy access to Plan B. The agency’s scientists, she wrote, “determined that the product was safe and effective in adolescent females, that adolescent females understood the product was not for routine use, and that the product would not protect them against sexually transmitted disease.” ”Additionally, the data supported a finding that adolescent females could use Plan B One-Step properly without the intervention of a healthcare provider,” she wrote. After reviewing the scientists’ determination, Dr. Hamburg wrote that she agreed “that there is adequate and reasonable, well-supported and science-based evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for nonprescription use for all females of child-bearing potential.”

Sebelius nixed this:

. . . on Wednesday morning, Ms. Sebelius sent Dr. Hamburg a note saying that she did not agree, so the agency was rejecting the application for the change. In a statement, Ms. Sebelius said that the drug’s manufacturer had failed to study whether girls as young as 11 years old could use Plan B safely. And since about 10 percent of girls are capable of bearing children as early as 11, those girls need to be studied as well, she wrote. “After careful consideration of the F.D.A. summary review, I have concluded that the data submitted by Teva do not conclusively establish that Plan B One-Step should be made available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age,” Ms. Sebelius wrote.

Doctors are on the FDA’s side:

“Very few medications are this simple, convenient and safe,” said Dr. Kathleen Hill-Besinque, an assistant dean at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy. . . The American Medical Association, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have endorsed over-the-counter access to emergency contraception.

Make no mistake about it, Sebelius’s decision was made with the approval of President Obama, who knows the political costs of allowing young women free access to emergency contraception. In the minds of conservatives, this is a license for untrammeled sex. And Obama’s running for President again next year. This is not a medical decision, but a cynical and political one.