This letter — which is signed by Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, Kirsten Gillilbrand, Maria Cantwell and 10 male senators — is strongly worded stuff, particularly when directed at a Democratic president. It stops just short of accusing the Obama administration of deliberately ignoring science in making this decision. It also puts the administration in an awkward spot. Either it produces a scientific rationale that’s acceptable to these Senators, which will will be extremely difficult at best, or it will face more criticism for failing to justify its policy, reinforcing the sense that this Democratic administration abandoned science and put politics first.
It will also be interesting to see where these Dem Senators take this next. Hearings, anyone?
I don't think it will get that far, but it's pretty clear that a healthy chunk of Senate Dems think that America's women deserve a much better explanation for the Obama administration punting on Plan B than was given.
Unfortunately, there's not a better, more acceptable explanation than the truth: Making Plan B available without a prescription to kids as young as eleven when the President has eleven and thirteen year old daughters in an election year risked making Sasha and Malia Obama into political lightning rods, and the wingers would have gleefully gone after them. As K-Drum says in the link there, it was a policy decision. Admit it, move on.
And yes, it was a lousy decision. I don't support it. I can understand why the President did it, but I do not agree with it. I'm not a father of pre-teen girls, I'm not a woman, my perspective on this is limited as I've said before. But it's still a policy decision.
I also don't think Dems in the Senate publicly calling out the President is a really smart idea either, but what's done is done. We'll see what happens.
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