Hillary Clinton and 'Plan B'

Hillary Clinton’s record of supporting abortion and her disdain for the sanctity of human life is nothing new.  And if she is using the powers of her Senate office to force the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make dubious decisions, we want to hold her to account for it.  Last week, Judicial Watch filed a new open records lawsuit against the FDA regarding Hillary Clinton’s drive to make the “emergency contraceptive pill,” commonly known as the “morning after pill,” available over-the-counter.  We filed the lawsuit, on March 21, after the FDA failed to comply with our August 2006 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking communications between the FDA and Hillary Clinton regarding “.75 levonorgestrel,” which is also known as “Plan B.”

Hillary Clinton and 'Plan B'

Judicial Watch filed the original FOIA request after Senator Clinton threatened to block the July 2006 nomination of Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach to head the FDA until the agency made Plan B contraceptives available without a prescription (making it potentially accessible to underage girls).  After Hillary’s bullying, the FDA approved Plan B for over-the-counter use on August 24, 2006, and Dr. von Eschenbach was confirmed in December 2006.  The FDA’s decision to approve Plan B seemed more about politics than science, especially given Hillary Clinton’s role in the process.  This was a simple request for documents, and the FDA’s delay in producing them is curious, to say the least.

Proponents of the “morning after pill” claim it is a means of birth control without an abortion… but the drug can also act as an abortifacient.  It can prevent an already fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall, in essence, ending a pregnancy.  Serious side effects and health complications have also been associated with ingesting oral contraceptives such as the “morning after pill,” which includes multiple doses of hormones.

This latest open records lawsuit is part of Judicial Watch’s larger campaign to educate the public about how Hillary and Bill Clinton have subverted government processes to advance their radical pro-abortion agenda.

In 2001, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the FDA related to the hasty approval of the dangerous abortion drug RU-486 in the waning days of the Clinton administration.  In response, the FDA released thousands of documents showing serious health complications resulting from the use of the drug.  As a result of our work here, many are calling for RU-486 to be pulled off the market for safety reasons.

Moreover, we have released several special reports about the Clinton abortion agenda, based on previously confidential records that we uncovered from the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas.  I encourage you to visit our Internet site, www.judicialwatch.org, to read them.

“The Clinton RU-486 Files” details the drive to bring RU-486 – which has been linked to the deaths of at least six women – to market in the United States.  The second, “New Clinton White House Records Raise Disturbing Questions About Hillary Clinton and Abortion” provides new documentary evidence of Hillary Clinton’s central role in shaping pro-abortion policies in the Clinton White House.

Judicial Watch takes no position on candidates for public office, and Hillary Clinton is free to run for president, but we are also free to hold her (and the Bush administration’s FDA, for that matter) accountable to the rule of law.  And that is exactly what we plan to do.

Tom Fitton is president of Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law