A morning after pill 'Mis-take'

Two months ago I wrote about a new over the counter morning after pill that was being advertised on billboards and newspapers all over the city. For a while it seemed that Mis-take was going to be more available than the morning after pill in the United States and that the Indian government was taking rational steps about unplanned pregnancy. While the Ministry of Health let the pills to be sold over the counter they somehow forgot to tell Intra labs that not every other government agency was going to submit to MoH reproductive tyranny.

Three days ago the Directorate of Drug Control seized 117,555 strips of the pills worth Rs 50,0000 from a company warehouse on the premise that the contraceptive might encourage immoral behavior. The DDC apparently was acting on a series of complaints by "welfare organizations" like the Satvika Samuga Sevagar Sangam (whose acronym sounds like a snake hissing), who said, "The advertisements encourage youngsters to indulge in free sex and also get away with it."

But the Deccan Chronicle contacted the Ministry of Health and discovered that the DDC had no authority to seize the pills since they had already been approved in 2005 for over the counter use (and advertising campaigns).

Organizations like the double S.S. think that it is better to have a whole bunch of pregnant teenagers running amok in the city than it is to provide a bit of birth control. They also make the mis-take of assuming that the only people who might want to use emergency contraception have pimples on their faces and no kids in the kitty. What about people who already have kids and just don't want to have any more? [via boing boing.]

And if they were so mad about the ad campaigns for Mis-take, I wonder if they have seen the way local companies package Viagra and Kama Sutra condoms? Why not seize those, too?

Given that the DDC has illegally removed the birth control from the market, I propose that any women who would have used Mis-take, but were unable to find it between September 24th and August 1st should be provided free medical care by the government agency and the S.S.S.S.

Also see Sepia Mutiny for an older post about the pill.