May 24—The Food and Drug Administration has the opportunity to approve the first over the counter birth control pill this summer, a decision University of Colorado Boulder Professor Amanda Stevenson said "is a long time coming."

An advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration approved a recommendation on May 10 for the agency to make the first-ever decision to make a birth control pill available without a prescription in the U.S. A final decision is expected over the summer.

Stevenson said making oral contraceptives more widely accessible has so many positive impacts on health, economic well-being and more. Her research has shown access to birth control can boost both high school and college graduation rates, and she said she's finalizing evidence that increased access to contraceptives reduces women's chances of living in poverty.

"Pregnancy is a very intense physical experience, so if you can plan when you experience that or you can terminate a pregnancy at a time that's not good for your body or your life, then that has impacts for your health and it also has impacts for the rest of your life," Stevenson said.

Jennifer Hendricks is a professor of law and co-director of the Juvenile and Family Law Program at the University of Colorado Law School. She said the recommendation is a good thing that women, health advocates and doctors have wanted for some time.

"Anything we can do to increase women's ability to control their bodies is urgently needed," Hendricks said.

However, she said there are some concerns from the FDA about the approval of an over the counter birth control pill, including women not being able to have a doctor to go over health risks and instructions with them.

"I understand those concerns, and it would be great if we had a health care system where everyone had that kind of attentive medical care and could easily get an appointment," Hendricks said.

"But in a world where health care is low quality, expensive, very hard for many people to access and women are risking all kinds of physical harms ... just for the possibility of becoming pregnant, anything that increases women's ability to control their own lives is important."

Stevenson said having access to birth control is important because having babies is important, and it allows people greater control of when or if they have a baby.

She said it's easy for people who have private health insurance and a regular source of medical care to underestimate the challenges of someone who is uninsured, underinsured or without a regular source of care.

"A lot of evidence by me and other scholars has found that there are substantial barriers to getting contraception and to getting the method of contraception that you want in this country," Stevenson said.

"And so, when policies make it easier for people to get the methods of contraception that they want, that makes it easier for people to plan their lives, and planning your life makes your life better."

If approved, the vote would apply only to Opill, a progestin-only pill.

"It's really just the beginning of what will hopefully be an expansion of the provision of oral contraception over the counter more broadly," Stevenson said. "I'm very hopeful that this is just the first step."