Did you find yourself having to take Plan B this year? (Did you find Plan B at all?) The Academy for Educational Development wants to know about it.
The AED, a nonprofit organization working to improve global education, health and self-sufficiency, is conducting an anonymous online survey of women in the U.S. ages 18-44 who took Plan B emergency contraception after January 2007. Immediate goal: To learn more about women's experiences getting and taking Plan B. Big picture: The results will be used to help make Plan B more accessible to women who need it. Rah.
Just one note: Participants have the option to enter a raffle for a $150 Target gift card -- a door prize not without irony. The store, you may recall, has had its own issues with Plan B. Many of us broke up with Target two years ago when the company refused to change its policy allowing its pharmacists to opt out of dispensing emergency contraception as long as they referred customers to another pharmacy (including but not limited to the Walgreens across town that would not be an option for a woman with a short lunch break and a ticking 72-hour clock). Just this past Friday, though, pharmacist Brian Bundy filed suit against Target in a Detroit federal court, alleging that the store fired him for refusing to dispense Plan B with or without a prescription. ("Bundy alleges in his complaint he informed Target of his strong Christian beliefs before he was hired in April 2006 and was told he could refer customers wanting a prescription for the drug to another pharmacy," the Detroit News reports. "But Bundy was fired seven months later, after the drug became available over the counter to customers over 18, the complaint alleges. Bundy did not want to dispense the drug with or without a prescription, but Target insisted he dispense it to over-the-counter customers, the lawsuit alleges.") So what is Target's policy? A spokeswoman said Target's current policy accommodates both religious beliefs and customers' needs (you can send them to CVS if they have a prescription, which they don't need?) but, citing the pending litigation, declined to spell it out.
Make of this what you will. But don't let it stop you from taking the survey, if applicable. It should take about 10 minutes to complete, which is about 1/157,680th of the time it took the Food and Drug Administration to allow Plan B to be sold over Target's counters in the first place.
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