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As pundits and legislators scream about the federal government infringing on the religious rights of people, they might want to remember that many of these religious facilities have no trouble accepting federal aid.

In a surprise move with election-year implications, the Obama administration’s top health official overruled her own drug regulators and stopped the Plan B morning-after pill from moving onto drugstore shelves next to the condoms. The decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius means the Plan B One-Step emergency contraceptive will remain behind pharmacy counters, as it is sold today — available without a prescription only to those 17 and older who can prove their age. The Food and Drug Administration was preparing to lift the age limit on Wednesday and allow younger teens, who today must get a prescription, to buy it without restriction. That would have made Plan B the nation’s first over-the-counter emergency contraceptive, a pill that can prevent pregnancy if taken soon enough after unprotected sex. But Sebelius intervened at the eleventh hour and overruled FDA, deciding that young girls shouldn’t be able to buy the pill on their own — especially since some girls as young as 11 are physically capable of bearing children. “It is common knowledge that there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age,” Sebelius said. “I do not believe enough data were presented to support the application to make Plan B One-Step available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age.”

It was the latest twist in a nearly decade-long push for easier access to emergency contraception, and the development shocked women’s groups and maker Teva Pharmaceuticals, which had been gearing up for over-the-counter sales to begin by month’s end. “We are outraged that this administration has let politics trump science,” said Kirsten Moore of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, an advocacy group. “There is no rationale for this move.” “This decision is stunning. I had come to believe that the FDA would be allowed to make decisions based on science and the public’s health,” said Susan Wood of George Washington University, who served as the FDA’s top women’s health official until resigning in 2005 to protest delays in deciding Plan B’s fate. She said, “Sadly, once again, FDA has been over-ruled and not allowed to do its job.” But the decision pleased conservative critics of the proposal. “Take the politics out of it and it’s a decision that reflects the concerns that many parents in America have,” said Wendy Wright, an evangelical Christian activist who has helped lead the opposition to Plan B.

Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, the Catholic philosopher whose work on subjects from Aristotelian ethics to the perils of birth control is enjoying a renaissance

she published “Intention,” which one philosopher called the greatest work on the philosophy of action — a sub-field concerned with how our brains cause our bodies to do things — since Aristotle.

“Modern Moral Philosophy,” which helped inspire the major revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Virtue ethicists argue that we ought to ask what virtues, like courage or patience, should be encouraged, rather than focus on rules to obey.

Dutch teenagers are far less likely to become pregnant or contract an STD, and far more likely to use contraception than their American counterparts.

Moralism warps intelligent endeavour. This is true whether we’re dealing with teenage pregnancies, HIV prevention or human trafficking. Much otherwise good work is stymied and made controversial because there is a hidden agenda beneath it, usually driven by unspoken moralistic aims. In combatting teenage pregnancies, they would insist we speak only of abstinence and never mention contraception. Why? Because the unspoken agenda is not teenage pregnancies, but the eradication of sex outside marriage. DittoDitto when some people argue that in combatting HIV, we shouldn’t speak non-judgementally about homosex, we shouldn’t remove the stigma or laws against homosexuality (an essential step for public health officials to successfully engage the gay community) because their agenda is not HIV prevention but a campaign against non-heterosexual orientation.