Doctors Pressure FDA for Nonprescription Birth Control Pills

The Food and Drug Administration is considering expanding the list of drugs that can be bought without a prescription, an opening birth-control advocates are seizing to reignite debate over reproductive rights.

The agency discussed at a hearing yesterday whether cholesterol, asthma, migraine and blood-pressure medications should be sold over-the-counter, a regulatory change intended to lower costs and ease access to drugs for people with chronic ailments. Reproductive-rights advocates today urged that any expansion of nonprescription drugs include birth control.