Ted Cruz and AOC join push for over the counter birth control

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Over-the-counter pill proposals gain ground. It's a rare policy that brings together the likes of staunch conservatives like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and socialist stars like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—especially when the policy is undeniably libertarian. But anything goes in 2019, and for a change it's working out in a way that favors freedom.

Cruz and Ocasio-Cortez want to make birth control pills available over-the-counter (OTC)—i.e., without requiring users to get annual prescriptions from a doctor or pharmacy.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted last Friday: "Psst! Birth control should be over-the-counter, pass it on." (She followed up with "It should be free, too"—but, hey, baby steps…)

I was glad to see some folks respond to her tweet with links to a Reason piece I wrote in January, which details how it used to be Republicans who opposed deregulating the pill and Democrats who supported it recently it's been "liberals, not conservatives, who are holding the pill hostage for political gain."

In April, Sens. Joni Ernst (R–Iowa) and Cory Gardner (R–Colo.) introduced the "Allowing Greater Access to Safe and Effective Contraception Act," an attempt to help speed up the over-the-counter approval process for hormonal contraceptives (a process that must originate in an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration).

Ocasio-Cortez is among the few congressional Democrats this decade—maybe the only one—to come out in support of OTC birth control.

Yesterday, Cruz responded to her tweet, saying "I agree. Perhaps, in addition to the legislation we are already working on together to ban Members of Congress from becoming lobbyists, we can team up here as well. A simple, clean bill making birth control available over the counter. Interested?"