FDA could approve over-the-counter purchase of first birth control pill

The Opill could become available over-the-counter if the FDA approves HRA Pharma’s application. Photograph: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration will consider an application for the first birth control pill to be sold without a prescription.

The application from HRA Pharma would seek to make Opill – an every day, prescription-only hormonal contraception first approved in 1973 – available over-the-counter. Such an approval from the FDA would allow people to purchase “the pill” without a prescription for the first time since oral contraceptives became widely available in the 1960s.