I'm so happy to hear about a website like his, and the issues it raises. Emergency contraception, with the few side effects it offers, should be sold over the counter alongside condoms and spermicide.

Two years ago, my husband and I had a scare - broken condom. In all my thirty years, this was a first for me. I decided to be the mature responsible adult, and so I immediately called my gynecologist to explain the situation and get a prescription for Plan B. I was refused unless they examined me first - but they couldn't fit me in until the following Thursday (5 days away). I pleaded for an earlier appointment or a prescription without an appointment!! They wouldn't budge. So I called my general practitioner - who refused to administer a prescription.

I thought I didn't have any other options - no one would give me a presciption in time! I called pharmacies to see if they would administer the pills without a prescription, but of course the answer was no. What else could I do?

I tried home remedies. There are websites out there with herbal advice for preventing embryo implantation. They don't work. I was pregnant. It took four weeks to be sure I was pregnant. I had an abortion two days later.

I shouldn't have had to go through that. I never wanted to be pregnant, and I was careful. I tried to go through the correct channels. I was refused. My husband and I don't want to have biological children because of genetic concerns. We did everything right - I did everything right - all it would have taken is one prescription by my physician. I wish I had known about the website. I wish more people were fighting in DC to have Plan B in the drug store.

I didn't know about this website; I live in a state with OTC access and little tolerance for narrow-mindedness... our local Target's pharmacy is actually suffering thanks to the principled boycott of them because they allow their pharmacists to refuse to dispense any prescription for religious reasons.

Anyway, I am very grateful that Dr. Wise is out there, a voice of reason in a ridiculous and stupid right-wing anti-woman world. Things don't always go perfectly. I needed Plan B once because of a broken condom. It was easy for me to get, and I'm glad. The pharmacist and I had a good conversation, and he told me that my insurance would cover two packs at a time, and I would I like a second one for my medicine cabinet, "just in case"? Of course I took it! It should be this easy for EVERYONE, not just comfortably middle-class mid-30s women with good health insurance.

The FDA is a sham... along with so much of what the shrub has put in place. Anti-woman, anti-decency, anti-HEALTH. It doesn't make any damn sense.

Iam a retired MD and can remember well when the birth control pill first came on the market.My initial response was if you were not married I was against perscribing the pill.How wrong I was to impose my values on anyone who chose to disagree. I saw people of all religious persuasions requesting the pill married or not married,no matter their age. They were all of the child bearing age and sexually active . The unfortunate ones that happened to become pregnant ended up in unsavory situations not oftened medically safe .

We have come a long way. The politicians are wrong to impose their views in order to get elected. More power to the people who are willing to help the women who request help in preventing unwanted pregnancy

I've taken the morning after pill, and basically the cramps are so bad it feels like someone is shoving a fist up your uterus and squeezing hard. It is like PMS times ten. It hurts a lot. I think it should be legal, but not over the counter. People should consult with a doc. first. This is real medication, not aspirin.

Not everyone will have had the reaction I did, (which was inconvenient and painful, but not fatal) but it is a hardcore enough medication to warrant a doctor's visit.

In response to NicoleShield -

In an ideal world, every woman would have a doctor who would be willing to dispense this drug to them, with careful advice and a timely appointment, appropriate to the time-sensitive, emergency nature of the drug.

But it's not an ideal world.

Look at, for example, syrup of ipecac. Ipecac is a poison. If administered incorrectly, it can easily be fatal; when administered correctly, it often involves hours of vomiting charcoal. There are people, young women, who mis-use it purposefully - I am a recovering bulimic, and while I never used it, I knew more than one girl who did. Yet, because not administering ipecac in the necessary situation could result in something very permanent and serious (death, or at the very least, permanent organ damage), you can find it in your drugstore next to baby products.

I'm not saying the cases are perfectly parallel, but it's worth considering the fact that Plan B would not be the most painful, dangerous thing on the pharmacy shelf (and would probably involve more information dispensed with it).

This procedure was a staple of the college student health service in the mid to late seventies. At that time, the drug used was the synthetic estrogen diethylstilbestrol (DES) 25 mg taken for three days. Nausea was the common and only side effect.

Because DES was associated with the DES babies, mothers who were given DES to prevent real or imaginery miscarriages from 1947 until the late 1950ies had daughters who got cancers of the uterus in their twenties, this drug was taken off the market shortly after.

The Salon article does not name the current drug levonorgestrel 0.75 mg as the progesterone only alternative provided by the website mentioned in the article.

Other variations exist as combination of estrogen and progesterone.

Any high dose of female hormones administered the next day and possibly for two more days would do the same thing.

In New Zealand a whole month's worth of birth control pills are used on the morning after and another packet is used the next day.

There is very little mystery or danger involved with the process unless a woman is ill with certain severe chronic illnesses.