Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick filed this story on emergency contraception in April. Choice paragraphs:

First, there is a whole lot of medical yardage between an abortion and birth control. In fact, there is a whole lot of yardage between abortion, a morning-after pill, and birth control. Contraceptives—even emergency contraceptives—are nothing like surgical abortions, although the pro-life movement continues to conflate the two. Emergency contraception inhibits ovulation, fertilization, or implantation. The accepted medical definition of abortion is that it can occur only after implantation. Whatever visceral appeal the “Life Begins When Sperm and Egg Walk Into a Bar” position may hold, it remains factually inaccurate; only a fringe of the medical community accepts the notion that emergency contraception is an abortifacient.

Second, whatever you may think of the morality of taking a morning-after pill, the incontrovertible fact is that it loses efficacy after 24 hours and becomes virtually useless after 72. So, one pharmacist’s refusal to dispense them can rapidly morph into an unwanted pregnancy. That means—particularly in isolated or rural communities—the religious objections of the pharmacist can trump the mother’s legal rights. This may well lead—as noted recently by the St. Petersburg Times—to an increased number of later-term abortions. Which would be ironic, were it not so sad.

(Thanks to Wonkette for the reminder.)