The "morning after pill," a.k.a., Plan B or the emergency contraceptive pill, is not an abortion drug, according to the NYTimes, "because it does not destroy an embryo. Instead, the pill prevents ovulation or fertilization, or blocks a fertilized egg from becoming implanted in the uterus." The pill is effective up to three to five days after intercourse and is obviously most effective when taken immediately.

Its use would unquestionably cut down on the number of abortions in this country.

But the current holier-than-thou refusal to dispense the morning after pill by some druggists reveals the true prejudice behind much of the anti-abortion Religious Right. Even more than being against abortion, which they can fasten on with a horrified glee, these folks are really against unmarried women having sex. Their high moral dudgeon inflates like a condom at the thought of sexual equality.

Four states have already passed laws specifically allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives if they have moral or religious objections: Arkansas, South Dakota, Mississippi, and Georgia. In at least 12 other states, including Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee, other so-called conscience clause bills have been introduced to make pharmacists the moral arbitors over young women's lives.

No matter how much you empower the self-righteous to punish the sinful, young women in Arkansas, South Dakota, Missisippi, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Tennessee, and everywhere else are still going to have sex, O my brethren, unless your conservative state legislatures out-law hormones and figure out a way to remove them wholesale from a whole generation of teenage girls. (Wonder if those "conscience clause bills" shielding pharmacists would also apply to dispensing Viagra or any of the other male inflation drugs now relentlessly being hawked on TV?)

And never mind the boys, who anyway don't have to worry about going shamefaced to pharmacists, since all the burden in on the girls ... an imbalance of consequences that these pill dispensers and their Republican allies implicitly and tacitly approve of.