After the FDA's continual neglect of reviewing emergency contraception, advocates are looking to state governments to make EC available to women in (as of right now) about 12 different states.

Under the proposed Maryland law, pharmacists who volunteer to receive special training may dispense the pills. The law does not require all pharmacists to furnish the pills, and the State Board of Pharmacy estimated 5 percent of Maryland's 5,331 licensed pharmacists would initially participate.

Legislation in other states would allow pharmacists to provide Plan B directly to women under an agreement with a doctor giving the pharmacist blanket permission to sell the drug or require emergency rooms to provide it to rape victims, said Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights group that is tracking the efforts.

Abortion-rights groups have been lobbying state lawmakers to increase access to the morning-after pill since 2000, and 16 states, including California, have passed laws that do so in some form.

I am curious to see how state elections will influence passage of Plan B.

via Baltimore Sun.