This option has been available to women for more than thirty years and works not by disrupting a fertilized egg but by delaying or preventing ovulation. Anti-abortion activists don't always agree — like the pro-life pharmacist who refused to fill a woman's prescription for the pill because he knew (from the small dose and the instructions) what it was to be used for.

Princeton's Office of Population Research has conducted extensive research on this subject — indeed, the director, James Trussell, convinced the FDA that approval of emergency contraception would prevent 2.3 million unplanned pregnancies a year. One million of these currently end in abortion, so the pro-life argument is that the morning after pill (a misnomer — it can actually be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex) will prevent another 1.3 million babies from being born. However, you could say the same for condoms, or for the birth control pill as it is normally used. The morning after pill is not an abortion pill — in fact, according to Trussell's research, it could prevent one million abortions every year.

But not enough people, including health professionals, know this yet. Let's hope that a little marketing muscle on the part of Gynetics succeeds where many doctors and health clinics have failed. Some day soon a woman may be able to buy a dose of emergency contraception over the counter and keep it on her bedside table, for those heart-stopping nights when the condom breaks. Now wouldn't that be revolutionary?