The Virginia Senate passed a bill Tuesday allowing pharmacists to provide women with emergency contraceptives within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse.
The bill also allows physicians, physicians' assistants and nurse practitioners to dispense the morning-after pill to women at any time.
The proposed law, known as House Bill 2782, passed the Senate on a 25-12-1 vote. Earlier this month, the House passed the bill on a 58-40 vote.
Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) must sign the bill for it to become law.
"The basic and very simple purpose of the bill is to give wider access to an already legally prescribed and available drug," said Del. Viola Baskerville (D-Richmond), who sponsored the bill at the request of Planned Parenthood.
The bill aims to help "those women who do not have a physician or who live in areas in which the nearest health care provider may well be a pharmacist, nurse practitioner or physician's assistant," Baskerville said.
After Planned Parenthood approached her, Baskerville grew interested in the bill because of the success of a similar policy in Washington state. Washington is now the only state that allows women access to the morning-after pill without a doctor's prescription.
"After reading various articles about emergency contraception and learning about the experience in Washington state, I agreed to patron the bill," she said.
The two chambers of the Virginia General Assembly now must decide whether women younger than 18 years of age should be required to have parental consent before acquiring the drug.
Baskerville said she believes parental permission should not be mandated.
The morning-after pill legislation is not without critics.
"Our [group's] position on the bill is that it is a health risk to women," Family Foundation policy analyst Victoria Cobb said. "It also promotes promiscuity by sending the message that it is okay to have unprotected sex." The Family Foundation is a non-profit, Virginia-based public policy organization.
According to Georganne Long of Richmond Obstetrics-Gynecology Associates, the pill does not prevent fertilization.
"It works by making the environment of the uterine cavity inhospitable to fertilized eggs," Long said.
Baskerville and other advocates of the morning-after pill say the drug does not cause an abortion.
"Pregnancy is defined by the medical community as the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus," Baskerville said. "The fertilized egg must be implanted in the uterus for a pregnancy to occur; otherwise, successful in vitro fertilization in a petrie dish could be defined as a pregnancy."
Long said she considers the procedure an abortion.
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