About a month ago, I reproduced an informal phone survey originally conducted last September by the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center, based in Lake Andes, South Dakota. I called the same 63 centers (though I was not able to reach every one), all funded by IHS, asking the questions asked in the original survey: Does your pharmacy carry Plan B or another emergency contraceptive? And is it offered over the counter? I did not identify myself as a reporter.

Though some of the pharmacies contacted in that original survey, and in my own reproduction, said they offered emergency contraception over the counter, more often pharmacy techs or pharmacists said that either their clinics offered the drug by prescription-only, or not at all. In all, the NAWHERC study found that only 11 percent of the pharmacies surveyed carried emergency contraception over the counter, about half carried emergency contraception but required a prescription and a doctor’s visit, and about 43 percent of the pharmacies contacted did not carry Plan B at all.

In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration approved the over-the-counter use of Plan B for women 18 and older. In 2009, the FDA approved the over-the-counter use of Plan B and the updated Plan B One-Step, as well as a generic version of Plan B called Next Choice, for women 17 and older. And last year, the agency approved the generic Next Choice One Dose to be taken without a prescription for the same age group. (Other, prescription-only forms of emergency birth-control have been approved by the FDA, as well.)