The long-running fight over emergency contraception (“morning-after pills”), and the bizarre lengths right-wingers are going to to block women’s access to it, are well known. Some confusion – fueled by right-wing deception – seems to persist as to just what emergency contraception is. Few women seem to realize that it is just a large dose of the same hormones used in regular birth-control pills (it is not “RU-486″ – the medical-abortion drug – or any of its constituents), or that birth-control pills have long been recommended for emergency contraception before a convenient single-dose tablet was perfected.

As fear of the growing right-wing assault on women increases, more and more people are seeking to set up information and resources that will enable women to get the care they need and retain control of their own health and sexuality. As a contribution to women’s self-help, and to help people understand and gain access to emergency contraception that does not require arguing with some dipshit pharmacist while your window of action ticks closed, I am reproducing below information from the Feminist Women’s Health Center and Planned Parenthood on how to use standard-dose pills from your own or somebody else’s existing hormonal birth-control prescription in the place of emergency contraception immediately after unprotected intercourse. (See their Web sites for fuller information.)

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