<p>Two weeks after Kroger Co. said it was clarifying its policy on stocking the so-called "morning after" pill, activists say dozens of stores continue to place barriers on buying the emergency contraceptive.</p><p>Representatives of NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion-rights group that also works on other reproductive health issues, sent a letter to Kroger officials Wednesday asking them to carry the drug at all of their pharmacies.</p><p>Ted Miller, communications director for the group, said members called 231 Kroger-run pharmacies across the country and found that 21 percent of the stores did not make the drug immediately available.</p><p>"Accommodating the customer, in Kroger's mind, means that pharmacists can say, 'I won't give it to you, but you can go down the road or go to another place,' " Miller said.</p><p>Meanwhile, a Kroger spokeswoman said that the Cincinnati-based chain does stock the drug at all of its locations and blamed the confusion on employees who did not understand the company's policies.</p><p>Sold as Plan B, emergency contraception is a high dose of the drug found in many regular birth-control pills. It can lower the risk of pregnancy by up to 89 percent if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.</p><p>Critics argue that the pill encourages promiscuity and unprotected sex. Some consider the pill related to abortion, although it is different from the abortion pill RU-486 and has no effect on women who already are pregnant.</p><p>"This is a new medication," said Kroger spokeswoman Lynn Marmer. "We think some of this is due to some confusion over the policy."</p><p>Formerly available only by prescription, the federal Food and Drug Administration made the morning-after pill available over the counter to adults in August.</p><p>On March 9, activists in Georgia called on Kroger to make the pill more readily available after Carrie Baker, a 42-year-old married mother of two from Rome, Ga., complained that a store manager in her hometown told her she couldn't buy it there because the store's pharmacist refused.</p><p>"We believe major national pharmacy chains like those operated by the Kroger Co. should stock Plan B and dispense it to women on site without delay or harassment," read Wednesday's letter, signed by NARAL national president Nancy Keenan and Dionne Vann, director of the group's Georgia branch.</p><p>In a statement issued after the group's March 9 complaint, Kroger issued a statement saying its policy is to carry the drug in all pharmacies and that measures will be taken to "find a way to accommodate the customer" when an employee objects to selling it.</p><p>Marmer said the company sent messages to all of its pharmacies clarifying the policy and said many of the calls NARAL members made to stores came before the policy was clarified.</p><p>"We wanted to be able to serve customers in a way that is quick and respectful and follows the law," she said. "We also, obviously, need to respect the rights of our employees."</p><p>Marmer said that since emergency contraception no longer requires a prescription, pharmacists may simply ask any other employee to sell it and that a customer should never be sent to another store to buy it.</p><p>According to NARAL, their calls included a March 7 call to a Topeka, Kan. store where an employee told the caller to come in after 5 p.m. because he would not sell Plan B and one to a store in Brigham, Utah on March 14 in which an employee said the drug had not been approved for over-the-counter sales in that state.</p><p>"We're not asking them to do something they're not already doing; we're just saying that they're not doing it uniformly," Vann said. "A pharmacist can step out of the way, but that pharmacist can't step in the way."</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cdf8d4)</p><p>HASH(0x1cdf97c)</p>
