A survey by Washington state’s NARAL chapter found that over 10 percent of pharmacies in the state either don’t stock the morning-after pill or employ at least one pharmacist who refuses to dispense it. Here’s an interactive map NARAL created to show how Washington’s pharmacies measure up. Over a dozen pharmacies in the Seattle area alone are on the record as refusing the drug at least occasionally.

The NARAL report is controversial, as it doesn’t take into account factors like the average age of a pharmacy’s customers. If you own a pharmacy, you may not want to stock EC if most of your clients are senior citizens. But lack of access is a real problem: In Washington, a court battle is raging between pharmacists who refuse to dispense Plan B and the state Board of Pharmacy, which ruled last year that pharmacists must dispense all legal medication unless they can refer customers immediately to another pharmacist.

I would say that even a referral is too much of an imposition when a girl or woman is in need of this time sensitive drug. So presidential candidates — do you believe a pharmacist has the right to turn away women looking for emergency contraception? I’m looking at you, John McCain.

—Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.