What might be better would be an automated service whereby, every Friday or Saturday night, it would txt you and remind you not to drink so much and be such a tart.

..."What might be better would be an automated service whereby, every Friday or Saturday night, it would txt you and remind you not to drink so much and be such a tart."...

Oh please. Condoms break, accidents happen and not every girl needing the morning after pill is a tart. Presuming you're male rather than female: would you rather find out 9 months down the line your a new daddy anyway? Also even loyal women in stable long term relationships sometimes need it.

Either way, as far as I recall you can get "free" emergency contraception on the NHS - either from your local sexual health centre (family planning clinic), NHS walk in centre or GP. I think for most "morning-after" pills you've got 72 hours, but the faster you take them the better, so getting them on the NHS shouldn't be that hard (but possibly more inconvenient). For first-time users I'd recommend they use the NHS so they can get advice about the effects - and the standard lecture about unsafe sex I expect given out; for non-first-time users - perhaps they should be considering other forms of contraception anyway!

Finally, it would be a truly sad world if, as you imply, people who at some point need the morning after pill only have sex in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday morning! There are, after all, five other days (or nights rather) in the week.

You take it the morning after and it changes your blood type.

I'll get my coat...

The fact is, you still need to get a prescription to actually buy the bloody thing. Taking time out from work. Waiting in a queue for hours. Then justifying to the doctor why you need it is psychologically draining as well as damn inconvenient. That's the main source of hassle! Knowing where your local stockist is is about as useful as having a label on the front of your PC saying "The power button switches off your PC", since the local stockist won't serve you unless you have a prescription.

What would be MORE useful is legislation that allows one to buy the pill in ADVANCE of any accident. The morning-after pill should be in every man and woman's medicine cabinet - especially because time is of the essence, and you can't always get a prescription on the weekend (or if you decided to go abroad and have sex in a country where you don't speak the native language or don't know about health procedures). And yes, men should be able to buy them too - contraception is a shared responsibility.

In countries like South Africa, you can walk into a chemist and buy morning-after pills without the need for a prescription. I wonder why the Western world has not yet caught up with this policy. Why should the prospect of an unwanted pregnancy be less important in Europe than it is in South Africa?

In the UK a prescription is not required for the morning after pill.

However, with a prescription, you will get it free, without you will have to pay.