PIP: Emergency contraception (EC) involves women taking a high dose of regular oral contraceptives very shortly after unprotected intercourse. Specifically, emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse in cases of known or suspected contraception failure or when no contraception was used. Adherence to this approach is now widely accepted as capable of dramatically contributing toward the reduction of unintended pregnancies and subsequent abortions. However, in the media and in political debates, ECPs are often confused with mifepristone (RU-486), which is clearly an abortion-inducing drug. The misconception that EC is a method of abortion must be corrected. For example, in some cases, pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for ECPs, presumably because they believe they are facilitating abortion. Wal-Mart, one of the country's largest drug retailers, has decided to not sell ECPs. A concerted public education effort is needed to make more people both aware and properly informed of EC in the US. Educational efforts targeted to physicians and women over the past several years appear to have already resulted in a marked increase in the knowledge and use of EC nationwide. Those efforts were likely bolstered by the 1998 US Food and Drug Administration approval, for the first time, of an oral contraception regimen to be packaged and marketed in the US specifically for postcoital use.