U-WIRE) UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The morning-after pill may soon become available without a prescription, and members of the Pennsylvania State University community have mixed reactions to the change.

The manufacturer of Plan B, one of the two commonly used brands of emergency contraception pills, applied for permission from the Food and Drug Administration to grant the pill over-the-counter status last week. ECPs are already available without prescription in certain parts of Alaska, California and Washington, as well as in several European countries.

Many staff members at local women’s health facilities say they are in favor of having the morning-after pill available without a prescription.

“I support it. I think anything that gives women easier access to medication is [a good idea],” said Shelly Haffner, nurse manager at the University Health Services Women’s Health Clinic. “It’s a way for women to help prevent unwanted pregnancies.”

She said UHS has had Plan B available by prescription for years.

“There has been strong support to have it stocked here at UHS,” she said.

If the FDA approves the pill as a nonprescription drug, individual pharmacies can decide not to stock it if they do not want to make an ECP available over the counter, she said. But she said UHS would most likely continue to stock it so students would be able to buy it without a prescription.

Planned Parenthood of Susquehanna Valley, 253 Easterly Parkway, also offers Plan B and supports making it available over the counter, said health center manager Paula Nossek.

“It’s the best idea ever,” she said. “Everyone in Planned Parenthood, federally and locally, wants this to happen. We are all for it, because women should not be denied access to birth control choices like this.”

She said it has a shelf life of three years, so if it becomes available over the counter, women would be able to buy it and have it at home in case of an emergency.

“You are not anticipating the condom to break,” she said. “This way, you wouldn’t have to rearrange your life. You could just go to your medicine cabinet and take [the pill].”

She also said recent studies have shown it is 90 percent effective for up to 120 hours after conception. However, since birth control methods that are used regularly and prior to intercourse are more than 99 percent effective, she said she does not think women will become more dependent on ECPs if they become available over the counter.

“When girls come in and take the morning-after pill, most of them say, ‘I’m so glad I took that pill, but I’d rather go on a regular birth control pill now,'” Nossek said. “I don’t think many women would say, ‘[The morning-after pill] is my method of birth control.'”

“Taking it repeatedly is not good for anyone’s overall well-being,” she said.

But she said it is safe to use in the event of an emergency because it is made of pure progesterone, a hormone that is manufactured naturally in a woman’s body and that functions to tell the body when it becomes pregnant.

“The pill basically tells the body, ‘Sorry, we’re already pregnant,’ so it doesn’t allow the fertilized egg to implant into the wall of the uterus,” she said. “It is not an abortion pill. A lot of doctors won’t [prescribe] it because they don’t understand that.”

However, some people believe that life starts at conception, and therefore the morning-after pill is a form of early abortion.

“I believe in life from conception, and the morning-after pill keeps the developing baby from being able to implant in the mother’s womb, so it causes an abortion,” Andrea Staargaard, a freshman majoring in marketing and international business, said.

She described herself as “pro-life.”

She said she does not think the pill should be made available without a prescription.

“I don’t think [the pill] should be used at all, but since it is, it should only be under the supervision of a doctor,” she said. “Not many people take out the little pamphlet to see what it says.”

She also said she thinks it poses risks to the woman’s health, including medical complications, emotional after-effects and ethical dilemmas.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.