New York Times reports that in Albany, the NY State Senate have voted to make that state a leader in shifting the ground on the contraception and abortion debate – by making morning after contraception available to women without a prescription.

Passed in the middle of the night with the assent of the state’s most powerful Republican lawmakers, the bill had already passed the Assembly and will now make its way to Governor Pataki. The Governor, who still seems interested in thinking about a bid for the Presidency or to return as Governor, was noncommittal on the question of his signing the bill into law.

Of course there is always the problem of the Fed:

The federal Food and Drug Administration has declined to allow the pill to be sold over the counter, even though two of its advisory committees voted in 2003 that it should be … The bill would allow pharmacists and registered nurses who choose to participate to obtain blanket prescriptions from doctors, naming no individual patient, for the morning-after pill. The pharmacists and nurses could then dispense the pills to women and girls of any age. Proponents say the measure will help women get the pill early enough to be effective on weekends, when seeing a doctor can be difficult.

[Republican] Senator Spano, who argued on the floor that the bill would reduce unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortions, said afterward that it was “the most difficult and controversial bill” that he had sponsored in his 27 years as a legislator.