BBC NEWS | Americas | Pharmacists 'denying birth control'

"'More and more pharmacists do not want to hand over the birth control package and feel that it is within their rights to lecture women about their morals,' said Judy Waxman of the National Women's Law Centre in Washington DC.

A very small and very loud minority is trying to thwart women from getting their basic health care needs

'There are many incidences of pharmacists not giving back the prescription so that the women can fill it somewhere else.'

At a Brooks pharmacy in Laconia, New Hampshire, Suzanne Richards, a 21-year-old single mother with a 3-year-old son, was denied the morning after pill because of the pharmacist's religious convictions."

He told Richards he would not fill her prescription because "it would end the fertilisation process of the egg in the embryo" and, based upon his religious beliefs, it was wrong.

It was Saturday night in this rural town - all other pharmacies were closed, leaving Richards without an option.

Richards says she felt "humiliated and traumatised", and was too frightened to approach another pharmacist the next day, allowing the 72-hour limit for taking the pill to pass.

Clearly these pharmacists should be thrown out of the practice for prefessional faults.

And, BTW, this is getting big airplay in Europe. The image of American as a dreamland is just about forgotten over here.