What women really want for Valentine's day

Massachussetts State Pharmacy Board votes to require Wal-Mart to stock emergency birth control.

A Wal-Mart spokesman said the company would comply with the directive by the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy and is reviewing its nationwide policy on the drug.

"Clearly women's health is a high priority for Wal-Mart," spokesman Dan Fogleman said. "We are actively thinking through the issue."

Wal-Mart now carries the pill only in Illinois, where it is required to do so under state law.

Clearly, however, women's health--as opposed to, oh, not being sued--is a high priority for them. Which is, of course, why so many of their women employees don't have employer-provided health care. They're givers, those folks at Wal-Mart.

The real heroes, of course, are Katrina McCarty, Julia Battel, and Dr. Rebekah Gee--the three women who, with backing from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, Planned Parenthood Massachusetts, and Jane Doe, Inc. (the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence), filed the lawsuit that forced the issue. Their lawyer, Sam Perkins, says that if Wal-Mart, in its magnanimous concern for women's health, should decide not to stock Plan B nationwide, he is prepared to follow up in other states as soon as they find women who are willing to file suit.

Sadly, I don't know Mr. Perkins' phone number. But I bet he's in the book.