Morality isn’t a black-and-white issue.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Jeanne Scott upheld a Wal-Mart pharmacist’s right to refuse to dispense Plan B, an emergency contraceptive. Wal-Mart put pharmacist Ethan Vandersand on unpaid leave in 2006 after he refused to provide Plan B to a Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner, requesting the medication on behalf of a female patient.

Scott ruled that Vandersand was protected under the Illinois Right of Conscience Act, legislation that allows pharmacists – and other health care workers – to refuse medical services on moral grounds.

Scott additionally clarified a 2005 order by Gov. Rod Blagojevich that required pharmacies to dispense birth control and emergency contraceptives. Scott determined it is up to the pharmacies, not the pharmacists, to comply with the Blagojevich’s ruling, and that pharmacists were covered by the Right of Conscience Act.

In other words, Vandersand did nothing illegal.

Legality aside, forcing pharmacies to comply both with the governor’s ruling and the Right of Conscience Act is contradictory.

By legislating morality, the original issue – a woman’s right to health care – becomes muddled.

The Right of Conscience Act implies that one set of beliefs takes precedence over another, allowing a health care worker to deny services because their beliefs differ with a patient’s.

However, to say Vandersand acted immorally by refusing health care to the woman is merely the same problem, reversed. In both situations, one person’s set of beliefs is valued more than the other’s.

This issue, then, is purely a medical one.

Though the Right of Conscience Act applies to the dispensing of standard birth control as well, it is more crucial that a woman have access to Plan B.

It is, after all, true to its name. Plan B comes with the caveat that it not be used as a regular form of birth control, that it is a back-up contraceptive to be used when, for whatever reason, other forms of birth control may have failed.

Because Plan B is effective only if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, a woman should not be prevented from obtaining the emergency contraceptive. Any delay could reduce the effectiveness of the pill, and further compound the risk of pregnancy.

To punish a woman for acting “immorally” is fruitless. She has already had sex. Those decisions shouldn’t allow a pharmacist to come between that woman and her right to medical care.

Access to emergency contraception shouldn’t be clouded by moral shades of gray.