Yolen says Planned Parenthood decided to give away the packets (a $35 value) to help publicize the availability of this birth control method. A woman takes the two pills 12 hours apart within five days of unprotected sex to prevent ovulation, but it's most effective within the first 24 hours, she adds.

Despite numerous approvals from panels of experts that it be made available over the counter, highly placed bureaucrats within the Bush administration stalled for years. A compromise was finally reached earlier this year, when Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Patty Murray held up the confirmation of the current commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration until it was approved for sale to women 18 and older. Younger women can get it, but need a prescription.

Opponents fear that easier access to the pills will encourage promiscuity. Some have even claimed that Plan B "" a concentrated dose of the ingredients in birth control pills that have been available for decades "" is an abortifacient (a cause of abortion).

Yolen said it can be defined that way only by people who consider any attempt to regulate fertility to be abortion. She wishes the two sides could come together to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Click here to listen to her statement.

She said that while it was a prescription-only drug, the Planned Parenthood clinics around the state have offered 26,000 units to their patients in 2006, mostly through word of mouth. By mid-day, she said she didn't know how many women had taken advantage of the free offer.

Yolen said Plan B may one day replace daily birth-control pills, as women opt for birth control on an "as needed" basis.