"Richmond-AP -The state's public colleges and universitites aren't violating Virginia's informed consent law by dispensing 'morning after' birth-control pills to students, an attorney general's memorandum sent to the schools Friday says.

The guidance from a top assistant to Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore was in response to letters to the colleges from Del. Robert Gl Marshall that criticized the dispensing of the emergency contraceptives to women on state college campuses.

Marshall, the legislature's most prolific author of anti-abortion legislation, also suggested in the letter that schools could be violating a state law requiring that women seeking abortions receive information about the procedure and wait 24 hours.

In a memo obtained by the Associated Press, Kilgore's office disagreed.

'It is therefore the advice of this office that the informed consent provisions do not apply in the dispensing of this prescription medication, but that student health centers still have the duty to provide clear and complete information about prescribed medications to students,' senior assistant Attorney General Ronald C. Forehand wrote.

Marshall's letter contended the pills cause abortions, but advocates of reproductive rights and physicians say the pills work by preventing ovulation.

James Madison University's Board of Visitors last month banned the distribution of the morning after pills on its campus in response to Marshall's letters.

Forehand wrote that for the informed consent law to apply, 'the pregnancy of the woman must first be established.' Because women seek the drug within hours after having unprotected sexual intercourse, it's not known whether they are pregnant.

The issue is further complicated by competing definitions of pregnancy, Forehand wrote. Medical and legal texts and dictionaries differ on wehter it begins at conception or whether it begins when an embryo attaches within the womb.

Marshall said Forehand's analysis had revealed a loophole for morning after drugs in the informed consent law and said he would offer legislation next year to close it.

'They interpret this so that if the doctor doesn't prove a pregnancy, you don't have to inform the woman' about the effects of the drug, Marshall said.

'But let's pretent that it's 10 weeks later, and then the doctor would be able to get around informed consent because he didn't do a pregnancy test,' Marshall said.

He said he was grateful the memo strongly cautioned school medical officials that they had an obligation to inform students about medications they dispense, and their need 'to make clear the possibilities inherent with 'emergency contraception.'

The decision of whether to dispence emergency contraceptives, Forehand said, is a policy decision each college's board of visitors would have to resolve individually.

Bennet Greenberg, government affairds director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, called the ruling a clever balance that would appease abortion opponents and abortion rights groups such as his.

The attorney general was in a lose-lose situation with this and he tried to minimize the impact to both sides,' Greenberg said. 'I am pleased that he didn't interpret emergency contraception in the way that Delegate Marshall and others wanted him to." (The Daily Progress, May 10, 2003)