The morning-after pill is coming to a convenience store near you

Morning-after pills are now stocked at thousands of highway gas stations, corner delis and 24-hour convenience stores in 48 states.

Convenience stores are aptly named. They’re stocked with essentials people need at all hours of the day or night, everything from a quart of milk to a package of condoms. But they haven’t stocked contraception for women.

That’s slowly and steadily changing as an Oakland, California-based company, Cadence, has spent the last year stocking highway gas stations, corner delis and 24-hour convenience stores with its own emergency contraception brand called “Morning After Pill,” which prevents pregnancy by delaying ovulation if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex or a birth control mishap.

The first morning-after pills, single doses of levonorgestrel, hit convenience store shelves in Texas in March 2024. Since then, according to company executives, the pills are in 11,000 locations in 48 states. South Dakota and Hawaii are the last holdouts. A ZIP code search found the product everywhere from an E-Z Mart in San Antonio to a deli in Walla Walla, Washington.

Kate Voyten, the company’s senior vice president of commercial operations, said that Cadence, which is also seeking Food and Drug Administration approval for its over-the-counter regular birth control pill, is trying to make it easier for women to control their sexual health.

“Our original goal was to transform contraception,” she said. “Get it everywhere there is a condom.”