The so‐called ‘morning‐after pill’ is a drug that prevents pregnancy if taken no later than 72 hours after presumably fertile sexual intercourse. This article argues against a right of conscientious objection for pharmacists with regard to dispensing this drug. Some arguments that might be advanced in support of this right will be considered and rejected. Section 2 argues that from a philosophical point of view, the most relevant question is not whether the morning‐after pill prevents implantation nor is it whether preventing implantation is tantamount to abortion. Section 3 suggests a more general philosophical question as most pertinent, namely whether and to what extent a pharmacist can justifiably be exempted from dispensing the morning‐after pill when to do so would entail participating in something that goes against his or her deepest moral or religious convictions. Section 4 explains why, within liberal institutions, pharmacists should not have the right to conscientious objection to dispensing the morning‐after pill.

Procurement from Big Science Centers (BSC) yields a variety of spillover effects that can ultimately have growth enhancing consequences for their partner countries. We study the determinants of procurement for the biggest research infrastructure ever built: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Using a unique cross-section database of firms that have registered to become industrial partners of the LHC program, we estimate the determinants for potential suppliers of receiving an order from CERN. We compare the relative weight of firms' technological features and CERN's procurement rules aimed at securing a juste retour for its Member States. Our results point to a strong impact of technological factors, while also highlighting the importance of political constraints related with CERN's procurement rules as well as the presence of a home bias. Since the constraints related with the achievement of a juste retour affect-directly or indirectly-the procurement policy of many European BSCs, our results have policy implications that go beyond the CERN case study.

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