TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - Pharmacists and drug store owners in Washington can still refuse to sell the "morning-after pill" if they have religious objections to the emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton's decision, a defeat for Gov. Chris Gregoire, is the latest twist in long-running legal and political battles over the morning-after pill, which is sold as Plan B.

The pill is a high dose of a drug found in many regular birth-control pills, and can dramatically lower the risk of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg; it also may prevent the egg from implanting into the uterus, though some research suggests that's unlikely.

Critics consider the pill tantamount to abortion, although it is different from the abortion pill RU-486 and has no effect on women who already are pregnant.

Rules adopted by the state last year said a patient's right to purchase Plan B trumped any pharmacist's or drug store owner's moral objections to the pill's interference with potential pregnancy.

Two druggists and an Olympia pharmacy owner sued over the rules last summer, saying their constitutional religious rights were being violated.

They asked for an exemption to the rule while the lawsuit was in motion. But Leighton went further, suspending the rules statewide because of the potential for "irreparable injury" to constitutional rights.

On Friday, Leighton refused the state's request to reinstate the Plan B sales rules for everyone but the plaintiffs.

In back-and-forth questioning with lawyers during Friday's hearing, Leighton said he sensed that wrangling over the issue is driven by bitterness between the two sides, and not by desire for good health care policy.

"I do get the impression that this is a solvable problem, and it's not an issue that anyone wants to have solved," Leighton said.

Leighton also denied a state request to hold up the underlying lawsuit while the injunction is appealed, although the judge predicted the case eventually could wind its way to the U.S. Supreme Court..

Plaintiff Kevin Stormans, a co-owner of the Stormans Inc. family grocery business in Olympia, was relieved after the hearing.

"The Constitution tells me that I should have the ability to practice what I believe is right," Stormans said.

Karen Cooper, director of Naral Pro-Choice Washington, said she was disappointed by the ruling, but not surprised. "Patient access to appropriate care should not be undermined by personal, non-medical judgments," Cooper said.

Although state lawyers suggested otherwise on Friday, Plan B was squarely at the center of the state's decision to implement the pharmacy rules.

State officials agree the government cannot regulate religious practice or beliefs, but they can can regulate business practice.

"If somebody deserves medicine because they have a medical need, a religious objection is potentially contrary," said Assistant Attorney General Alan Copsey.

But pharmacist Margo Thelen claims the effects of Plan B goes against her professional beliefs.

"Our pharmacy profession is to restore and promote and heal, by providing medications that do that, Plan B can take a life," she said. "That is the only drug that I refuse to dispense."

Thelen did say, however, that while she refuses to dispense Plan B, she refers the patient to a neighboring pharmacy.

Gregoire, a Democrat, applied public pressure to the Pharmacy Board, warning that she would replace board members who didn't follow her wishes on the issue. She later worked out the compromise rule that was approved by the Pharmacy Board.

Individual pharmacists were given a limited way around selling Plan B: passing the prescription to another druggist in the same store, provided the patient's order was filled without delay. But that left no option for a lone pharmacist, or for the owner of a pharmacy who also has religious objections to a particular drug.