After an emotional debate, the state Assembly voted Thursday night to make Wisconsin the first state in the country to move toward banning the so-called morning-after pill on state college campuses.

The Assembly passed, 49-to-41, a bill that would prohibit University of Wisconsin System health centers from advertising, prescribing or dispensing emergency contraception _ drugs that can block a pregnancy in the days after sex. The bill goes to the state Senate.

Democrats say the bill is unconstitutional and so vaguely worded it could stop U-W pharmacies from dispensing all forms of birth control to thousands of college students.

But backers deny that.

Republican Representative Daniel LeMahieu of Oostburg says the focus is the morning-after pill, which he compared to chemical abortion.

He introduced the bill after a health clinic serving UW-Madison students published ads in campus newspapers inviting students to call for prescriptions of the drug to use on spring break.

Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, says he'll veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)