DeKALB - An Illinois pharmacist who objects to a state mandate requiring pharmacies to dispense emergency birth control will be able to present his arguments to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Luke Vander Bleek, a Morrison pharmacist who owns a majority share of two DeKalb County pharmacies and also owns pharmacies in Whiteside County, opposes the so-called "morning after" pill on moral and medical grounds.

If taken within 72 hours of intercourse, the "morning-after pill" - a higher dose of regular hormonal contraception - significantly reduces a woman's chance of becoming pregnant by preventing ovulation or fertilization and interfering with implantation of a fertilized egg.

"I don't believe the product is fit for human consumption," Vander Bleek said. "I believe it can have negative effects on a live human embryo. I believe the science is not really clearly convincing that it doesn't."

While an appellate court denied the lawsuit earlier this year, the Illinois Supreme Court has decided to hear the case to decide whether he has legal standing to raise the objection.

In rejecting Vander Bleek's claim earlier this year, appellate court judges said pharmacists had other ways to resolve the issue, so the court didn't review the actual merits of the case.

Arguments in the Supreme Court won't come for months, and a final decision could take months after that.

Vander Bleek initially filed the lawsuit against Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the state in 2005 after the governor issued an executive order that forced pharmacies to dispense the morning-after pill.

Three companies are plaintiffs in the suit: Morr-Fitz Inc., which owns the Whiteside County pharmacies; L. Doyle Inc., which owns the DeKalb County pharmacies; and Kosirog Rexall Pharmacy in Chicago.

Vander Bleek argued the governor's mandate violates the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, which allows health care providers to opt out of procedures on moral or religious grounds.

"I make no attempt to interfere with your interest or pursuit of any of these therapies," he said. "But I shouldn't be compelled to help you do something I find to be morally unconscionable."

The pharmacies Vander Bleek owns stock traditional oral contraceptives, and no more than four requests have been made for the morning-after pill, he said.

The morning-after pill is not health care, Vander Bleek argued, and a healthy pregnancy is not an illness. A strong health care argument should be required for a government to compel a pharmacist to do something he or she finds unconscionable, he said, and he doesn't see that argument in this case.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.