Boston University puts generic 'Plan B' vending machine on campus
Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins on why she opposes a vending machine for emergency contraception at Boston University.
Parents packing up students for college soon have many fears. Will their children make the most of their wildly expensive journey? Will they meet people who help or hurt them? Time will tell, as we sadly know some classes won’t be worth the virtual paper on which activist professors conjugate nonsense. Still, a serious problem on campuses today isn’t just that studying Taylor Swift seems to be more about a professor getting paid than preparing students for life, it’s that politics masquerading as consensus communicates some truly bad ideas.
Case in point, the recent obsession with putting Plan B Vending Machines on college and university campuses as some kind of miracle drug in a post-Roe America. An anti-baby, anti-family bias permeates many campuses exposing students to risks and dangers they are either not told about or told to ignore.
This bad idea is gaining traction, which Students for Life of America has confronted from sea to shining sea, in Florida,Massachusetts, Washington and beyond, leading us to create a Toolkit for students worried for their peers. Fox reports, "There are now 39 universities in 17 states with emergency contraceptive vending machines, and at least 20 more considering them, according to the American Society for Emergency Contraception."
This isn’t new. Reckless distribution of Plan B was opposed by then President Barack Obama, who worried about selling such drugs next to candy as young girls "may not be able to understand the medicine's labeling or use the pill properly," noted the Associated Press in 2011.
COLLEGES BEGIN TO USE VENDING MACHINES TO SELL MORNING-AFTER PILL
Nothing says casual distribution like life-ending drugs next to the soda machine to help wash them down.
Reporters covering this story often ask me if Plan B is better than nothing. No, it’s not – it’s much worse.
The social construct of the abortion lobby preaches that the only "bad" consequence of sex is the presence or absence of a baby. This is leading to the casual distribution of Plan B exposing young women to dangerous people, to unknown physical consequences, and to the current epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
First, dangerous people. It’s a bit schizophrenic for campuses to condemn rape culture and sexual pressure, grappling with Title IX protections for the abused, while also ensuring that sexual bullies have easy access to a product that covers up their crimes. A medical community that cared about women would want to make sure women were not being coerced and fully informed about the drugs offered. Instead, news sites are littered with stories of abusers using the drugs to hide from their crimes.
Second, informed consent. Usually, healthcare providers tell you about what drugs will do to you … unless, apparently, it impacts your fertility. Women should know that right on the box, it’s explained Plan B can prevent a new life from implanting in the womb, notes the Mayo Clinic. Such life-ending properties need to be understood by the young women sold the drugs, along with better information on the effects of repeated doses of a mega hormone cocktail that can "turn your hormones upside down." Even proponents of it acknowledge a lack of thorough testing.
It's tragically fascinating to see an acne drug, Accutane, so closely controlled because it can impact the preborn, while medical professionals hide from the scientific reality of how Plan B or a copper IUD (also used in a Plan B like way, according to the CDC) can end young life.
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A person demonstrates how to purchase a carton out of the "morning-after" pill, Plan-B, vending machine that sits in the basement of the student union building on the Boston University Campus in Boston, Massachusetts on July 26, 2022. - Each carton contains a single pill and cost $7.25 US and is available at all times to students. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images) (JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
Third, lifetime STDs. Consider that today, one in five Americans has an STD, according to the CDC. About half of new cases are suffered by the college age cohort with a cost of $16 Billion in direct medical care costs. Add to that the epidemic of new cases, with some drug resistant and incurable, and the social costs of pretending that pregnancy is the only impact really add up.
When it comes to sex, school officials seem determined to assume that while teaching the next generation is their job of choice, they can’t explain good relationship advice or health information that doesn’t embrace a Planned Parenthood mindset.
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That’s not the approach taken with other known – even dangerous – behaviors among college students. Despite their defeatist attitudes on sex, schools don’t offer drunk driving classes, BYOB, so students can practice avoiding pedestrians.
A condom, Plan B, or the pill can’t protect anyone from a broken heart. Celebrating the kind of relationship skills that lead to home and family is important for individuals and the nation as this anti-baby, even anti-family bias may explain our shrinking population.
There is so much more to building a life than what the vending machine salespeople will admit to, and so much more risk for young people than they are being told. Plan B Vending machines are a mistake that colleges don’t have to make.