KALAMAZOO, MI—College students are facing high prices for birth control leaving health centers and pharmacists concerned that the use of contraception will stop completely.
Oral contraceptive prices have gone from being $15-20 to anywhere from $25-50 a pack. College students and women alone are wondering what’s behind this absurd price increase. The reason: the 2005 deficit-reduction bill prohibits manufacturers from supplying nominally priced contraceptives to health centers. What this means is that the manufacturers must sell contraceptives to colleges and health centers at retail prices with no price reduction. Therefore making us pay twice as much than we normally would.
Pharmacist Bill Green said “prices were kept low in the beginning of the semester because we (Sindecuse) bought Ortho Tri-Cyclen in bulk and had almost a year and a half worth of supply.”
Green said “now that we have run out, prices have become significantly more expensive.”The biggest fear in most people, seeing such an increase in prices of contraceptives is that women may decide to fore-go the use of contraceptives altogether.
Halley Dlyphe, an intern for Planned Parenthood and a student at Western Michigan University said, “All materials have said nationally a drop has been seen in hormonal contraception. Fear is that the raise in cost would lead to unplanned pregnancies.”
“Sindecuse Health Center has seen an increase in condom sales as well and has started to see a decrease in contraceptive sales,” said Bill Green.
In August, the FDA approved an alternative form of birth control to become available over-the-counter. This pill is a form of Emergency Contraception called, “the morning after” pill. It is a form of abortion pill and has been used in the past to help women if they had a condom break.
This pill is a high dosage form of birth control that can be taken up to 72-hours after intercourse to prevent or terminate pregnancy. The problem with doing this is health centers and pharmacists fear it promotes the idea that it’s acceptable to partake in unprotected sex.
This pill can have major side effects depending upon how often you take it and if the does are properly administered. It can potentially make the woman feel as though she has actually had an abortion.
Other controversies over the “morning after pill” or Emergency Contraception are should it be sold to men.
Bill Green says, “Typically when I see a guy buying it over the counter his girlfriend is standing with him or sitting down in the waiting room. I feel that they are doing it to be responsible when I see that.”
Not all men are buying Emergency Contraception with their girlfriends though. A big worry is that because it is so easily obtainable (valid ID, over 18 and $30), that men may start to buy it as a replacement for condoms and coerce women to use it that way.
Sindecuse Health Center has not seen sales increase for Emergency Contraception and they do not encourage use. Planned Parenthood, however, encourages the use of Emergency Contraception for alternatives if necessary because it is easily obtained.
Dlyphe said, “Planned Parenthood encourages the use of Emergency Contraception but does not feel its okay to make that your main source of contraception.”
Planned Parenthood cannot even sell most contraceptives for a low cost anymore. Planned Parenthood used to accept donations based on a person’s age and insurance situation.
Halley Dlyphe said “Prices are on a sliding scale they assess what you can afford and you pay what you can afford prices are different for everyone.” However they still are not cheap prices. To go and buy generic brands of birth control at Planned Parenthood, you still pay at the very least $25!
You may see flyers around Western Michigan University that say “You think gas prices are high? Have you seen the price of birth control?” This flyer is for a group, created by Planned Parenthood called VOX.
Halley Dlyphe is head of this group at WMU however it is a nationwide group. It stands for Voices for Planned Parenthood and its purpose is to educate and inspire college students to advocate reproductive freedom. The main point of the group is women’s health issues; birth control and sex education.
Vox is fairly new to WMU and was started by Halley Dlyphe in January of 2008. It is a national group and University of Michigan, Michigan State, Central, Wayne State and Nothern University all partake in the group as well.
Halley said “VOX is originally corresponded by Barrack Obama and Stabenow and Levin are among 32 senators already to sign this act.”
The goal for the VOX group at WMU is to try to get about five hundred signatures on a petition in pieces.
“We are having students fill out postcards in shapes of birth control and going to Senator Upton’s office to drop them off,” Halley said, “we want him to know that we want him to represent us for this act to make birth control affordable to college students."
Birth Control is something that is very beneficial to all women sexually active or not. It lets women make responsible decisions if they are having sex and is more effective than a condom. Birth control prevents pregnancies and is less expensive than paying for an unwanted pregnancy.
“I think everyone wins when you are responsible so it is very important for birth control to be affordable,” Halley said, “Senators need to wrap there heads around that and not the labels of birth control being associated with sex because people are going to have sex with or without it and they need to be protected.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment