I read this letter at the Capital Times today and I felt I had to clarify a couple things on this morning after pill bill. At least clarify as I see things.
Why is it so crucial that the morning after pill be offered by the UW System? Are these young college aged women incapable of going to Planned Parenthood or, gasp, an off campus doctor if there truly is an emergency? Nobody is trying to ban these women from using the morning after pill. They're just saying that the UW system cannot disperse.
This wouldn't have been a problem if the UW Health system hadn't been so flippant and irresponsible about the prescriptions. First, the ad they ran prior to Spring Break effectively encouraged unsafe activity-unprotected sex-by female students. That is hardly the message a University should be sending. Must the UW be prudes? No, but their ad was not about emergency protection, it was about partial protection from one's irresponsible behavior, i.e. unprotected sex.
Second, they were offering the morning after pill prescriptions over the phone to women who did not need it at that moment. That has to be borderline illegal. This medication contains high levels of hormones that do have an affect on womens' bodies, and thus should not be handed out flippantly. To draw an analogy, this would be like letting players on the mens' football team call in for prescriptions to Vicodin a week before they play the Rose Bowl.
Look, ladies, no one is trying to take your options away from you here. As noted above, there are other ways of getting the morning after pill that aren't all that difficult. And I don't want to hear the poor college student excuse-if you want to have sex, you can find a way to afford the ramifications. Had the University accepted its role in disbursing this medication responsibly, this wouldn't be an issue. But they didn't, so it is being taken away from them. Maybe you should direct your anger at the UW System instead.
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