As contraception and women’s rights become increasingly more talked about issues on the federal level, college students could be a large population affected by national policy surrounding them.
Between 2015 and 2017, 65% of women in the United States ages 15-49 were using some form of contraception, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“If young people want to prevent pregnancy, and they're sexually active, it's extraordinarily important that they're educated on different means of contraception, the safety and effectiveness of each means,” Jacqueline Wolf, a social medicine professor, said. “That is very important for reproductive health.”
Wolf said through the Affordable Care Act passed during the Obama Administration, all health insurance policies are required to fully cover reproductive health.
“There are many valuable stipulations in the Affordable Care Act. That's one of the lesser known ones, and it's one of the most valuable,” she said. “For people who care about the rate of abortion, for example, they should support the Affordable Care Act. The fact that women's health, all women's contraception is covered that you get through your physician, all contraceptive costs are covered 100%, that's actually brought the abortion rate down. Now women are able to access contraception more easily, without cost to themselves.”
Wolf also said the Affordable Care Act supports those with pre-existing conditions and covers those who are on their parents policies until the age of 26. The Trump Administration has sued to have the Affordable Care Act deemed unconstitutional, and Wolf said people should be worried about it possibly disappearing altogether.
“We have two generations of women now who don’t know what it was like to be young and a college student before Roe v. Wade, or even before the guarantees of the Affordable Care Act, which has been around now for about 6 years,” Wolf said. “You don’t know what it was like to have a pregnancy that you didn’t want, to be shamed. The amount of shame in a pregnancy when you weren’t married was enormous, right through the 1970s.”
Wolf said the kinds of protections put in place for women’s reproductive rights should not be taken for granted, especially with the current threats on the national level and even in the state of Ohio.
In 2019, Gov. Mike DeWine signed the “heartbeat bill” into law, which banned abortion when a fetal heartbeat could be detected. However, the law is unenforceable as of right now unless the U.S. Supreme Court rules otherwise.
Jane Balbo, professor of family medicine, said Hudson Health Center will provide medical services and contraception regardless of what happens on the national level, but it will be the students’ individual policies that will be affected.
“All of our patients are college students, and they all come to us with a variety of health insurance policies,” Balbo said. “The policy determines whether or not birth control is covered.”
Balbo said Hudson provides a full range of services to students regarding reproductive health, including consultations and both physical and hormonal contraceptives. Through consultations, all contraceptive options are discussed, factoring in things such as past medical history and pre-existing conditions.
“We know that in our education system, people have a variety of backgrounds in what they know about their bodies, what they've learned about sex, what they've learned about pregnancy and how to prevent it, what they've about learned STIs,” she said. “Everything from fully comprehensive sexual health education since kindergarten to the other end of the spectrum, which is, it's not talked about or it's talked about in a way that is very sex negative and is abstinence-only education. In many communities that's what's available. So college students come to college with a range of knowledge, attitudes, skills and experiences, some of which — especially when we're talking about things like knowledge and skills — may be incorrect or unsafe, or just not accurate”
Balbo said the U.S. Supreme Court has passed a decision in which employers no longer have to provide 100% coverage of contraception. This follows a decision from 2018, in which employers can choose not to provide coverage on religious grounds.
Balbo said she has noticed that since the most recent decision, which was last summer, more students have found out contraceptives are not covered.
“My encouragement is any student who is curious if their current health insurance plan covers contraception to call their insurance and find out ... and, will it continue to cover contraception after December 31, 2020?” Balbo said.
Even if you don’t currently use contraception but there is a possibility you may ever want or need to use it in the future, it’s important to be aware of what’s going on now, Balbo said.
If you want to schedule a consultation appointment, call 740-592-7176.
On-campus organizations such as POWER/GAMMA also work to educate students on birth control and safe sex.
“I think a big thing right now is that the field of reproductive health from a science perspective is kind of always changing and we always have these new forms of birth control that are coming out,” Rachel Pinney, an OU graduate assistant and former member of POWER/GAMMA said. “What we really try to do is just provide them with all of the facts and in addition to that, provide medically accurate information, which is really, really important when we're doing comprehensive health programs.”
Pinney said even if some students feel like these issues don’t concern them, they realize that behavior change is difficult, but it can be easier when the information is coming from your peers.
“I think right now we're trying to kind of get away from this narrative that like, you shouldn't be concerned about something just because it doesn't directly affect you, “ Pinney said. “I know that that's a lot easier said than done, but I think that that's why like this kind of holistic education approach, and this comprehensive education approach to teaching about just women's health in general is so important.”
Pinney said POWER/GAMMA tries to emphasize the fact that resources like birth control and Planned Parenthood provide so much more than just contraceptives and abortion services. The organization does many different education programs throughout campus and works with sororities, the Women’s Center and the LGBT Center on campus.
Pinney said that the majority of the resources are on the health promotion website and that they are engaged in virtual programs right now.
“This isn't necessarily a political issue anymore. It's almost becoming like a civil rights issue for women for and for reproductive health,” Pinney said.
