Nathan News

Many colleges pride themselves on providing a range of sexual and reproductive health services to their students, including birth control, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and even insurance coverage to terminate a pregnancy.

What they usually don’t offer is abortion, either by the pill or by a procedure. For this, they refer students to other clinics or medical practices.

For some students, this standard of care is no longer sufficient, not with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. They want colleges to expand abortion access, reduce stress and barriers, and give women more autonomy and control over the process.

The most important thing on many of their wish lists: medication to end an unwanted pregnancy.

Niharika Rao, a senior at Barnard College in New York who uses her pronouns, said students had demanded medical abortion be available on campus: “Student access to abortion is stigmatized and politicized,” they said.

Medical abortion involves taking two types of pills, federally approved for use in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. It is different from the morning after pill, which is more widely available at student health centers and can be taken to block a pregnancy before it begins.

A few colleges, including the University of Illinois at Chicago, already offer the abortion pill. The University of Massachusetts Amherst plans to start offering it in the fall. In California, a new law requires all public universities in the state to offer medical abortions on campus by January; some campuses, such as Berkeley, have already started doing so.

But due to the fluctuating landscape of abortion law and complicated politics, it will be difficult to persuade more universities to offer medical abortions.

Colleges in states with restrictive abortion laws, such as Missouri, may not be able to offer it legally. Other universities, especially publicly funded ones in states with changing laws, don’t want to end up on the wrong side of the law.

Even in states that protect abortion rights, colleges proceed with caution. According to administrators at several colleges who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, providing the abortion pill on campus rather than sending students elsewhere involves colleges in a personal medical decision, sometimes emotionally and physically trying.

Administrators say colleges need to be prepared for students who will feel stressed, as well as those who will feel relief from the process. They must have the ability to provide emergency medical care. And they must take into account that protesters may show up at the door of the university health center and be prepared to offer security and privacy to women who walk inside.

“There are valid safety concerns,” said Dr. Guy W. Nicolette, associate vice chancellor for academic health services at the University of California, Berkeley. Also, he said, “not all providers feel competent or comfortable doing this.”

But Dr. Nicolette said that overall, Berkeley Health Services thought offering medical abortion on campus, with counseling, was the sensible approach. “Because of our connection to campus, we try to be the trusted source of health care for students, recognizing that this is often their first time away from home, the first time they access healthcare. health outside their homes,” he said.

Cost is also an issue. In California, the new law does not pay for the abortion pill and students must pay through insurance or cash. Community colleges are exempt from the requirement to provide medical abortion, although a 2021 study estimated that these students sought 865 to 1,109 medical abortions per month. According to data from the US Department of Education, women who have a child while in college are less likely to graduate than those who don’t.

Women in their 20s account for more than half of abortions, or about 57%, according to 2019 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to a 2018 study by University of California researchers and published in The Journal of Adolescent Health, some 300 to 500 public college students in California requested medical abortions each month. As many as 62% of students in the system were more than half an hour by public transit from the nearest abortion provider. The average cost of a medical abortion was $604 and the average wait time for the first appointment was one week, which could tip the pregnancy beyond the approved 10-week window in which the drug can be prescribed.

“It happens a lot – people are pushed into another term while they wait for a referral from the student health center,” said Cindy Cruz, Western States program director for Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, an advocacy group.

Students who must travel to a remote abortion clinic may also miss classes and work, said Z Zenobia, a graduate student at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, a campus in a rural area where access abortion services is limited.

“Having to travel an hour round trip and an hour back by bus, that could miss an entire lab,” Mx said. Zenobia, who also lobbied for abortion services to be more sensitive to transgender students.

At Barnard College and Columbia University, where abortion rights are not under threat, student activists who requested medical abortions through the university’s health department were not satisfied with the institutional response.

Columbia provided them with a standard academic document that said, “Private doctors’ offices are generally less crowded, have shorter wait times, offer more privacy, and feel more personal. Clinics or non-profit organizations such as Planned Parenthood may allow for greater anonymity.

Mx. Rao, the Barnard student, said students seeking abortions often go to Planned Parenthood clinics in Lower Manhattan or the Bronx, which are targets of anti-abortion protesters who include classmates.

“I would say it’s more anonymous to go to your campus clinic,” Mx said. said Rao.

Mx. Rao said a meeting with a Barnard health administrator last week made them a bit more optimistic.

Barnard said through a spokesperson that he is committed to working with students and local organizations to “strengthen” reproductive health care, including pregnancy termination, and “to figure out what that looks like in a post-Roe environment.”

Universities are also rebuffed by opponents of abortion.

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion organization, said offering medical abortion on campus creates the risk of complications, such as an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy. “I just don’t think it should be handed out like aspirin on college campuses to young girls who may not be aware of what’s going on,” she said.

Grace Lake, a nursing student at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, said Roe’s reversal has strengthened anti-abortion activists on campus. She is the secretary of a newly formed group, Students for Life, which lobbies the university’s chancellor for daycare services for students with children.

“From my point of view, there is no reason why there should be access available for students to end the life of their child, especially if it is through the school. “, she said.

In states where abortion laws could become stricter, students are trying to find alternatives. At Michigan State University, some students fear their access to abortion in the state is tenuous due to a 1931 law, currently stalled in court, that criminalizes nearly all types of abortion.

They were not reassured when Samuel L. Stanley Jr., president of the university, said in a statement that reproductive health care was a “basic human right” while acknowledging a “diversity of opinions” on the question.

“I was like, this is just not enough,” said Lana Heaney, a rising junior who organized a rally.

For now, Ms. Heaney said, the women are working on a “backup plan” – a push to distribute contraceptives and a plan B on campus in case the law goes into effect.

Activists also hope that abortion doulas can support women taking medication for abortion. This year, Advocates for Youth, a reproductive health group, helped train 100 people — three-quarters of whom are current or recent college students — to become abortion doulas. These doulas will provide information and emotional support to those undergoing an abortion.

“Practical support is really increasing — the trips, the shelter, the funds, and all the different logistical elements needed to make access to abortion care possible,” said Tamara Marzouk, director of abortion access at Advocates for Youth.

Caitlyn Bull, who will be a senior at Oberlin College in the fall, has been part of the Oberlin Doula collective, which is not officially affiliated with the school, since her freshman year. “It was really cool to see the campus community rally around this work,” she said.

The college, she said, had sent messages that supported reproductive rights, “but we live in a hostile state.”

In the more volatile post-Roe landscape, abortion rights advocates also need to be careful — just as careful as universities. They are trained on how to “share” information about self-managed abortion – not to train people on how to do it – because “sharing” is legal, Ms Marzouk said.

“When we risk giving medical advice or saying, ‘You should do this or do that’, that could be construed as medical or legal advice,” she said, “and that deflects into an area at risk.”

Kitty Bennett contributed to the research.