Reproductive Rights at Allegheny College: A Manifesto

By Jess Durst, Marcie Langford, Maura McCarthy, and Val Schwartz

In recent months, the media have been bursting with headlines regarding issues of reproductive freedom. Debates surrounding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act are sparking feelings of heated frustration in individuals nationwide. As women in our early twenties, who have grown up assuming that our reproductive rights were more or less assured by the accomplishments of the baby boomer generation, we are quickly realizing that the freedoms granted to us as a product of Roe vs. Wade are not written in indelible ink. It seems, in fact, that those in power in our country are trying their hardest to erase our rights, right before our eyes. Why? Because they want to pretend that the elimination of possible solutions will cause the problem to disappear altogether? Well guess what-it doesn't exactly work that way.

The setting of our case study: Allegheny College, a small, private institution of higher learning located rural northwestern Pennsylvania. While the members of our campus community may appear to be upstanding young citizens, hailing from predominantly middle-class backgrounds, striving to transform their academic aspirations into realities, one would be mistaken to conjecture that these squeaky-clean youths refrain from participating in sexual activity. Let's face it-there isn't a whole hell of a lot to do in Meadville, and sex provides not only relief from stress and boredom, but also a fun way to keep warm during the long, cold winter. Sexual exploration is natural, a part of maturing and finding oneself. To imagine that it doesn't exist, to attempt to prevent it from occurring, and/or to condemn young people for satisfying their sexual curiosities solves absolutely nothing. We are fully aware that sexual activity is not exempt from negative consequences; we know, of course, that unprotected, careless sex can result in pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. We also know that unwanted children and critical health problems can ultimately become major roadblocks in our pursuit of educational endeavors.

But the truth of the matter is, sex is not going away. Authority figures cannot expect the preaching of abstinence-and-only-abstinence to stop college students from having sex. Preventing students from obtaining effective prophylactic devices such as condoms, birth control pills, and emergency contraception, or forcing students to jump through hoops to acquire these items, serves only to intensify the problem. While Allegheny's Winslow Health Center and the Meadville Family Planning Clinic have good intentions with regard to the provision of contraceptives and treatment of reproductive health concerns for students, their intentions are shunted by limited hours of operation and limited procedural options.

As members of the Allegheny College community with vested interests in the availability of reproductive healthcare options on campus-especially in light of current national news and the threat of losing the right to choose altogether-we are demanding that campus administrators reconsider the existing campus policies on student reproductive healthcare. We propose the following series of amendments, to go into effect for the next (2004-2005) academic year:

•   First and foremost, Allegheny College must establish a formalized collaborative effort through which administrators can understand the precise reproductive healthcare needs of the student body. Administrators, who are removed from the issues of student healthcare by differences in both age and circumstance, cannot possibly know the details of student reproductive health concerns without directly asking students for their input. We suggest the distribution of an anonymous survey to the entire student population as a basic first step in the administration's proactive approach to determining students' specific reproductive healthcare needs. Another key measure that Allegheny administrators can take is to contact the executive committee of Students Advocating for Reproductive Options (SARO). Open communication with this informed and active student organization will greatly increase administrators' awareness of student needs, and will help to create a concrete bond between administration and the student body.
•    Reproductive healthcare must be covered in full by Bollinger Insurance, the insurance program currently offered to Allegheny students at a discounted rate. Students are as likely to require medical treatment for reproductive concerns as for common colds and flu; therefore, the treatment they receive for reproductive concerns on-site at Winslow Health Center should be provided at no cost to them.
•    Winslow Health Center's hours of operation must be extended. If other schools (ie. Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania) can offer the funding necessary to provide on-campus student healthcare services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so must Allegheny. Although Winslow Health Center has a cooperative agreement with the Meadville Family Planning clinic, which enables students to acquire birth control, emergency contraception, and treatment for a variety of reproductive issues at the latter's facility, neither office is open during the weekends. As weekends are the times when students are most likely to require access to emergency contraception, the absence of healthcare professionals on campus or on the premises of the Family Planning clinic during these crucial times is problematic and must be remedied.
•    Clear, consistent information regarding reproductive health options on Allegheny's campus must be made available to students. With so many conflicting stories about the attitude and demeanor of Winslow Health Center staff as they respond to students' reproductive health concerns, it is no surprise that students are confused and, therefore, hesitant to seek reproductive healthcare from the campus Health Center. Allegheny administration and Health Center staff must strive to clarify students' misconceptions regarding: a) the forms of treatment that the Health Center does and does not provide students and b) the support and confidentiality students can expect to receive from Health Center staff. Clarification and information can be circulated to students easily by means of pamphlets and other literature. Administrators and staff can send these documents via campus mail, and/or give an ample supply to each residence hall advisor to distribute to students in a more personal dormitory environment.
•   The content of the "sex talk" given during First Year Orientation each year must not be restricted to information on sexually transmitted diseases. The presentation (sponsored by Health Services Director Sue Plunkett and members of the peer education organization GLEAM) must also include a discussion of reproductive health options-particularly birth control and emergency contraception-available to students on campus, and the benefits and risks of each. Regardless of their personal beliefs, resident advisors must be required to utilize at least a portion of the funding allotted for dormitory programming for the purpose of sex education. Certainly, a hallway bulletin board displaying information on reproductive health and how to go about obtaining treatment for sex-related issues is more appropriate for college students than a bulletin board covered with Finding Nemo décor and "Fish Facts".

In making our demands, we are in no way insinuating that Allegheny College should step beyond the bounds of state and federal laws; we realize that certain forms of contraception such as RU-486 (Mifepristone) are not legal within the United States, and that emergency contraception (Plan B) is not medically safe for everyone. Our demands are simple. We're asking for an increase in the College's awareness of students' reproductive healthcare needs and an improvement in the College's response to and treatment of these issues. Sex, as we noted, isn't going away… so neither should students' rights to easily-accessible reproductive healthcare options.