Make abortion pill available at public universities
When I was accepted to UC Berkeley, I was excited about what it meant for my future. Coming from Oklahoma to California, I also was looking forward to living in a state that embodied the progressive values close tomy heart — including bymaking sure that abortion is safe, legal, affordable and available to all who need it. But when I got here, I was shocked to learn just how many barriers remain for students seeking abortion care in California. Today, I’m part of a statewide campaign to tackle one major barrier by making the abortion pill available on campus at every California public university.
My sophomore year of college, I saw students facing massive financial, logistical and bureaucratic hurdles to get abortion care and got together with some like-minded peers to compare notes. We realized that students have to travel off campus, sometimes spending hours on public transit and missing school or work, for an appointment just to get safe and relatively simple care. We started a student group, learned about the abortion pill and soon found ourselves asking why this option wasn’t available on our campus.
We all liked our student health center, we knew the staff there and went to them for birth control, STI screenings, pregnancy tests and most of our basic health needs. It didn’t seem right that they could do all that but not provide abortion care. Instead, students would have to figure out the vagaries of insurance coverage and referrals, transportation (must of us don’t have cars) and then make an appointment. It meant missing class, missing shifts at work, and either going to your abortion alone or finding someone else who was willing to miss class and work to go with you. Not surprisingly, the challenges we observed fell hardest on students of color, low-income students and first-generation college students.
We knew there had to be a bet- ter way.
Fast-forward to today, and we’re part of an effort to change this for students across the state. We want to make sure that students can get the abortion pill at student health centers, and we want to change the way people think about abortion by showing that it’s a normal part of repro- ductive care. As a woman of color and a child of immigrants who grew up low income, reproductive justice is personal for me. I want students who look like me — and all students — to have the health care they need, when and where they need it.
Students are calling for this change — and our allies and law- makers are listening. Together, we’re building a groundswell of support to pass Senate Bill 320, the College Student Right to Access Act, introduced by state Sen. Connie M. Leyva, D-Chino, which would make our vision of abortion care at student health centers a reality. The bill already has cleared some key hurdles, and we’re hopeful it will become law.
Offering the abortion pill on campus also would send a powerful message countering the prevailing and incredibly harmful abortion stigma in our society.
I’m a senior now, studying public health and sociology. I want to use my education to build a world where the full range of pregnancy-related care — including in-clinic abortion and prenatal care — is accessible for everyone who needs it, on their campus, in their community or wherever they live.
Today, I’m proud to be part of a campaign to take an important leap toward that future.