Students were receiving 70% discounts on birth control? Now you take that $15 and double or triple it and students are still getting discounts of 10% to 40% off the retail price.

Well I think it's unfair but it's hard for me to feel sympathy for them. I go to a Catholic school. There are no birth control pills OR condoms to be found.

GRRRRR, this is so infuriating. As both a college student and as someone currently using oral contraception this is a double insult. Anyone who can remember what its like to be a college student, unless there parents are especially wealthy, money is ridiculously tight. If you are lucky enough to have a part time job most of that money goes to food and books. $50 a month is a very large about of money for someone who may only make little more then that a week. $50 is more then enough to buy food for a week but only if you don't have to spend it on contraception. I am lucky enough to have a health insurance policy that covers most of my prescription, my room mate however is not as lucky. She has to find a way to save $50 each month in order to pay for the same thing I pay $7 a month for. Thankfully, her boyfriend helps cover most of the cost, but he shouldn't have to.

I don't understand the people who want to reduce the number of young pregnancies and abortion but are against contraception. But that is an entirely different post. For anyone out there who is suffering the high cost of basic protection of your health and future I suggest calling up your local Planned Parenthood and asking if they know of any programs in your area that supply free or inexpensive contraception. I know these programs are out there. Good luck!

Lilaeden, you chose to go to a Catholic school. I just don't think religious beliefs warrants a lack of concern for the plight of students (females, specifically) who don't choose a parochial university.

People seem to be under the impression that all college students have insurance outside the school, or unlimited access to cash. The latter certainly wasn't the case with me...I do remember that I went to the local Planned Parenthood as opposed to dealing with student health services ( and I got mine for free)! As it is, I went through a rough patch a few years back after losing health insurance, and went off the pill because it was just too expensive, even for the generics.

A lot of kids haven't gone to a doctor's appointment without parental supervision until college age. This can be daunting in itself, but to add a ridiculous price hike to bc pills will be yet another obstacle to seeking out care.

I remember when I was 16 and made the decision to go on the pill. Even though I had a pretty open relationship with my mom, this was something I needed to do on my own...I had to say I was at a friend's place for the day, and make sure my red Dodge Dart was parked in the back row of the county health clinic. I was then herded with all the other cattle from room to room, for each part of the process (the clinic itself was kind of worn and dirty). The staff was surprisingly great, despite the location.

I was ready to do this on my own at 16, but some girls might not even be ready at 18 or 19. Raising the price will be the final factor in some girls' decisions not to go through with trying to obtain it.

I used to get my bc pills for $12 a month at Humboldt State in 2003. I remember in the two years I was there, they hiked the rates for the prescription I had to encourage switching to their new 'low-dose' pill. Still, it wasn't that expensive.
And I do believe birth control should be low-cost for all, and so should all medication, but that's a whole other issue.
I know that Washington State Planned Parenthood has a low-income plan called Take Charge. If you are a resident and have a family income of 200% than the poverty level (I can't remember exactly what that works out to), you get an annual exam, birth control, condoms and, should you want it, sterilization for free. I believe California has a similar plan.

"Great. Female students are (rightly) feeling like this is unfairly affecting their health and rights on campus." - Jessica

I agree that this is unfortunate and will cause many problems for people who are trying to be responsible and avoid unwanted pregnancies, but how does it unfairly affect their health and rights. Just because they used to recieve discounts doesn't mean they have rights to those discounts in the future.

Well thats good. Because of course the cost of providing services to unplanned children is much much cheaper then the cost to subsidize BC. And hey who can't finish college with a pregnancy and a kid so its not like these women would drop out or anything. Sounds like a great way to save money to me.

Sigh....

Schools should be required (especially public ones) to provide free or low cost BC (of all kinds) and also to educate students on their availability and use.

It all makes sense now! I'm a grad student at a private school without a religious affiliation; our campus health service is really very good, in my opinion. I get the Nuva Ring thorugh campus insurance but a few months ago it went from $35 copay for 3 at a time to $25 for one at a time. I remind myself that it's still cheaper than a child, but it is a hassle that I have to go back every month instead of being able to stock up.

Although I believe that birth control should be cheaper in general, I could also say the same for condoms. I would hasten to add condoms have a dual role: preventing pregenancy and the spread of HIV/AIDS & STDs. But it is worth while to remember that drug companies are just that - companies. They seek to make profit. That's why they exist!!! If all else fails; when I don't want a hangover, I don't drink. The same approach could easily apply to sex, if only people weren't so fond of it....

This does not surprise me in the least, considering my experience with the health services at my college. Going to that place was like visiting some forgotten level of hell. Not ONLY was it at the end of the earth (seriously...you had to cross campus and a major road, which I realize isn't running a marathon but when you have the flu it seems like you're walking to another state), but when you got there, all of your symptoms inevitably meant you were pregnant. I once went in there with some kind of death plague variety of flu, but since I had had the flu before, I knew what it was and just wanted some heavier drugs to deal with the situation. They asked me REPEATEDLY if I was pregnant, if I was SURE I wasn't pregnant, etc., until I finally freaked out, yelled at them that if I was it would have to have been an immaculate conception, I just wanted some medicine to deal with the fact that I had THE DEATH FLU, and would they please stop wasting time asking if I was pregant.

If colleges are so convinced that all the women on campus are pregnant, why the hell wouldn't they just hand the birth control out on the quad all day long for free? Ugh, I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it. Birth control is a daunting thing to deal with for some people, why must they make it expensive on TOP of that??

Lilaeden, you chose to go to a Catholic school. I just don't think religious beliefs warrants a lack of concern for the plight of students (females, specifically) who don't choose a parochial university.

I know it isn't the same at all school but at mine condoms are free free FREE. They even have a million different kinds. Birth control however, not free and there are limited types that you can get (which sucks because I have had some pills that did not go over well with my body). There are also a ton of posters letting us know that prices for birth control will be (and they have been) on the rise in the future. As of now it is still cheaper to buy them from my school than trying to use my own insurance but pretty soon it won't be. I really don't see why the male contraception (condoms) is free and female (birth control) is expensive (and rising!). It's infuriating.

And why shouldn't I as a woman be able to have as much sex as I want without fear of getting pregnant? and without emptying out my wallet for birth control? Yes, condoms still need to always be used to help prevent std's and the like, but I've been in the broken condom situation before and it was so relieving to be able to say, "Well thank goodness I'm on the pill."

And why shouldn't a boyfriend help to pay for birth control? It takes two to tango you know and you're not going to be the only one responsible if you get pregnant! Even if you use condoms (and you should!) like I said before it is great to have birth control as a back up. My boyfriend offered to help pay for mine when he found out how much I was paying for it. I just wish that everyone realized that birth control shouldn't always soley be the woman's responsibility. You're both having the sex, why shouldn't you both be part of making it safe?

It's my understanding that the pharmaceutical companies have raised their prices for birth control pills in the past year - so this doesn't just apply to college students, but everybody, particularly those who use family planning clinics who serve low-income women. I worked at a clinic last winter, and our prices kept changing and going up and up, to keep pace with the rising costs. So many patients came in to pick in pills and said "The price went up *again*???" And we were still the cheapest in town. We stopped carrying certain brands because they were too expensive for the clinic to afford, and so half of our patients were switched to new brands as well. It was a mess for everyone.

Although I believe that birth control should be cheaper in general, I could also say the same for condoms. I would hasten to add condoms have a dual role: preventing pregenancy and the spread of HIV/AIDS & STDs. But it is worth while to remember that drug companies are just that - companies. They seek to make profit. That's why they exist!!! If all else fails; when I don't want a hangover, I don't drink. The same approach could easily apply to sex, if only people weren't so fond of it....

Although I believe that birth control should be cheaper in general, I could also say the same for condoms. I would hasten to add condoms have a dual role: preventing pregenancy and the spread of HIV/AIDS & STDs. But it is worth while to remember that drug companies are just that - companies. They seek to make profit. That's why they exist!!! If all else fails; when I don't want a hangover, I don't drink. The same approach could easily apply to sex, if only people weren't so fond of it....

Thank you, dingbat. There are few things in the world I hate more than having "religious beliefs" projected onto me because, yes, I chose to go to a Catholic school.

You know what happens when you assume, don't you JaneMinty?

Birth control is such an unfair target! For all the reasons everyone has brought up and more. More being:

When I first got on the pill, it wasn't for birth control: it was because I had an ultrasound for pain I was feeling in my abdomen every month and my doctor said I probably have endometriosis (they can't know 100% without surgery but all the signs pointed to this diagnosis). One of the best treatments is birth control!

I was taking BC for a medical reason, then, not for BC reasons...and our family insurance under my dad's employer WOULD NOT cover BC pills at all. So it is NOT even an issue of insurance or no insurance all the time! Oh, and btw, under my dad's insurance plan, Viagra WAS covered. F*ing bull****.

My on campus OB GYN warned me a few months ago that this would happen, so I finally talked to my mother about getting our insurance to cover my birth control. I was on it for 2 years without being able to discuss it with her.
Yes, condoms are free, but a lot of college women are using other forms of birth control for health reasons (I had an irregular period from 9 until 16 before going on birth control), and oral contraceptives are generally have a lower rate of failure anyway.
The only pregnancy center other than student health services near my campus is a Christian family planning center that focuses on older patients and pregnancy "counseling" so expensive birth control is a bit of a blow.
I know discounts aren't a right, but they're helpful to college women who have less money, are often still on their parent's medical insurance and might be unable to get proper birth control through their family doctor for whatever reason (distance, family issues). Besides, I pay an ASSLOAD of money to go to school, and portion of that goes to the campus health center which offers me...oh gee, cough drops. Great.

When my sister was at university in...Scotland, I think, though it may have been Ireland, she got her birth control pills FREE! And she wasn't even a citizen. They just recognized that pregnancy seriously interferes with schoolwork, and contraception is cheaper than children.

I've been looking at jobs in the USA recently (I'm Canadian) but the more I hear about stuff like this, and related shenanigans of health insurance companies, the less appealing it looks. I'm a bit spoiled, I suppose, expecting to get the health care I want and need, when I want and need it, without going bankrupt. I have to go for an ultrasound to rule out PCOS, and I got the appointment for less than a week away. Hassle-free healthcare.

I live in Ireland and have been on the pill for nine years and in that time, even with a currency change the price has never risen more than a few cents. It has always been around €12, this is unsubsidised I just go in to the pharmacy with my prescription and purchase at this price every month. Can someone explain to me why contraceptive pills in the US are so expensive, surely they are similar to if not exactly the same as the pills we get in Europe? Given that the drug companies producing in Ireland are generally American owned and operated how can they justify charging their American consumers so much more for the same product?

wow. when i first got on the pill, way back in 2001, it cost me $5 a month from my college campus. by the time i graduated, it was $10 a month, or three months for $25. i don't even want to know what it is now.

this morning i had lady exam and got three months worth of the pill. it cost me $31 a month at the planned parenthood. except i had to take the morning off from work, drive 30 miles to the closest clinic, deal with east texas wingnuts protesting abortion (even though that clinic doesn't provide abortion services), put the exam and pills on my credit card cause i'm broke, and then drive 30 miles back to work. yes, less hassle than a child, but fuck. haven't they made taking care of ourselves hard enough?

Noname, birth control is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. Affordable B.C. should be a right, in college or out of college. Yes, I know it’s not in the constitution, but in fact it is in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s just preposterous that it should cost more $50/month.

he has to find a way to save $50 each month in order to pay for the same thing I pay $7 a month for. Thankfully, her boyfriend helps cover most of the cost, but he shouldn't have to.

Um, yes, he should. I refuse to believe that BC should be a woman's responsibility only. She's already putting that stuff into her body and has the responsibility of taking it every day; surely he can shell out for something for which he also receives a benefit.

That said, cheap birth control is not a human right. It is good policy, because it beats the hell out of pregnancy, but it's not a right. Companies are under no obligation to give it out cheap, no more than they are under any obligation to give out inhalers or allergy shots for less money.

All rights are negative: the right to something free from intrusion. There's no such thing as a positive right - i.e. the basic human right to cheap birth control. If you want it, pay for it. If you want it cheap, stop making yourselves look silly by arguing entitlement and start arguing that it's in the college's best interests to help defray the cost.

All rights are negative: the right to something free from intrusion. There's no such thing as a positive right

That's just not true, as a quick glance through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will show you. It's also nothing more than a linguistic trick, as most rights can be phrased both positively and negatively. "People have the right to adequate housing," for example, can also be phrased as "People have the right to live free from the fear of homelessness." "Women have right to adequate birth control" can also be phrased as "Women have the right to be free from the tyranny of biology," or "All people have the right to consensual sexual expression free from fear." Freedom of speech is a positive right: it's the freedom to speak your mind without fear of government persecution.

A couple of things:

What's the problem with asking steady boyfriends to help pay for birth control? You'd expect him to buy condoms, and the pill is still cheaper than child support. Protection is just as much a man's job as a woman's.

I can't take birth control. For all intents and purposes, my ob/gyn lists me as "allergic." And yet, I am not awash in babies. Part of feminism is self-sufficiency, and that means a.) fighting for the things we need, and b.) being creative and flexible with our options. Yes, birth control should be cheap and available. That's a fight to take to drug companies, not schools. Schools have enough problems. And if you can't get (or take) birth control, find another way until you can. Condoms, though they can be a pain, work just fine. It's unfair and an insult to our intelligence to say that we should be dependent on the goodwill of a drug corporation to avoid pregnancy.

Of course, my super-conservative college campus won't distribute birth control at ANY price (pretty sure condoms are included in this)and just refers students to Planned Parenthood (which is around 20 minutes away by train, and as freshmen and most sophomores can't have cars, the train is the easiest way of getting there). Of course, guys can buy condoms at the drugstore that's less than a two minute walk from campus.
And to all of this I say...ach. I DO feel like a target, it's FAR easier to walk a few feet to the student health center than it is to walk to the train stop, wait for the train, get on, and ride, then repeat the process in reverse on the return trip.
Just as it's easier to pay $15 than it is to pay $50 for colleges who even let students get their pills on campus.

"Budget" is a word I never used before I started going to college, but now it is the descriptor of one of the biggest parts of my life: the need to control my money. Something that I think a few people here are forgetting here is that oftentimes in college, your course load is such that you CAN'T work, or at least that you can't work more than a few hours a week. Because of this, it is often necessary to plan your budget 6 months to a year at a time, like when you are getting your student loans.

That said, if you are on birth control pills that cost $10 a month when you make your budget for the year, and then they stop being subsidized and skyrocket to $50 a month, what happens is that you are essentially losing $40 every month that you would have originally been planning to spend on groceries or your electric bill. Maybe you still get a discount, but that $40 becomes a Big Fucking Deal.

All this makes me wish there was just some sort of big mail-order program through the internet- you give them your information and if your income is low enough, you qualify for them to just send you free bc for a whole year. And then you reapply at the end of the year. That would be sweet. Of course this program would have to be an international cooperative effort, because if our government was in charge of it they would just cut all its funding and kill it in under a month.

This is just great. It scares the shit out of me because I also can't afford birth control and I know I am not the only one in this boat. I've already had one friend get pregnant this year because she couldn't pay for birth control after the hike, (she also couldn't afford an abortion, funny that) They give condoms out for free at school, but anything that lets the ladies make their own choices, well thats ludicrous.

"but when you got there, all of your symptoms inevitably meant you were pregnant. I once went in there with some kind of death plague variety of flu, but since I had had the flu before, I knew what it was and just wanted some heavier drugs to deal with the situation. They asked me REPEATEDLY if I was pregnant, if I was SURE I wasn't pregnant, etc., until I finally freaked out, yelled at them that if I was it would have to have been an immaculate conception, I just wanted some medicine to deal with the fact that I had THE DEATH FLU, and would they please stop wasting time asking if I was pregant. "

Maybe they wanted to be as sure as humanly possible that they wouldn't recommend a teratogenic medicine to a pregnant patient and get sued for birth defects several months later?

"If colleges are so convinced that all the women on campus are pregnant..."

I once heard of a college health service being even more paranoid. Apparently some Yale student seeking flu treatment was screened for stuff and one of the tests said he was pregnant.

"I know discounts aren't a right, but they're helpful to college women who have less money, are often still on their parent's medical insurance and might be unable to get proper birth control through their family doctor for whatever reason (distance, family issues)."

Don't forget that faculty and staff sometimes use their schools' health services too. While a college student may feel "I can't ask my mother to pay, she wants me to be a virgin," a college employee may feel "I can't ask my mother or mother-in-law to pay, none of us three can afford it."

"What's the problem with asking steady boyfriends to help pay for birth control?"

Nothing's wrong with it. Meanwhile, it can't solve all of the problem. Yes it can help some of the women and girls on the pill, and it doesn't help those of us who don't have sex partners and take the pill for other reasons.

It also won't help women who don't have one, steady sex partner.

"It also won't help women who don't have one, steady sex partner."

Exactly. Meanwhile I guess someone who has a steady girlfriend, or who has a steady boyfriend who's saving sex for marriage, could ask her partner for help paying for the pill even though her partner isn't about to risk getting her pregnant.

Ninapendamaishi,

You could put out a collection plate...

You guys make good arguments about how it's difficult to be that outraged b/c we're still getting it at a discount--something that doesnt have to occur. But, on the flipside,I pay A CRAPLOAD in tuition and should have access to the benefits the school can afford to provide. College students SHOULD get discounts on things b/c theyre paying for it anyway one way or another. I'm too tired to make my argument any more coherent. But birth control should really be no higher b/c the r&d costs have already been recouped. If anything, it should go down. Maybe when a liberal is in office..

The health center at my school doesn't even carry birth control pills. They claim it's because there is not enough demand for them to carry it. Yeah.. right. They have condoms though, but not for free. Luckily Planned Parenthood is just a few blocks away from campus.

Guess that serves me right for being at a community college. Heh. I can't wait to transfer.

All rights are negative: the right to something free from intrusion. There's no such thing as a positive right.

If the words "guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution" to this statement, it almost merits being taken seriously. Even there, though, there are affirmative guarantees, such as the right to appointed counsel and the right to trial by jury. When one looks to U.S. statutes, one finds even more (such as the right to be fairly considered for employment, without discrimination), and when one broadens one's search to include the constitutions and laws of other industrial democracies, the distribution between affirmative and negative guarantees is practically 50/50.

This is probably why ignorance of the international human rights framework and the law of other countries is maintained here. The myth that ours is the best a constitution can be is easily shattered by even a fleeting acquaintance with the constitutions that have built upon it.

That first sentence should read: "If the words 'guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution' are ADDED TO this statement."

In Australia we have the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, funded by taxes, which provides affordable medications to people. Drugs have to be selected to be on it (and there are thousands on the pbs,) each prescription costs $4.90 for someone on benefits and up to about $20 for those who aren't. This system has been praised widely for providing equitable and affordable access to common medications. I wish this system was more common in the world as I believe we all have the right to affordable health care.

In Australia we have the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, funded by taxes, which provides affordable medications to people. Drugs have to be selected to be on it (and there are thousands on the pbs,) each prescription costs $4.90 for someone on benefits and up to about $20 for those who aren't. This system has been praised widely for providing equitable and affordable access to common medications. I wish this system was more common in the world as I believe we all have the right to affordable health care.

Just to set the record straight!

Early in this discussion I made a comment I believe was misinterpreted, understandably. I would just like to clarify. I think it is wonderful that my friends boyfriend helps her with high cost of her monthly prescription. It does take two to tango and there is no reason that two people in a relationship shouldn't take responsibility for protecting themselves.

However, what if she was not in a relationship? Should she have to stop taking the pill, which also has helped to regulate and lessen painful periods, because she doesn't have a partner to help pay for it? That is more what I meant, he shouldn't HAVE to help because its to expensive. Helping because he should is wonderful but he only HAS to because its to expensive.

Sorry for my vague statement earlier.