U.'s price for birth control could fall

The Affordable Birth Control Act, which was signed into law earlier this month by President Obama, may alleviate these concerns because the price of oral contraceptives may soon be changed. The law provides an incentive to pharmaceutical companies to sell the drugs at discounted rates to college health clinics.

It remains unclear how the act will impact Princeton. The University does not know how prices on campus will be affected or whether its vendors will be offering the discounted birth control made possible by the bill, University spokeswoman Emily Aronson said in an e-mail.

“University Health Services [UHS] and the University’s Purchasing Department are currently contacting vendors to see if they will return to offering discounted oral contraceptives to student health centers,” Aronson explained. “The spending bill signed by President Obama allows pharmaceutical companies to do this, but it does not require it.”

UHS received discounts on birth control from its vendors until 2007, when changes to the Federal Deficit Reduction Act ended such benefits. As a result of ensuing student outcry, the University took actions to restore the price of contraceptives purchased through McCosh Health Center to the rate charged before the discounts were cut, Aronson said.

“Many Princeton students voiced their concern about access to affordable oral contraception,” Aronson explained. “In response to these student concerns, the University president and provost agreed to provide funds to subsidize the cost of oral contraceptives available for students at UHS.”

Aronson estimated that the cost of the current subsidy program for the 2008-09 fiscal year is roughly $59,000. The funding is supported by University discretionary funds, she noted.

The University currently intends to continue with the current program. It will reassess the policy once information is collected from the pharmaceutical vendors, Aronson said.

The act may make it possible for UHS to offer a greater variety of birth control options, she added.

“If the vendors do return to offering discounted prices to student health centers, we potentially could be able to offer additional oral contraceptive brands, including brand names,” she explained.

Princeton Pro-Choice Vox hopes that the new provision will increase the number of discounted options at UHS, the group’s graduate chair Anne Twitty GS said in an e-mail.

“After the implementation of the Deficit Reduction Act, the number of birth control options available at UHS declined dramatically,” she said.

The only subsidized birth control pills currently available in McCosh are two generic brands, though there are more than 40 brands available, she explained.

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Currently, UHS clinicians provide prescriptions for students who prefer to use brand-name contraceptives and encourage them to use their prescription plans to help pay for them, Aronson said.

Twitty expressed concern about the impact of the University subsidizing only generic oral contraceptives.

“Women who didn’t wish to switch their prescriptions and risk the side effects of adjusting to a new pill, or those interested in the ring or the patch, were forced to pay as much as $45 per month to continue using the contraceptive of their choice,” she said.

Princeton Pro-Choice Vox members said that they were glad that Obama is taking steps to ensure that all women who wish to have access to birth control can do so, especially in rough economic times.

“The current economic climate makes the provision included in President Obama’s budget indispensable,” Twitty said. “It’s a shame that it took a fiscal crisis to restore discount birth control options on university campuses, but we’re thrilled that so many women will soon have greater choices when it comes to selecting their contraceptive.”

Anscombe Society president Brandon McGinley ’10 expressed concerns about the act’s impact.

McGinley said that, while Anscombe does not take an official stand on birth control, birth control is both a symptom and a cause of the problematic “culture of contraception,” which he described as “the perpetuation of the misconception of sex as something that can be had without consequences.” McGinley is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

Since the change will essentially bring the University back to a program in place a few years ago, McGinley said, the culture surrounding sexuality at the University is not likely to change as a result of the new bill.

Obama’s initiative, however, might further perpetuate the “culture of contraception” at the national level, McGinley said.

“The federal government’s seal of approval is, one might say, even more problematic than the University doing so because it almost nationalizes this misperception,” he explained.

Princeton Pro-Life declined to comment for this article.