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'Morning after' pills at USI opposed
By JOE ATKINSON Courier & Press staff writer
464-7450 or atkinson@evansville.net
Female students at the University
of Southern Indiana now have the option of using emergency contraceptive
pills - a decision that has sparked the ire of local anti-abortion
activists.
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Julie
Yunker, a registered nurse at the University of Evansville,
said UE had no plans of ever offering the pill to students.
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The pills, better
known as "morning after" pills, are available to students
through the USI Student Health Center, said Barry Schonberger, USI's
dean of students. By virtue of a contract with the university, the
health center is staffed by Deaconness employees.
The decision
to distribute the pills, which cost the user about $30, has been
a controversial one. Anti-abortion activists believe the pill is
equivalent to an early abortion, said Mike Fichter, director of
Vanderburgh County Right to Life. He said he is disappointed in
the decision from his alma mater to allow distribution of the drug
on campus.
"This is
a very bad decision by USI," Fichter said. "Many women
will take this drug under the mistaken assumption that it is a contraceptive,
but because it takes place right after conception, it is actually
a very early abortion."
Schonberger said
the university did not decide to offer the drug. University officials
defer to the contracted health officials on medical decisions, he
explained.
"The university
considers the relationship between the medical provider and our
students to be a personal relationship," Schonberger said,
"We really leave decisions of health care to those medical
providers to meet the best interests of their patients."
USI is the first
area university to sanction use of the pill, which thins the lining
of the uterus so a fertilized egg will have difficulty attaching
itself.
Julie Yunker,
a registered nurse at the University of Evansville, said UE had
no plans of ever offering the pill to students. Part of that decision,
she said, involved the moral question raised by anti-abortion activists.
At USI, however, that decision is left between the physician and
patient, Schonberger said.
"Those are
discussions that any physician, in discussing what the options are
with a patient, must deal with," he said. "Physicians,
in addition to making medical decisions, are on a regular basis
counseling individuals on issues (like this)."
The university's
student newspaper, The Shield, reported about the drug in its Nov.
29 issue. Its article said the pill "was not an abortion method,
but a form of emergency birth control."
That is untrue,
Fichter said, because anti-abortion groups believe life begins at
conception.
"We believe
(life) begins immediately at conception, which can occur after intercourse,
and this drug ends that life," Fichter said. "That's why
we are opposed to it."
They plan to
voice that opposition, too, he said.
"We will
be informing many of our own community about this development and
asking them to make their feelings known to USI," he said.
"We have a very broad core of support, and I'm sure we have
plenty of USI graduates, including myself, who will not be happy
about this decision."
December 5,
2001
http://phth.allenpress.com/phthonline/?request=get-static&name=PressRelease
http://phth.allenpress.com/images/Morning_afterpill.pdf
(Adobe Acrobat Reader required)
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