Jessika Parry
Chair, BC Students for Sexual Health

This was my second time attending the Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) conference, sponsored in part by Advocates for Youth. After working closely with this organization as a campus organizer at Boston College, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to become more involved in advocacy on a broader scale. While the conference was an excellent way to learn about the issues and learn how to enact policy change, it was much deeper than that. Starting with the Abortion Speak Out on the first night of the conference, you already feel the amount of emotion and support that is inherent in the issues. Both years, the Abortion Speak Out was incredibly moving and inspirational because of the strength of these women. Some may have never spoke of their experience before this, while others share the tale of their choice year after year.

The second day of the conference is filled with more panels, presentations, and strategic action sessions than you could ever imagine. Kind of like a candy store for activists, only better. Usually, I’m able to narrow it down to four sessions per time slot that I want to attend. If only cloning were available… This year, I went to a session on the modern day Eugenics movement and how it pertained to the prison system. Not only was this a fascinating presentation, they also had first hand accounts from prisoners who had experienced reproductive injustice. This panel was probably my favorite because I learned so much about things that “aren’t supposed to be talked about”. The second program I went to was on Zine making and incorporating graphic design and art into activism. Specifically, this program focused on targeting younger groups of people, which is ideal for me as I work primarily with young college students. At the end of the session, we even had the opportunity to collectively make a Zine, which should be up on the CLPP website shortly. Finally, the last session I attended was a how-to course on examining your cervix and doing a breast self-exam.

In addition to the Abortion Speak Out and sessions on Saturday, the conference also offers additional Sunday sessions and a series of phenomenal speakers before the Speak Out on Friday. I would highly recommend this conference to anyone who works with or is interested in issues surrounding women’s rights, reproductive rights, or human rights in general. Not only is it a great way to learn about a variety of different areas, it’s also an excellent time to meet some amazing people working in those areas and find out more about what they do. The conference has over 15 sponsors who all have tables set up in the main meeting hall where you can find out about what their organizations are involved in and learn how to get more involved yourself. Overall, it is an amazing, educational, and valuable experience.

Boston College Students for Sexual Health is an unofficial student organization that was formed in response to the lack of sexual health education and resources at Boston College. Among other activities, we blog regularly on Her Campus BC in an effort to reach out to the student body and promote thinking about sex-related issues. This particular entry provides a brief overview of recent Congressional activity regarding contraception and women's health. Please note that this blog entry was originally posted on Her Campus BC.

By Amanda Beiner

You may have already seen this photo before.  For those in need of a quick recap, this is a picture of the House’s panel invited to speak about conflicts between religious ideology and contraceptive coverage.  No, your screen isn’t blurry.  Five panelists.  Zero uteruses.  For some reason that I still don’t really get, House Republicans think that they can make decisions regarding women’s health without women or healthcare professionals. Washington, we have a problem.
 
Since it can be difficult even for us to keep up with the sudden bustle of Congressional activity, we’ve broken down the top three benchmarks in the women’s health debate, as well as a few ways that you can get involved to stand up for your rights and health.

1. March 23, 2010:  Obama signs the Affordable Care Act into law
   The Affordable Care Act seeks to rectify some of the more ethically questionable practices within the health insurance industry.  It basically eliminates all of the ways that health insurance providers weasel out of paying for medical services, leaving us wondering why the heck we bought insurance in the first place.

   The act also revamped and specified what measures constitute “preventative care” regarding women’s health.  The government is finally catching on to the fact that contraception is important and is requiring employee health plans to cover it.  Of course, religious institutions and social conservatives pressured the Obama administration to allow religious schools, hospitals, and charities to opt out of covering contraceptives.

   Check out The Sex Files #16 for more information about women’s health in the Affordable Care Act!

2. February 10, 2012:  Obama announces a compromise
   Under more pressure than the Harvard valedictorian during finals week, Obama sought a compromise that could reconcile religious concerns with women’s health needs.  In February, the President announced that contraceptive coverage should be offered to women directly from insurance companies, without direct involvement from religious institutions.  In plain English, Boston College, for example, would not be forced by the federal government to provide birth control.  Instead, Blue Cross Blue Shield (through which BC offers their insurance) would have to cover the cost of contraception without BC’s money.  The Catholic Health Association accepted this compromise because, well, it makes sense.  The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops still opposes the compromise, claiming that it still violates the conscience of Catholics in the insurance industry.  All feigned shock aside, supporters of near-universal coverage think that this stance is a bit of a stretch.

   Which brings us to our biggest problem…

3. March 1, 2012: Senate votes down Blunt Amendment

   In a last-ditch attempt to find any possible excuse to escape covering women’s health care, Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) proposed an amendment to the Affordable Care Act, which has come to be called the “Blunt Amendment.”  Not only would this amendment allow religious employers to deny contraception to their female employees on religious grounds, it would allow any employer to deny any health service to any employee on any “moral conviction.”

   The Blunt Amendment would have essentially undone all of the progress made by the Affordable Care Act, creating loopholes wide enough to fit a Mack Truck.  Under this dangerous piece of legislation, an employer could technically:

   - Refuse maternity care to an interracial or homosexual couple if they have moral objections to such a    
      relationship.
   - Refuse Type 2 diabetes screening to overweight employees because of a perceived “unhealthy” lifestyle.
   - Refuse maternity care to single mothers on religious grounds.

   Luckily, common sense won out, and lawmakers killed this amendment with a vote of 51-48 on March 1^st.^. Unfortunately, the Blunt Amendment represents only one of several recent attacks on women’s health.  We must all remain vigilant, and continue to speak out against any more threats that may come.

BCSSH – along with all the women who don’t want their bodies controlled by five middle-aged men in a biased congressional hearing – strongly oppose legislative restrictions on contraception.  To get involved and stand up for your rights, check out Planned Parenthood's Petition.
 
Peace, love, and lube,
BC Students for Sexual Health

Boston College Students for Sexual Health is an unofficial student organization that was formed in response to the lack of sexual health education and resources at Boston College. Among other activities, we blog regularly on Her Campus BC in an effort to reach out to the student body and promote thinking about sex-related issues. This particular entry provides a brief overview of the Affordable Care Act, addresses possible changes to the act, and applies these situations to the average woman, specifically at Boston College. Please note that this blog entry was originally posted on Her Campus BC.

Free birth control coverage? Not so fast...

Regardless of your political interest or stance, it’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore the splash caused by the Affordable Care Act passed by Congress this past March. The much debated act has finally gotten the ball rolling on health care reform in the US and has shone a crucial light on the current state of women’s health, which has been in desperate need of some TLC.

Overall, the Affordable Care Act seeks to reform health insurance companies in favor of patients. It would ban lifetime limits that affect people with long-term or chronic illnesses, cover young adults on their parent’s plan until the age of 26 (this provision has recently been put into place), and prohibit discrimination against children with pre-existing conditions – basically, get rid of all the jerky things that insurance companies have been able to get away with. Yeah, we’ve had enough of that, too. The more controversial aspects of the plan are included under the umbrella of women’s preventative care – like covering contraception without co-pays, which we’re pretty excited about. Since all of this legal jargon can be tricky even for the Pre-Law students among us, we’ve broken down the things we think every woman should know about the Affordable Care Act, and possible threats to it.

1. The Facts
The current plan regarding women's preventative care would:

2. Supporting the Bill
Supporters of the new preventative care measures base their reinforcement of the bill on the following facts:

• A 2001 study found that half of all pregnancies in the US were unintended. The largest roadblock to contraception for many women is cost (averaging $10 to $50 per month, which isn’t exactly pocket change). Free access to birth control would allow for family planning and place greater emphasis on healthy families.
• The plan would support the status quo on abortion policy (no federal money will be used to fund abortions and health plans cannot be required to fund abortion). All contraceptive measures covered will prevent pregnancy, but will not terminate an existing pregnancy.
• Allowing personal beliefs to determine what will or will not be covered by health plans undermines the purpose of health insurance. According to Adam Sconfield of the Guttmacher Institute, “You would have people questioning treating lung cancer for smokers or accident victims of a motorcycle wreck, or objecting to people having too many kids." Well said.

3. The Opposition
Of course, a change as momentous as this is likely to draw a few adversaries. This is especially pronounced in cases where religious institutions provide health insurance to their employees. Major arguments against contraceptive coverage include:

• Contraception should not be included under preventative care because pregnancy is not a disease.
• People against abortion shouldn’t be asked to subsidize methods they believe can cause abortions (which, they claim, happens through their insurance premiums).
• More contraception doesn’t necessarily lead to fewer unplanned pregnancies and abortions.

The plan currently offers a narrow religious refusal clause (often called a conscience clause), which allows certain religious institutions to exclude contraception from the insurance plans that they offer to their employees. This clause would apply to an institution that “has inculcation of religious values as its purpose” and primarily serves and employs people that share its religious beliefs. Basically, it exempts institutions such as churches, but not religiously affiliated hospitals, schools, or universities (such as, ahem, Boston College). The Obama administration is currently under pressure to add a wider refusal clause that would exempt these institutions from having to provide this benefit to their employees and students.

4. So what would change at BC, exactly?
Well, not as much as we may hope, but it’s a start. Massachusetts state law already requires all MA medical insurance plans (including student plans) to offer prescription drug coverage, including contraceptive drug consultations and prescriptions. For the average BC woman, this means that contraception would at least be partially covered under BC’s health insurance either way and the student is charged a co-pay. But the exciting part would come in at the register, when we can put our already-scarce college student funds towards more worthwhile means than co-pays on birth control. These changes would be even more drastic to women in states without state laws that mandate these provisions – say, our friends over at Notre Dame. While BC can still refuse to prescribe or distribute birth control pills in Health Services (boo), their student insurance plans would have to completely cover the entire cost of contraception if a student seeks these services elsewhere (yay!).

But don’t put your wallet away just yet. If the opposition’s refusal clause succeeds, plans like Boston College insurance would no longer be obligated to cover the full cost of contraception. To fight the pending broader refusal clause, and to stand up for the rights the federal government is announcing that all women should have, sign Amplify Your Voice’s “Obama, Don’t Cave” Petition.

Regardless of your personal stance on the issue, we applaud the Obama administration for striving towards loophole-free protection of women’s health, and for finally taking a firm federal stance on women’s reproductive rights. Our health (...and our rights...and our wallets) is thankful.

Peace, love, and lube
BC Students for Sexual Health

Boston College Students for Sexual Health is an unofficial student organization that was formed in response to the lack of sexual health education and resources at Boston College. Among other activities, we blog regularly on Her Campus BC in an effort to reach out to the student body and get them thinking about sex-related issues. This particular entry provides a brief overview of BCSSH, spreads awareness about the barriers sexually active college students can face when trying to be safe, and tackles some common sex myths. Please note that this blog entry was originally posted on Her Campus BC.

Welcome to the Sexual Health blog, run by BCSSH! So what can you expect from us? Well, most obviously, you’re going to find vital sexual health information that you can’t get anywhere else at BC. This includes where you can find condoms, lube, and other prophylactics – female condoms, dental dams, etc. – on campus (at our Safe Sites—knock on any door marked with the BCSSH logo!), and where you can go for STI testing, counseling, and other services.

But most importantly, we will be honest and we don’t judge. We’re a weird, wacky group of people held together by our terrible senses of humor and our conviction that when young people are informed about how their sexual decisions affect their health, both physical and emotional, they will make better decisions, be safer, and show greater respect towards their peers, their partners, and themselves.

We will try to be funny, but most of the time we’re the only ones who laugh at our jokes. We like the word lube, and we use it a lot, sometimes where it doesn’t need to be lubed. Like that. Lube. We also love myth busting, so expect lots of awesome (and sometimes scary) facts. For example:

MYTH: I don’t know anyone with an STI, and I don’t need to protect myself or discuss it with my partner(s).
FACT: According to the CDC, 1 in 4 college-age people in the United States has an STI. There are approximately 9,000 undergrads at Boston College. Talk to your partner, and if you think you could be infected, get tested right away.

MYTH: BC Students for Sexual Health is made up of kids who got arrested for handing out condoms on campus.
FACT: BC Students for Sexual Health is made up of kids who almost got arrested for handing out condoms on campus.

BC is, for all intents and purposes, a sexual health desert. Most other American universities provide condoms in vending machines, bathrooms, and through RAs in dorms (or on campus through student groups, like at Georgetown, a fellow Jesuit university). But at BC, it is against university policy to hand out condoms on campus (hence our occasional run-ins with the long arm of the law, though the sidewalk on CoRo where we set up on Fridays belongs to the city of Newton, and is therefore outside of BC’s jurisdiction).

We have worked to repair the lack of safer sex resources, and there’s much more to us than condoms. We run programs throughout the year including Sex Toy Bingo (sexual health trivia! games! vibrators!) and conversations about sexuality and relationships. We also work closely with administrators to improve the well being of students on campus. We’ve always known it wouldn’t be easy to enact policy change regarding sexual health at BC. The Catholic Church hasn’t been around for over 2,000 years by changing easily. But over the past couple of years we have built an environment of mutual respect with several members of the administration, laying the groundwork for future progress.

Check soon for a new post!

Peace, love and lube,
BC Students for Sexual Health