The next four years in this nation likely are to have very different regulations pertaining to birth control in comparison to the past eight years.
In 2008, the Boston Globe said 98 percent of women in the United States use a form of birth control at some point during their lives.
One of former President George W. Bush’s first budget cuts while in office was the requirement of insurance companies to cover contraceptives for federal employees. Bush also is a supporter of abstinence-only education that excludes information about contraceptives and ways to protect against STDs.
However, a 2004 report prepared by the Special Investigations Commission of the U.S. House of Representatives showed more than three-fourths of abstinence-only programs provide false information to students.
Junior Breanna Gibbs thinks sex education is important because abstinence-only education has been proven to be ineffective.
“Students think they are invincible,” she said. “If schools teach abstinence, then the teachers and parents both have to teach it for there to be any chance of it being successful,” she said.
During Bush’s last term in office, he tried to expand the definition of abortion to include anything that inhibits the implantation of an egg.
By definition this could include emergency contraceptives and IUDs. This new regulation also would have allowed doctors to deny women prescriptions for birth control based on personal ethics. Thus, doctors would not have been required to recommend the patient to another doctor.
President Barack Obama is a co-sponsor for the Prevention First Act, which includes a total of eight acts. The Prevention First Act was proposed in 2007 and is currently going through the legislative process.
The last actions taken by Congress occurred Jan. 6, when the Senate referred the bill to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
The act includes provisions for funding Planned Parenthood programs, abstinence and contraception education, teenage pregnancy prevention programs and requiring health insurance providers to cover prescription contraceptive drugs and outpatient services if they cover other prescription drugs and services.
"I think the plan is a good idea," sophomore Andrew Linenberger said. "They need to start educating people instead of sweeping it under the rug and acting like it isn't an issue." <br/>At Baker, condoms have been available for free for about 35 years.At Baker, condoms have been available for free for about 35 years.
At Baker, condoms have been available for free for about 35 years.
“They are not there to say ‘You’re in college so you need to have sex,'” Ruth Sarna, director of student health services, said. “They are there to provide needed protection if you are choosing to be sexually active.”
However, Baker cannot provide birth control for students because in order to do that it would have to have all the capabilities to test for STDs and perform Pap smears, which Sarna said would be too expensive.
Instead, students are referred to one of several places in Lawrence that can perform the necessary services, such as the University of Kansas Health Center or Planned Parenthood.