Nearly three years after the University of California (UC) "offered its complete support" for a law (SB 493) that "permits pharmacists to furnish self-administered hormonal contraceptives ... to women without a prescription from a physician, ... no UC school has implemented it on campus or even made a sincere attempt to do so," Olivia Weber, Ali Chabot, and Laura Lively, three third-year students at the UC-Irvine School of Law, write in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times.
According to the authors, "Under the pharmacist protocol, women seeking birth control are no longer required to endure yearly pelvic exams or the wait times associated with them -- which aligns with the medical consensus advising against annual exams for healthy women." Yet because of the UC system's delay in implementing the measure, the authors write that women are still required to make physician visits and often undergo annual pelvic exams "despite the well-known facts that unintended pregnancies are highest among college-age students 18 to 24 years old, and that half of all California pregnancies are unintended."
The authors continue, "As women students at UC Irvine School of Law who pay for the UC system's health plan and believe in public education, we are compelled to speak up." They explain that despite the risks of advocating publicly for birth control access, they had to address the issue because "timely access to birth control is of paramount importance to women who may need it to prevent pregnancy, plan their menstruation, and control other important medical issues, such as endometriosis and primary ovarian insufficiency."
The authors share their previous efforts to have UC administration implement the pharmacist protocol, including procuring a pledge from administrators that UC-Irvine's Student Health Center would have the procedure in place by August. However, "[d]espite these assurances, and after months of advocacy, which included our Birth Control Access Petition signed by hundreds of students and alumni, the Irvine Student Health Center only removed the pelvic exam requirement for obtaining birth control refills," the authors write, noting that "[w]omen are still forced to schedule and wait -- sometimes months -- for an initial visit."
According to the authors, "This is a serious problem. Even the Irvine Student Health Center's administrative director has acknowledged that women's access to timely consultations and prescriptions has been hampered by primary care appointments." The authors write, "The UC system has a constitutional duty to provide services to students equally, yet its choice not to adopt the protocol in its health centers disparately affects women."
The authors write that contrary to administrators' claims, there is no evidence that implementing the pharmacist protocol will result in long pharmacy wait times, nor should it endanger women's privacy, as "privacy concerns for birth control are no different than any other medication." Further, the administrators have produced no evidence that implementing the protocol will require hiring additional pharmacists, the authors write, adding, "The UC system has had more than three years to set aside funding for the protocol -- years in which there has been plenty of funding for unnecessary pelvic exams."
According to the authors, "[T]he UC system's failure to put this law into practice across its student health centers hurts low-income, rural, and first-generation women students." They explain, "These students rely on the convenience and low cost of student health insurance plans. In order to take advantage of the pharmacist protocol, they bear the burden of finding transportation to participating pharmacies off-campus and paying higher prices." The authors add, "UC advocated on behalf of these students before the pharmacist protocol became law, but has now forgotten them."
Noting that "[t]he UC system's commitment to equality should not end in the admissions office," the authors conclude, "Women deserve equal access to reproductive health services, and the pharmacist protocol provides that" (Weber et al., Los Angeles Times, 10/6).
