Senate challenges Bush’s Deficit Bill, sets stage for cheaper birth control

IU is just one of the many universities across the nation that has recently been hit by the effects of the Deficit Reduction Act, and one campus group and some federal legislators are rallying to deflect its negative impact.\nThe act, which took effect in January 2005, caused a drastic increase in the price of birth control across the country. As a result of the act, federal funding to college health centers and other clinics have been cut, causing these places to lose the discount on birth control they once had from drug companies, said Kathryn Brown, an IU Health and Wellness Center health educator. \nSenators Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., introduced the Prevention through Affordable Access Act in early November to combat rising birth control prices. The bill has yet to reach the Senate floor.\nThe goal of the bill is to reverse the price hike implemented by the Deficit Reduction Act and provide the security of discounted prices of birth control for college-age, as well as low-income, women.\nIndiana representatives from national groups, such as Planned Parenthood, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and the National Organization for Women, have said they are all in support of the new bill.\nThe IU Health Center once offered students a wide range of generic and name-brand birth control options at lowered prices, but since January, affordable prices have been hard to come by, Brown said. \nEven the cheapest and most widely used forms of birth control have felt the weight of the price hike. \nBrown said NuvaRing, a popular form of birth control among students, was originally only $12 a month before January but has since quadrupled to $48 per month. \nOn IU’s campus, the newly formed group Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom is taking a stand against high prices, said junior Jenn Queen, an intern for the group.\nQueen said it is already hard enough to obtain birth control and the current situation has put a lot of women “between a rock and a hard place.”\n“We’re on (birth control) for a reason, and to make it virtually impossible for people to have access to, that is not justified,” Queen said. “It’s taking away rights.”\nSpiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom hopes to start a chalking campaign on campus to make students aware of the new bill, Queen said.