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In an effort to increase access and affordability of birth control at SUNY Upstate Medical University, third-year medical students Serena Schmitt and Olivia Preston have worked to open an on-campus access point for birth control: an emergency contraceptive vending machine.

The installation of the vending machine, which is located on the first floor of Upstate’s Health Sciences Library, was spearheaded through advocacy efforts by Schmitt, Preston and the New York Birth Control Access Project — a nonprofit organization that works to combat disparities in contraceptive access. The vending machine carries boxes of My Way, a 1.5 mg levonorgestrel tablet, along with pregnancy tests, acetaminophen, Advil and Benadryl.

Rochelle Rodney, director of advocacy at NYBCAP, said that the new vending machine will provide emergency contraceptives to Upstate students on campus who might otherwise have struggled to purchase them.

“When we think about the vending machines in general and students all across the state, not every student has access to a health center on their campus so (these vending machines) allow students on campus to have easier access to these vital resources such as emergency contraceptives, ” Rodney said.

Across New York state, private universities such as New York University and Cornell University have provided emergency contraceptives in vending machines since the fall of 2023. The University of Rochester also offers emergency contraceptives for free in its on-campus vending machine. With the recent addition, Upstate has become the first SUNY school to implement an emergency contraceptive vending machine on its campus, Schmitt said.

As of Feb. 6, Syracuse University does not have a vending machine with emergency contraceptives, but does have them available by prescription and over the counter in the pharmacy at the Barnes Center at The Arch.

New York State Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas sponsored a bill in Feb. 2023 that would require every SUNY and CUNY school to have at least one vending machine with emergency contraception available for purchase. The bill is currently under review in the Higher Education Committee.

The vending machine was “soft-launched” in December and officially opened at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Jan. 18. Since opening, seven boxes have been sold, as well as a few packets of acetaminophen, Schmitt said.

Upstate decided to implement the vending machines because it saw the project as an “innovative” way for students to access reproductive services on campus, especially as it allows for a lower cost and expanded privacy for students, two of the main goals for the project, Rodney said.

To bring the vending machines to Upstate, Schmitt and Preston joined the associate board at NYBCAP in 2022, where they learned about the vending machine project and found out how to implement it at their own university, Rodney said. From there, they communicated the need for the project on campus to Upstate’s administration and collected over 200 signatures from students to show interest in the project.

“When we started getting signatures of support from our peers it became clear that this was a service students at SUNY Upstate wanted,” Preston said in a Jan. 22 press release. “This project is a great way to not only increase access on campus to emergency contraception, but also to help normalize talking about reproductive health.”

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Pharmacies saw a significant rise in prices and demand for birth control after the Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned and ended the right to abortion in June 2022, according to CBS News. While most emergency contraceptives cost anywhere from $30 to $60 at local drugstores and pharmacies, Rodney said, Upstate is selling them for $10 each. They hope to lower the price as time goes on.

The vending machine’s location in the university’s library will also be an important factor in increasing accessibility for students at Upstate, Schmitt said.

“With the location being in our library, medical students especially don’t always have free time to go to the pharmacy or even to buy groceries, so having something that is there 24/7 is also really important,” Schmitt said.

Emergency contraceptives are only effective for up to five days after unprotected sex, but best within the first 72 hours, according to Planned Parenthood. Schmitt said this turn-around time is why having an affordable and local option for students is important.

“You can go on Amazon and you can buy emergency contraception for a pretty cheap price, but it’s not going to come for two days and this is something that you need immediately, it’s the ‘morning-after pill’,” Schmitt said.

Schmitt said the vending machine will also allow for more anonymity than if a student were to have to go to their health center or local pharmacy in person. She said the project aims to encourage students to use emergency contraceptives by removing the stigma surrounding reproductive health from the purchasing process.

“There’s already always stigma around contraception and reproductive health and that’s part of why anonymity is important,” Schmitt said. “I think there’s already some decreased stigma, but the vending machines are working to open the conversation even more.”

To continue to destigmatize reproductive health, the vending machine also includes QR codes that link to Upstate’s student health portal and information about emergency contraception from the World Health Organization, which Schmitt said have received 10 scans and five scans, respectively.

Through their efforts, Schmitt said, they hope that Upstate can serve as an example for other SUNY schools across the state to implement emergency contraceptive vending machines in the future.

“We’re the first SUNY school to do this, hopefully more SUNY schools will follow suit and we’ll take the lead and show them how we did it and how they can do it too,” Schmitt said.

Published on February 7, 2024 at 12:43 am

Contact Samantha: saolande@syr.edu