Mara Gordon | Paying a high price for the Pill

Safe sex just got a little more expensive.

For hundreds of women who get their birth control through Penn's Student Health Services, the monthly price went up by $7 at the start of this year.

Student Health used to offer students a variety of hormonal contraceptives - like "the pill" - at the extremely low price of $8 per month. In pharmacies, these drugs can cost up to $60 a month, depending on each woman's insurance policy.

The drugs are safe, they're reliable and they prevent pregnancy. Student Health was proud to provide Penn women with a range of inexpensive options.

Now, they're not quite so cheap. Generic versions - virtually identical to the brand names Student Health used to prescribe - of six contraceptives are available for $15 a month.

But two of the most popular drugs have no generic option. The NuvaRing now costs $35 a month, putting the 600 to 800 Penn women who buy it through Student Health each month out an extra $27.

The additional 600 to 800 women who buy Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo will have to get a prescription and go to a pharmacy, since Penn won't be offering it at all, according to Penn's Women's Health Director Deborah Mathis.

The price hikes happened with no publicity, no protest. Women were simply told by their doctor or informed via the Student Health Web site. A $7 increase, after all, isn't exactly front page news.

But $7 a month means $84 a year. For those on the NuvaRing, it's $324. Who knows how much local pharmacies will charge women who take Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo.

And more importantly, it's proof that the government has the ability to chip away at our reproductive rights even on a college campus where the Christian Right seems miles away.

The problem is, there's nothing Student Health can do about the cost. It's the result of the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act, a federal law that went into effect in December 2006.

Student Health has its hands tied.

"I think that most of us are aware of many, many women attending colleges . and they don't have the resources to spend 50 or 60 [dollars] a month on oral contraceptives," Student Health Director Evelyn Wiener said. "All of us are concerned."

The Deficit Reduction Act - a 181-page document - limits what kind of organizations can get discounted bulk medication directly from drug companies. Since the government reimburses those companies, the Act is designed to save it money, according to Linda LaSalle, who helps coordinate the American College Health Association's lobbying efforts.

Student health providers all over the nation are suddenly excluded from receiving discounts when they purchase contraceptives for their students.

And the ACHA - which represents student health providers - is outraged.

"We are pursuing several means in which we might lessen the impact the [act] will have on your student health services," ACHA President Dorothy Kozlowski wrote in a letter to member organizations this month. "This issue will also be a priority for the ACHA Board of Directors' annual Capitol Hill visit in February 2007."

Cheap and accessible birth control is imperative on any college campus, and Penn has done an excellent job. Condoms are everywhere, and the Office of Health Education works hard to make sure we all know how to use them. There's free HIV testing and safe sex workshops and even sex toy demonstrations.

Penn should be applauded for making its students' sexual health a top priority. But when it comes to hormonal contraceptives, Student Health is now left helpless.

In the scheme of things, the increased cost probably won't affect the lives of most Penn students. The generic birth control drugs are reliable and still much cheaper than what most women in the United States are forced to pay. Student Health is doing its best to work within the confines of the law. Hey, at least birth control is still legal.

But the reason the new law is so terrifying is precisely because it is so unremarkable. Buried inside pages upon pages of the Deficit Reduction Act is one short section that doesn't even mention the words "birth control," yet it's costing students at Penn thousands of extra dollars a year. The assault on our reproductive rights is getting even harder to fight.

Mara Gordon is a College junior from Washington, D.C. Her e-mail address is gordon@dailypennsylvanian.com. Flash Gordon appears on Thursdays.

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