Campuses now abortion battleground

US colleges have become the new battleground over access to abortion services amid demands that schools supply women with medication for abortions as anti-abortion advocates resist calls for distribution of the pills on campuses.

The two sides are contesting ground that has opened up in the wake of the Supreme Court's overturning in June of the Roe v. Wade ruling that had provided a constitutional right to an abortion.

United States colleges and universities often provide a range of sexual and reproductive health services to students, including screenings for sexually transmitted diseases, birth control and insurance to cover abortion.

But most don't provide an abortion or medication abortion directly to students. They will, however, offer advice and connect students to reproductive health services.

Anti-abortion advocates say women shouldn't get access to abortion pills on campus, despite women in their 20s accounting for 57 percent of all medication abortions in the US in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion organization, told China Daily: "The abortion industry refuses to give women complete information about possible complications so, no, abortion pills should not be given to unsuspecting young women in college campuses."

Medication abortion is abortion done with pills that a woman can take by herself at home without the help of a doctor. However, some 19 states have laws requiring a medical clinician to be present as she takes the medication.

To make the abortion pills work, two drugs are needed. Mifepristone is the first; it works by blocking the hormone progesterone, needed for a successful pregnancy. The second pill, misoprostol, is taken one to two days later and empties the uterus. Misoprostol alone can be used if mifepristone isn't available.

College actions

A handful of colleges including the University of Illinois-Chicago provide abortion pills to students. In Massachusetts, where abortion is legal, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst will begin offering abortion pills in the fall.

In California, the law requires all of the state's public universities to begin providing medication abortion at their health centers on campus by January 2023. The University of California's Berkeley campus already provides the abortion pill.

Students at Barnard College and Columbia University in New York, a state where abortion is legal, recently demanded that medication abortion be available through the university's health service.

However, a spokesperson for Columbia told students: "Private physicians' offices are usually less crowded, have shorter waiting time, afford more privacy and feel more personal. Clinics or nonprofits such as Planned Parenthood may allow greater anonymity."

In the US, abortion pills are widely available with a prescription from a doctor or from an online pharmacy. Elisa Wells, a co-founder of Plan C, told China Daily: "[The] pills are extremely safe, and[a woman] can safely self-manage an abortion at home."

However, several Republicanled states want to restrict access to abortion pills.

That could create an uncertain road ahead for universities that want to offer them but may be restricted by state law. It will also place limits on publicly funded colleges and small colleges with no healthcare center on campus.

To safeguard medication abortion, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on July 8, expanding access to abortion pills. But critics say it isn't enough.