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The New Guard

Gettysburg College Student Government To Spend Thousands On Free 24/7 Birth Control Vending Machine

By

New Guard Staff

July 19, 2023

By: Elizabeth Guldimann

On March 8th, the Gettysburg Student Senate approved a proposal urging the college’s administration to provide Plan-B contraceptive dispensing vending machines for free student use.

Despite the already existing availability of contraceptives such as Plan-B for a reduced fee of $20 at the school’s student health center, the senate has proposed that the school purchase a $5,000 vending machine to make these contraceptives available to students at all hours of the day. The proposal will now need to be approved by university administration.

Senator Abigail Hauer suggested that the senate could offer to pay for the initial cost of installing the vending machine, however no plan has been released detailing how they plan to obtain this money.

Gettysburg College Young Americans for Freedom chapter chairman Andrew Breschard rebuked the proposal in an exclusive interview with YAF. “This opinion passed by the Student Senate is little more than an attempt to appear to be woke,” Breschard said. “… they are demanding that the college spend the tuition dollars of students who may have strong moral objections to freely providing contraceptives 24/7… They cannot show why this machine is necessary because the evidence simply is not there. The senate passed this opinion not because it benefits the campus community in any tangible way, but because they think it makes them look good.”

Breschard highlighted how the implementation of this machine would negatively impact students, especially those of particular moral convictions such as members of YAF and members of the Newman Association, a Catholic organization on campus.

There is no need for this additional expense, which will come at a cost to student organizations when the same contraceptive proposed to be offered in the vending machine comes at a low cost to students on campus anyways.

This situation reflects a larger issue on college campuses across the nation: the virtue-signaling pet projects of a few students take precedence over funding student organizations that have the potential to benefit all students on campus.


Elizabeth Guldimann is a National Journalism Center intern at YAF’s New Guard.

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