To: Santa Clara University

SCU needs to provide Birth Control to students

This is a big topic on the national level I think it is important to make the change at the local level. As a SCU alumnus I think it is important that students at Santa Clara and other Jesuit schools provide access to birth control to their female student body as part of the student health insurance program.

Why is this important?

SCU already provides this benefit to SCU employees as they are required to by law...this needs to be expanded to the students too. The pill, patch or ring (methods that are likely primary choices for college-aged women) can cost as much as $1,200 a year without insurance.

Support this for any of the following reasons
SCU Vision statement "Santa Clara University will educate citizens and leaders of competence, conscience, and compassion and cultivate knowledge and faith to build a more humane, just, and sustainable world." Their values include “a community that is enriched by people of different backgrounds...and welcoming and respecting other religious and philosophical traditions.."

This should include allowing their female students the right to decide and have access to birth control if they chose to.
1. Birth control saves medical cost (source NPR)
2. Student pick a university based on the quality of the education..Religious views of your university should not prevent a student from accessing to contraceptives if it is inline with their individual religious views
3. This is the majority view: Sixty-seven percent support giving contraceptives to students, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
4. SCU is still welcome to promote abstinence and other religious views related to this topic to their student body