Yale University to install emergency contraception vending machines
The machines reportedly will be installed right before students leave for winter break.
Students at Yale University will have access to a vending machine of a different sort—ones that will dispense emergency contraception, The Yale Daily News reports.
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The machines, scheduled to be installed before winter break, will dispense the “morning-after pill,” or Plan B pill as well as other over-the-counter contraceptives.
Students can score the Plan B for $49.99, Yale College Council representative Ileana Valdez told the newspaper. While the price is comparable to a local pharmacy, students wouldn’t have to leave campus to get it.
“There will definitely be Plan B in there and there will definitely some sort of other over the counter medications and there will definitely be condoms available near the machine,” Valdez told NBC Connecticut.
“Hopefully this will set a precedent for more machines to show up around campus that contain other things so Yale students don’t have to go out of their way to go to CVS, especially students from the new colleges.”
“I proposed this vending machine because I saw it done at other universities and hoped it would solve the problems of access and stigma related to getting emergency contraception at Yale,” Yale student Grace Cheung wrote in an email to the local NBC affiliate.
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“It is often difficult to get, both at Yale Health, and at nearby pharmacies, and it is often a very uncomfortable and humiliating process.”
Officials hope the vending machine will make it more accessible for students without the embarrassment and stigma attached by facing someone at a pharmacy to obtain it.
Valdez told NBC, the machine will be available 24/7, which “gets rid of the fear that one might have going to the health center and having to talk someone especially if this is something that’s happening late at night.”
Emergency vending machines have been installed at other schools like Stanford University, Pomona College, Brandeis University and two of the University of California system schools.
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