We the people have a right to decide for ourselves

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Once again, elected officials, out of touch with the current generation’s beliefs, lifestyles, and, most importantly, rights, are trying to determine what choices we will be allowed to make.

I am referring to the letter from Delegate Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William) to VCU President Eugene Trani, as reported in the April 24 edition of The Commonwealth Times by staff writer Melissa Noble.

Once again, elected officials, out of touch with the current generation’s beliefs, lifestyles, and, most importantly, rights, are trying to determine what choices we will be allowed to make.

I am referring to the letter from Delegate Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William) to VCU President Eugene Trani, as reported in the April 24 edition of The Commonwealth Times by staff writer Melissa Noble. The letter calls for university health services to cease the distribution of emergency contraception, referred to as “Plan B,” to VCU students, stating that “VCU’s Office of Health Promotion violates section 18.2-76 of the Code of Virginia’s informed consent requirements for abortion.”

Furthermore the article states that “Plan B recently has been challenged in legislation because Marshall and others insist that the levongestral pills are used as a form of early abortion.” Apparently VCU is not alone in being targeted by orders to cease distribution of the pills.

Noted in the article, the Board of Visitors at JMU actually ordered the health system to stop distributing the pills, a move being fought by the student body at JMU. While it is not certain that our own Board of Visitors will address the letter from the Delegate at all, it is imperative that if they even consider addressing it, we as a student body make our voices heard as to how we feel on this issue.

In his letter to President Trani, Delegate Marshall states, “I don’t see any reason why we should be subsidizing Plan B. Do you really think that parents around Virginia send their kids to VCU to get this?” No, Mr. Marshall, I don’t believe that parents send their students here to obtain Plan B. I think that parents send their children here to obtain a well-rounded education and learn how to make decisions for themselves as adults.

What I don’t think the parents send their children here for is to be saddled with emotional or financial burdens such as unplanned children. This is not an attack against young parents or parenthood. Some of us in our college years are mature and responsible enough to raise children well if we choose to do so.

Many of us, however, are not ready for such responsibilities and we are well aware of that, which is why VCU’s health system makes contraceptives such as condoms and birth control available and affordable. However, there are some instances that we cannot control. Birth control pills are not 100 percent effective, and sometimes condoms break.

Furthermore, there are instances where young women may be sexually assaulted or raped. In each of these cases, the availability of emergency contraceptives such as Plan B can save young people from having to make even more difficult decisions down the line, such as whether to have an abortion or to leave school in order to raise the child.

Choices, I might add, which disproportionately fall on the shoulders of young women, with little if any input from the young man who helped to get into that situation. The choice of how to handle a possible pregnancy should be left to the woman, and yes, the man who are facing the issue, and not politicians delegating the rights of people’s bodies.

Included in the letter to President Trani, The Commonwealth Times reported that “Marshall cites the code as stipulating a fine with a $2,500 civil penalty per violation if these abortion concerns aren’t addressed promptly.” His argument that these pills cause abortions is the fact that they may prevent the implantation of fertilized eggs, in effect “tampering with life that has already begun.”

However, not even the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a ruling as to when life legally begins, and while many feel that life does indeed begin with conception, there are many more who do not.

Until a firm legal ruling is in place, the delegate’s argument is little more than an opinion, with no legal back up. Given the controversy surrounding the nature of when life begins, it is not likely to be soon that any legal statutes for what constitutes it will be established.

In the meantime, it is up to us, as students who these decisions will affect directly, to let those in our government know that we will not sit idly while they make decisions for us.

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