Pitt Planned Parenthood rallies in support of Affordable Care Act birth control clause
By: Kelly Lyons / Staff Writer
Posted on 12. Feb, 2012 in News
Under gray skies and the bare trees of the William Pitt Union lawn sat bright orange boxes filled with 2,500 cups of Ramen noodles stacked on top of each other around a table.
Atop the table, a petition to support the Affordable Care Act’s birth control clause flapped in the wind.
Pitt’s chapter of Vox, a student-outreach program sponsored by Planned Parenthood, spent $600 to bring the Ramen noodles to the lawn. Group members said the dollar value is equivalent to the amount of money the average American woman pays out of pocket annually for birth control.
Friday, President Barack Obama announced a compromise concerning birth control insurance coverage. The original language of the Affordable Care Act would have compelled all employers to provide birth control, a stipulation that came under fire from the Catholic Church, which wanted to be exempt from having to pay for contraception for its employees.
Obama’s new plan wouldn’t require religious organizations to provide contraception free of cost. Instead, it would spread the cost over all policy holders.
Abby Mundell, founder and president of the Pitt chapter of Vox — which means “voice” in Latin — said that it’s important that students know how health insurance is affecting their everyday lives.
“College students should have a voice — need to have a voice,” Mundell, a junior, said.
Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania contacted Mundell and her chapter on Wednesday to suggest that they hold their rally on Friday to demonstrate to students — primarily female students — what they could spend their money on if they didn’t have to pay for birth control.
Mundell and her vice president saw that a group at Ohio State University had used Ramen noodles to make the same statement on Wednesday.
Rebecca Cavanaugh, 31, of Swissvale and the Western Pennsylvania Planned Parenthood, said that she was excited about students’ involvement in the rally.
“It’s a pretty big deal. Think of all the stuff that you could buy with $600,” Cavanaugh said.
Signs, taped to the boxes of Ramen, said: “$600 can buy a lot of textbooks,” and “Heck yes, I use birth control.”
About 15 members of Pitt’s Vox chapter and supporters of the group held signs at the corners of Fifth Avenue and Bigelow Boulevard to entice students to check out the rally, take a free package of Ramen noodles and sign a petition to show their support for the Affordable Care Act.
Junior Megan Cichon, a psychology and film major, stood at the corner of Fifth and Bigelow with a sign that read, “Birth Control with no copay? Yes, please,” in black, cursive lettering.
Freshmen Conor Walsh was drawn to the display.
“We saw all of the orange, and we were like, ‘What’s with the noodles?’” he said.
Upon hearing the news of the Affordable Care Act’s birth control clause, Walsh’s friend and fellow freshmen Alex Riggan spoke in support of the bill.
“It sounds like a win-win-win situation. I learned something, and I got a cup of free noodles,” he said.
Sophomore Brianna Mosley, a communications major, saw the demonstrators’ signs and chose to walk over and sign the petition.
“I think that everyone should have the choice to have it or not,” Mosley said.
But Catholic employers think they should have the choice to decline to pay for contraceptives, which the Church has always maintained are immoral.
Senior Jeremy Paff, president of the Catholic Newman Club at Pitt, said that he could not support the bill’s amended version either.
Paff said that the compromise would force “material cooperation” on the part of the Church because the cost for the Catholic employees’ birth control would be spread out over all policy holders, meaning the Church would still indirectly pay for birth control.
“The foundation of our argument is that ... this would be forcing us to act against something we believe to be right,” Paff said.
11 Responses to “Pitt Planned Parenthood rallies in support of Affordable Care Act birth control clause”
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“I think that everyone should have the choice to have it or not,” Mosley said.
Hey, Ms. Brianna Mosley, what about my choice of NOT PROVIDING IT or NOT PAYING FOR IT? Where the hell is MY CHOICE? Are you special? Does your CHOICE count more than MINE? Are some people more equal in your little utopia?
Ms. Brianna Mosley, you do have a CHOICE whether to have contraception or not. It just seems that you and many others just don’t want to PAY for it. Greedy Liberals, always doing “good” with other people’s money.
Dude, calm down.
Let’s have someone LITERALLY put a weapon to your head, steal your money, and make you violate your religious beliefs, and then you can tell me to calm down (and no all you whiny fear-mongering liberals, I am not suggesting violence against 2011grad). At the point of being fined and thrown in jail (the weapon part), the President has DECREED that some people are now more equal than others and more deserving of my money than than I am, and that government can interfere with my religious beliefs, thereby destroying the Constitution. If you are calm, you are an atheist, statist, liberal.
If you’re trying to be funny, you’re not doing a very good job, and if you’re being serious you sound totally deranged. You need help.
Extremism in the Defense of Liberty Is No Vice. And trust me, forcing a religious entity to do something against their will and core beliefs is an attack on Liberty. And our Constitution. And 90% of all Americans.
What about people whose particular being in the sky tells them that paying taxes to a government is immoral? What if their deity has spoken to them, and said that they must do everything they can to spread birth control?
You can’t please everyone. What makes your book of tales any more special than that of the next dumbass?
Well, it looks like I have good book. Yours seems to be written by Saul Alinsky.
If someone wants to spread Birth Control, let them do it WITHOUT my money. Liberals can’t seem to grasp the difference.
Just ignore the troll.
OK Blasphemer, I will. You are now officially ignored.
“College students should have a voice — need to have a voice,” Mundell, a junior, said.
I agree, Ms. Mundell, and I hope that you will allow me to express my voice, being a fellow college student.
The Affordable Care Act, even with the compromise as it stands now, still forces the Catholic Church and any other religious institutions to provide contraceptives to their employees. The compromise spoken of merely brings a third party into the dealings. As Mr. Pfaff said, even with the existence of the third party, the compromise still forces religious institutions to cooperate with something that they believe is morally wrong because it forces them to pay for insurance plans which cover contraceptives. Thus, the Act still unjustly inhibits the free practice of religion for both individuals and institutions, protected by the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the Constitution.
Not to mention the fact that the substance that the Affordable Care Act has chosen to give to women for free is classified as a Group 1 Carcinogen by the World Health Organization. How exactly does giving out free carcinogens to women correspond with improving women’s health?
Everyone is missing the point. These college students are deranged. “I could buy so much other cool stuff with $600!” Yeah, and I could buy a bunch of cool stuff if I didn’t have responsibilities as an adult or if I made different decisions as an adult… or if I prioritized differently as an adult. What’s the common theme here? Oh yeah… being an adult. I don’t give a rat’s ass if people want to have sex in college cuz… wait for it… I did it too, but I paid for my own birth control and never in a million years would have expected others to pay for it for me. We are a sad, pathetic, collapsing society if these supposedly educated young women think that other people should pay for their birth control/abortions/sterilizations/cough medicine/textbooks/jeans/iPod’s/etc. whatever it is. “Hell yeah! Free shit! Awesome dude!” We’re all fucked if is this is what the future of America looks like. And ironically, we’re the ones that have to pay for the privilege of being fucked by dimwits.