Demand for long-term birth control at The New School’s Student Health Services has doubled, following the election of Donald Trump and a slew of anti-birth control legislations he plans to enact, administrators said.
To keep up, Medical Services has had to add additional shifts in order to meet the skyrocketing demand from students, according to Jayne Jordan, the department’s director. Medical Services is housed within Student Health Services and provides confidential medical consultations.
“Since the election, our requests for IUDs and Nexplanon [implants] doubled, requiring us to add another dedicated weekly session to [our nurse and midwife’s] schedule to allow her to perform IUD and Nexplanon insertions, in order to keep pace with demand,” Jordan said.
Since Trump’s election victory, Jordan said the numbers have skyrocketed. The surge in demand is due in part to anxieties over Republican attitudes on birth control coverage.
There has been a gradual shift in demand from condoms and the pill to alternative forms of birth control at Medical Services for the past two years, she said. These alternative forms include longer term options, such as IUDs and Nexplanon. An IUD, intrauterine devices, is a small t-shaped piece of plastic that is inserted into the uterus to provide birth control and Nexplanon is a thin small implant inserted under the skin of a woman’s upper arm to provide birth control, which is invisible and prevents pregnancy for up to four years.
Since Trump’s election victory, Jordan said the numbers have skyrocketed. The surge in demand is due in part to anxieties over Republican attitudes on birth control coverage.
The Republican replacement for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act — The American Healthcare Act — is being placed on hold after not gaining enough support from Congress as of March 24. However, the implications on women’s health within the bill reveals the lack of support for affordable birth control. The GOP holds the majority in both the House and Senate, which could allow them to pursue their agenda nearly unhindered going forward.
The proposals of the American Healthcare Act included immediately defunding Planned Parenthood — the largest provider of women’s health care in the country, according to Time Money — for one year. Because Planned Parenthood provides abortion services, the bill would have blocked the organization from Medicaid reimbursements.
The GOP’s health care act would have also impacted private health insurance companies who offer abortion coverage. The new bill was proposed to work on tax credits, which would be awarded to individuals based on age and are used to pay for coverage. However, these tax credits could not be used to pay for any insurance plan that offered abortion procedures.
As a result, women are searching for long term birth control solutions that would outlast Trump’s presidency.
Dakota Clarke, a senior at Parsons, has had the implanon implant for the past four years and recently got it replaced before the president was elected. “My implanon was set to expire in 2016 — before Trump took office — and will [now] have to be replaced in 2019,” she said. This indicates that her next implant will have to be renewed during his presidency, which concerns her.
Previously, Clarke’s implant was free because it was covered by her insurance under Obama’s policies which enabled women to access birth control cost free, the same policies that Trump railed against and vowed to repeal throughout his campaign.
“Will I have to pay an obscene amount for access to this form of birth control in 2019? The uncertainty sucks,” Clarke said.
Marissa Farr also worries about the uncertainty of having access to a healthcare plan under the GOP’s potential legislation. The Lang senior currently has no healthcare insurance and has been in the process of acquiring public insurance for six months.
It scared me that I might not be able to have a choice if I were to get pregnant in the future and want to terminate
“I will be affected [if Trump was to defund Planned Parenthood]. I’ll lose my birth control, which I take daily,” Farr said. “It not only prevents me from having a child I can’t afford, but creates a homeostasis within me and promotes my all-over health.”
Another student, Daisy Korpics, feels that Trump’s statements about women reflect the fact that he does not respect them or their autonomy. “It scared me that I might not be able to have a choice if I were to get pregnant in the future and want to terminate,” Korpics said.
As a result, the Parsons student decided to be proactive and had a five year IUD inserted, which has made her feel less anxious about the current political climate, but she does worry about the future. “My IUD is good for five years, so I do think about what I would do if Trump is re-elected and I need to get it replaced,” she said.
Medical Services can try to close the gap if Planned Parenthood should go under by offering students its many services — ranging from regular birth control pills, vaginal rings, body patches, condoms, and so on. However, if students don’t have health insurance how can they obtain access to these services from the school’s Medical Services department? Is it included in the fee students pay or is it out of pocket?
Jordan, the director of Medical Services, is apprehensive about the Trump administration’s plan for American Healthcare, but she has high hopes for the future. “I pray we overcome it, but we have to push for what is right.”