GET OUT OF MY BEDROOM!

Ever hear of Shippensberg University? Until recently, I never had. I doubt whether most of you had either.

 

Shippensberg University recently and suddenly appeared in the media. This little known school became famous. Perhaps, infamous.

 

The reason fits into the recent hype regarding contraception. Shippensberg University has a vending machine on campus that sells the morning after pill. Known also as the Plan B pill via federal law.

 

Nothing new to Shippensberg students and faculty. The vending machine has been selling them for two years. Put $25 in the machine and the pill drops out like a candy bar.

 

The vending machine is located in the medical building on campus. The place designated to treat student health problems. Persons entering the medical building must first sign in. Federal law requires that any one purchasing the pill be at least 17 years of age. The Steppensberg administration advised that they have had no female enrolled under the age of 17.

 

The vending machine also sells condoms and pregnancy test kits to students.

 

You should be aware that the morning after pill is openly sold in Pennsylvania drug stores. No prescription required. No signing in. Just enter the drug store, select the packaged pill, and pay on the way out.

 

Steppensberg University is located in Pennsylvania. About 40 miles from Harrisburg. It sits in Amish and Mennonite country. Enrollment is 8,500. Steppensberg makes up part of the Pennsylvania state college system. It is a public institution. One of 14 comprising the State college system.

 

Two years ago, the students voted on whether to add the morning after pill to the vending machine. Eighty five per cent voted yes. Approximately 400 of 3,700 female students a year utilize the product via the vending machine.

 

Conception and reproduction are becoming confusing topics. The morning after pill supposedly prevents conception if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. Whereas the male sperm and female egg may have already mated, the pill prevents the egg from attaching to the uterus wall. Without the attachment, there can be no pregnancy. Manufacturers of the pill say it is preventive. Anti-abortion persons claim it is abortificient. That means it causes abortion.

 

A play on words. A play on labels.

 

All this conception/abortion chatter is mind boggling. You almost have to be a doctor to comprehend the minute being discussed.

 

An interesting question is raised by all this. Where was Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum  the past few years when first the vending machine was located on Steppensberg's campus and thereafter? Except for a few words in the recent debates, he was not heard from.

 

Where was Romney. He was heard from not at all.

 

Steppensberg is part of the Pennsylvania public college system. Santorum was either a United States Senator, a candidate for United States Senate, or a Pennsylvania citizen interested in morality, as he perceives it, when the vending machine and thereafter the morning after pill were discussed and implemented.

 

Santorum is the man who in the past few days has made comments in the national media to the effect that sex is not for pleasure, but for procreation. He considers sex special to the purpose of procreation. His position is sex is not for fun.

 

Santorum is a man who proclaimed loudly that Obama was intruding on religious rights with his health plan. What about personal rights? In reality, Santorum is the pot calling the kettle black. He has now entered the bedroom, yours and mine, and is authoritatively speaking to our sexual lives.

 

Louis says .....Get out of my bedroom! 

 

Santorum should remember also the words of the Declaration of Independence that people "...are entitled by their Creator...to the pursuit of happiness." Yours happiness. My happiness. Not Santorum's.