Tufts University is now offering medication abortion pills for students on campus, praising the pills for being effective and safe. The pills are mifepristone and misoprostol.
“Essentially, medication abortion is the process of using … two different medications to end the pregnancy,” Dr. Marie Caggiano, medical director for Tufts Health Service, said, according to The Tufts Daily. “Medication abortion is very, very safe and effective … up to [the] first trimester [of a] pregnancy.”
Caggiano also noted that in offering abortion pills, the university is taking a burden off of abortion providers in the area.
“We may be offloading some centers that provide abortion, like Planned Parenthoods and other places who might need to be seeing more folks traveling from out of state,” she said.
One reason for the move is the Supreme Court decision, Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning Roe v. Wade.
“With the Supreme Court decision, it was just very clear that this was something that was very, very important to those of us in [Massachusetts],” Alexandra Donovan, director of the Center for Awareness, Resources and Education said.
The university’s Health Service announced the move to offer abortion pills on Instagram. According to the post, Tufts already offers free condoms and Plan B pills via a vending machine in the school’s Campus Center.
Tufts students are reportedly roused by the decision to provide abortion pills.
“The [Instagram] post we made [about Health Service offering medication abortion] is one of, if not our most successful post of all time. We had a hugely positive response to that post,” Ashton Gerber, a social media coordinator for the school, said in the press release.
The school is also emphasizing that students from states that have banned abortion are safe to receive the procedure.
“Getting the abortion in Massachusetts is still legal, even if your health plan is in Texas, and there are ways that we can work with the student and the insurance company to try to minimize the risk of an accidental disclosure,” Caggiano said.
“For your visit at the Health Service and medications that we give you at the Health Service, there isn’t anything sort of leaving the Health Service that could indicate what service a person was receiving here,” she continued.
Campus Reform contacted Tufts University for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
