Plan B, best addition to vending machines since Tic-Tacs

Contraception on campus has been one of the heaviest and longest held debates within the U.S. academic community. Is contraception promoting promiscuity? Is it taking away from the mission we uphold as an institution of learning? Is it financially beneficial to both students and university?

And yet the most important question, which arguably should be the first one asked, really hasn't been.

Realistically, how dependent on contraception is the student population at hand? The issue of contraception on campus is one of numbers, not morals.

The idealist notion that students ages 20-24 are choosing to abstain from unprotected sex is a serene one, but it's also a fairytale. Throughout the U.S., 80 percent of female students are sexually active and have a positive impression of contraception use. Students at nearly every university in the country are having sex. Attempting to make the argument that providing contraception on campus is promoting unprotected or casual sex is irrelevant when unprotected or casual sex is already occurring in large numbers.

As of now 67 percent favor providing some type of contraception to students on campus, but Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania has taken the availability of contraception to the next level and sparked ample debate.

Plan B vending machines.

That's right, ladies. No more stopping for M&Ms and Doritos in between classes.

For $25, students can receive Plan B dispensed from a vending machine located inside Shippensburg's health center. The university's vice president maintains that the university in no way profits from the sales of Plan B, but can't give it away for free without supporting the drug through state or fee money.

What Shippensburg has done is exactly what other universities in the contraception debate ought to do. They asked their student population and got the numbers. After surveying Shippensburg students, 85 percent showed favor for the Plan B vending machines, so the VP, along with other university officials, listened.

Whether or not casual sex is moral, or one of the many ailments of the Millennial generation, is irrelevant.

What is relevant is what is going on today in the academic and personal lives of students and how universities can best cater to them through facilities and services offered. So for all university officials who still believe they hold the moral compass of their student body, stop asking yourselves questions and instead turn to your students.

With Susan G. Komen conceding to right wing groups by pulling funding from Planned Parenthood, only to flip flop three days later with the CEO's tail between her legs and the VP of public policy resigning, the question of adequate health resources for women is brought into question. Aside from important resources like screenings for cervical ad breast cancer and regular exams, safe and available contraception is another health right that all women deserve.

So leave morality judgment for the altar, not the classroom.