On a Friday or Saturday evening, in a friend’s dorm room, inside a car, or outside of Taylor Hall, a student will meet a peer to obtain medication that ensures their ability to control their body and future: emergency contraception pills (ECPs) that prevent unwanted pregnancy. It’s a small interaction with big implications and facilitated by a thoughtful system created by the Bryn Mawr Feminist Coalition (Fem-Co).
Fem-Co is a student led club comprised of two branches: the menstrual equality branch and the reproductive justice branch. The menstrual branch had a large impact on campus last year by establishing free tampon and pad dispensers dotted around campus. The club is working to expand access to menstrual products in more buildings and organized free bags pads and tampons—equipped with different sizes depending on flow needs—to be distributed by the Wellness Center.
The reproductive branch of Fem-Co is responsible for the of free condom, lube, and dental dam distributors in every dorm across the Bryn Mawr campus. And, more recently, the reproductive branch has joined forces with the Emergency Contraception for Every Campus (EC4EC) network to provide free ECPs to students. If taken within five days of unpredicted sex, emergency contraception prevents pregnancy. Since time plays a role in the effectiveness of ECPs—the sooner they’re taken after unprotective sex the more effective they are—their accessibility is incredibly important for people who are without preemptive contraception and concerned about becoming pregnant.
The Bryn Mawr Health Center provides ECPs to students. However, the center is only open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Fridays, times during which students go to classes and focus on responsibilities other than their reproductive. Students who have to wait for the center to open and take the medication hours or even days after having unprotected sex risk the contraception being less effective.
Last year Fem-Co held tabling events to hand out ECPs to students, but the club presidents were aware that some students would not pass the table while others wouldn’t know preemptively that they needed the product, thus, they wanted to increase the accessibility of their resources. Now, Bryn Mawr has an ECP peer-to-peer network, through which students can fill out an anonymous form and receive ECPs from a Fem-Co representative.
“We find most of our [ECP] drops and most of the forms that people are filling out happen at times when [the Health Center is] closed,” explains Delia Angulo-Chen, the leader of the reproductive branch of Fem-Co. Many other schools, such as Barnard University, have similar programs on which Bryn Mawr’s system is based, Angulo-Chen says. Although the Wellness Center has the same resources, Fem-Co offers two unique features: anonymity and support from peers.
Last summer Angulo-Chen joined the #FreethePill Youth Council with Advocates for Youth and contributed to advocacy work that contributed to achievements such as the FDA approving Opill, the first over the counter birth control. Angulo-Chen’s relationship with Advocates for Youth gave Fem-Co access to important resources, such as a condom collective with Trojan and the ability to apply for Bryn Mawr to be a part of EC4EC.
When filling out the form to receive ECPs, participants create a pseudonym, select one of four times that the delivery can be made, and request the pick-up location. The form is run by Google, and provides Google Voice numbers, which protects the recipient’s number from being recognized or attached to a phone contact. Some people list a friend’s room, a campus building, or even their cars as pick-up locations. Angulo-Chen carries boxes of the Plan-B, the brand of ECPs the club distributes, in her backpack throughout the day—always ready for a delivery since it’s vital that the contraception is taken as soon as possible. To maximize privacy of students, only Angulo-Chen and Kaia Susman, the President of Fem-Co, make deliveries.
Recently the club has increased their advertising of the EC peer-to-peer network by pining posters up around campus, which has almost doubled the demand, says Angulo-Chen. Last fall semester, the club had around 13 requests through the online form, but this semester already, that number has tripled. Some requests are repeated from people who have received deliveries in the past, and students are able to request more than one box of Plan-B on the form. The boxes of Plan-B being distributed this semester won’t expire until 2027, but students should still read the box to ensure they’re taking a non-expired medication. Through the online form, students can also request a pregnancy test. EC4EC recommends taking a pregnancy test if you haven’t had your period within three weeks after taking Plan-B.
ECPs are a great way to protect against pregnancy after unprotected sex, but they are a reactive tool that require timely action to be effective. Therefore, Fem-Co is now piloting a new peer-to-peer network to distribute the over-the-counter birth control Opill. The progesterone only pill requires no prescription, and while students can buy the pill at CVS, it’s expensive cost of $50 a box creates a financial burden for many college students. Fem-Co hopes that providing Opill advances access to birth control and alleviates concerns about insurance, privacy, accessibility, and cost.
“I think after the election there was a lot of fear,” says to Angulo-Chen, referring to widespread concerns around reproductive care access in the aftermath of President Trump’s re-election. Beyond the Bryn Mawr College community, funding and reliable care are in danger. Angulo-Chen shared that there are nine Crisis Pregnancy Centers, fake clinics run by anti-abortion organizations, for every local abortion center in Pennsylvania.
Bryn Mawr Fem-Co has connections at and beyond the campus that ensures they can continue to provide reproductive resources for students. If people want to support reproductive rights, Angulo-Chen encourages them to donate to local clinics that might lose funding or face more challenges under the new administration. Despite the uncertainty of care structures beyond campus, the Bryn Mawr community is lucky to have the reliable support of Fem-Co.
Learn more about Emergency Contraception for Every Campus here.
Learn more about abortion rights and care in Pennsylvania here.
