Plan B vending machines to be available on Washington state college campuses

The state has reserved around $200,000 of taxpayer funds for public colleges to install vending machines that will disperse emergency contraceptives including Plan B, pregnancy tests, and condoms. They will also include over-the-counter pain medications such as tylenol and ibuprofen, Seattle Times reports.

The University of Washington became the first college in the state to roll out contraceptive vending machines as part of a pilot program after the school's student body government passed legislation in 2022 that demanded accessability to emergency contraceptive vending machines on campus.

Within a three month time frame, more than 600 boxes of emergency contraception were sold from the vending machine following its first arrival in November, according to Taylor Riley, a doctoral candidate studying epidemiology that helped push for state funding.

"It's really significant to have governmental state support for this," Riley told the Times. "But there's still a lot of existing unmet needs at our public university campuses across the state, and we really need to expand access as much as we can for comprehensive reproductive health care for students."

The vending machine sits inside UW's Odeggard Library as the state moves to expand access to "reproductive healthcare" in wake of the United States Supreme Court ruling that overturned Dobbs v. Jackson in 2022.

According to the Times, there are currently 37 colleges among 17 states that have similar emergency contraceptive vending machines, although none are funded through taxpayer dollars. Washington state became the first in the nation to pledge state funding for emergency contraceptive vending machines which will rollout across campuses at the start of 2024.

Emergency contraceptive vending machine (Planned Parentood)

Kelly Cleland, executive director of the American Society for Emergency Contraception, who works with schools to install these vending machines spoke to the Times about its necessity on campuses.

"Since Dobbs, we've had about a fourfold increase in interest from people reaching out to us to say, 'Hey we need to do something on our campus to improve [emergency contraception] access,'" Cleland said. "I'm so excited about what’s happening in Washington, and I think these student leaders have been so instrumental in making this happen."

"After unprotected sex, the last option really is abortion, and in places where that's not a possibility, [emergency contraception] is absolutely essential," Cleland added.

Cleland also mentioned to Seattle Times that's these vending machines allow for students to not have to tell their parents as many of them are still on their insurance plans, saying "Sometimes they need to keep that separate from their parents."

During legislative session in March, the Democrat-controlled House and Senate moved to make Washington state a sancturary state for reproductive healthcare which includes child sex changes and "maternity services" without parental consent and at the cost of taxpayers.