Last Tuesday, Tufts University announced that it now provides medication abortions on campus, joining a growing list of universities to offer the service in light of expanding abortion restrictions across the United States. NYU, however, has no plans to follow suit.
“At present, we do not have plans to offer medication abortion services to students onsite,” an NYU Student Health Center spokesperson said in an email to WSN. “But SHC providers have long-standing relationships with external partners, including NYU Langone, who have significant expertise and timely availability for this or other abortion services.”
Medication abortion involves taking two pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, to halt the hormone progesterone in the body and then induce the uterus to expel fetal material. The medication, which patients can take until the 11th week of pregnancy, is almost as safe and effective as a surgical abortion procedure, with about a 96% success rate.
Other New York City private universities such as Columbia University and The New School began providing medical abortion services on campus following the overturn of Roe v. Wade — which guaranteed citizens the constitutional right to an abortion — in June 2022. All schools within the State University of New York and City University of New York systems are also required to provide students with medication abortion services under a bill that Gov. Kathy Hochul signed in May 2023. Since the 2022 ruling, 13 states have enacted total abortion bans and eight others have banned the procedure at or after 18 weeks of pregnancy.
The SHC told WSN that students can fill prescriptions for mifepristone and misoprostol at the SHC pharmacy if they use a virtual medication abortion service. Last year, the pharmacy began carrying mifepristone after gaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Initially, students could only access mifepristone from the SHC if they had referrals to outside abortion providers and were covered by Wellfleet, the NYU-sponsored health insurance program. The university later removed the referral requirement, but only for students with the Wellfleet plan or health insurance plans based in New York.
NYU expanded its services to entirely cover both elective and medically necessary abortions under Wellfleet in the fall of 2023. That semester, the university also installed five vending machines that dispense emergency contraceptives for $15, which the SHC implemented in response to Roe v. Wade’s overturning.
“At a time when reproductive freedom is under assault and women today lack the bodily autonomy that their grandmothers once had, it is incumbent upon NYU to provide on-campus medical abortion services,” Saha Guerrero, president of NYU College Democrats, said in a statement to WSN. “Failing to do so limits accessibility to fundamental health care.”
Contact Jade Springer at [email protected].