DURING April of last semester, the James Madison University Board of Visitors voted 7-6 in favor of a controversial motion that banned the distribution of the "morning after" contraceptive pill in JMU-affiliated health centers. This decision has since received massive disapproval from JMU students, who have filed a petition with more than 3,000 signatures that asks that the previous motion be overturned and the sale of the emergency contraceptive pill reinstated. Last week during the June meeting of the JMU Board of Visitors, the Board did not discuss this issue, nor was it even on the agenda for the meeting. The JMU Board is not only doing the JMU student body a great disservice by not discussing this issue, but is blatantly disregarding the wishes of its constituents. The JMU Board must at least raise this issue in a future Board meeting, as it is the morally correct decision for the benefit of the institution's students.
The decision to ban the distribution of the morning-after pill from JMU's health centers was contentious and arbitrary. The Board responded to pressure from state Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, who for his own personal moral reasons believed that the pill was a form of abortion rather than contraception and advocated the prohibition of this pill from Virginia's public campuses. The JMU Board yielded to Marshall's coercion and summarily banned the pill in a close decision, with only one vote being the deciding factor. By believing itself to be a higher moral body than the government -- the pill is legal in the Commonwealth of Virginia -- the JMU Board decided to become the absolute moral compass for its female student body. This decision took away the facilities for a female student to make a key reproductive decision, one that is legal and allowable in the United States. The JMU Board should perhaps not have jurisdiction over this aspect of its female student's lives.
Due to the fact that this issue is so crucial to the life of JMU's female students, it is depressingly astounding that the JMU Board is deliberately ignoring its key constituents: the JMU student body. Even though the JMU Board must represent the interests of several other groups with important ties to the university, such as state legislators and officials, faculty and administrators, alumni and students' parents, its main responsibility is to its students. After all, the decisions it makes are supposed to ultimately benefit those who attend the institution.
Although the Board believes that it is truly making the right decision for its students in this case, it must ultimately pay attention to the dissent from the student body. The more than 3,000 signatures collected in favor of overturning the Board's morning after pill pronouncement represent the feelings and opinions of a sizable portion of the student body. Clearly, many of the Board's main constituents are severely unhappy with the Board's decision, and if the Board truly believes that it is working for the benefit of its students, it must reexamine its decision.
Also, the Board's decision rested on a narrow margin in favor of banning the pill. Because the decision depended on only one vote, and this particular issue involves life and death as well as possibly drastic changes in a student's life and welfare as a direct result of the decision, the Board's conclusion must not be viewed by itself as final. By not even considering re-opening debate on such a vital and controversial issue which has a questionable mandate from the Board, the JMU Board is doing its students tremendous harm. Human beings are not perfect, and the Board's decision may have been wrong. With such a crucial decision on the line, it is morally irresponsible to not reexamine the soundness of the decision.
Unfortunately, aside from a legal resolution, there is no way for the JMU student body to force or at least compel the Board to be accountable for its decisions. What the Board decides is final. One would hope that the Board would take into account the controversy and discontent among those it is trying to educate and benefit and at least re-open debate on this issue.
In any case, faced with such a contentious decision which was approved by the narrowest of margins, and also the intense student indignation over this policy, the JMU Board should re-open debate on its ban of the morning after pill as it is the moral and correct decision it owes its students.
(Alex Rosemblat is a Cavalier Daily columnist. He can be reached at arosemblat@cavalierdaily.com.)
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