After the first couple weeks of classes and a great first two football games, the year is off to yet another solid start here at Boston College. However, the year begins in the dust of one of the more controversial debates to hit campus in recent history: the place of contraception at Boston College. Expectations about what this means for our great university are not as clear as either side of the debate would like them to be. The aim here is to explore what the sexual health initiative means for BC students and what we can anticipate in terms of UGBC and administrative action.
The student body voted 89% in favor of a sexual health initiative (SHI). To some, this may mean that 11% of Boston College students must not want their peers being healthy, which is absurd. In an unfair (and in some ways even sinister) move by the proponents of the SHI, the wording thereof grouped availability of condoms, birth control pill prescriptions, and testing for sexually transmitted diseases in one legislative package. This cluster required, as a whole, one vote – “Yes” or “No” to the whole deal. In short, students who may very well be in favor of certain initiatives, such as STD testing, but not others, such as university provided access to birth control, were forced to compromise their own position no matter how they voted. Even the name of the initiative was chosen so as to make opposition impossible (who could possibly be against sexual health?). In short, the writer here has very few reserves in claiming that the SHI vote did not capture accurately the student body’s opinion concerning so-called “sexual health.”
Regardless of statistical problems involved with the initiative, it did pass, and the current UGBC administration must handle it accordingly. The degree to which either the UGBC or university officials will take the sexual health issue is yet to be seen, but I should hope that both take these two issues into consideration: the hookup culture and a formational educational university experience.
Despite BC’s laudable opposition to the hookup culture, sexual usury still manages to show its gruesome face around campus. Though our university is one of the foremost in promoting respectful interactions between the sexes, everyone knows that one-night stands remain as much a problem as ever. The pending availability of condoms on campus thus begs a question: what message would the university be sending about hooking up? Do condoms, available in specified areas around campus, promote respectful interactions between the sexes, or do they more easily allow those one night stands to occur? Does access to last minute birth control provide for the committed couple who talk about their sexual encounters and plan ahead of time, or does it provide for those who have met an hour or two beforehand?
In addition, BC ought not forget that the purpose of its very existence is to educate. And to educate here does not mean in a superficial sense to make another memorize mindless facts. Education is, from preschool through doctoral work, the long process of forming the person to be able to do what people do best: asking questions and finding answers. When looking at education in this light, one may even be able to say (technically) that universities have no obligation to provide food, water, or shelter to students. In fact, many do not. And that brief list does not even include many of the luxuries students enjoy on the Heights, such as cable TV, pop music performances, and sports games. Yet none of these are necessary for the proper functioning of a university. When colleges do decide to provide the amenities, they normally manage to do so within the overall goal and mission of the university. For example, at the cafeterias, BC’s workers are paid a living wage. In the dorms we are encouraged to recycle, and we are asked to be respectful of visitors at sports games. All of these are best understood when subsumed under Boston College’s greater mission as a university.
So yet another question is begged: How do condoms fulfill the proper functioning of a university? Is the formation of the person, including the moral dimension of the person, inhibited when sexual immorality is facilitated for the sake of “health?” Will incoming students be challenged to lead moral lives, or will they receive a message merely about having any sex they want, as long as it is “safe?”
After writing all these questions out, I must say that I have absolutely no idea what we should expect in the aftermath of the SHI. All I can do is hope, and I hope the administration and UGBC think very carefully about everything at hand.
