Actress Amber Tamblyn, second from left, and college students lobby Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., left, for lower priced contraceptives.
(Photo copyright Rachael Spiegel)Erin McKenna, a junior at the University of Pittsburgh, admits that she sometimes has to choose between purchasing textbooks for school and paying for her birth-control prescription.
"I have two jobs and I still can't afford it," McKenna said.
It is the type of decision that more and more college women are facing since a provision in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 ended the practice of drug companies providing birth-control medicines to colleges at a steep discount.
Birth-control advocates call the price increase a crisis, while promoters of sexual abstinence say colleges should be stressing alternatives to contraceptives.
McKenna and a group of other college students, along with actress Amber Tamblyn, went to Washington, D.C., this week to lobby Congress for passage of a bill that would restore the discounts.
The legislation, introduced by Rep. Joseph Crowley D-N.Y. along with Sen. Claire McCaskill D-Mo., and presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., is called the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act. It has been introduced in both the Senate and House, but has yet to be passed.
Before the deficit bill passed, drug companies were allowed to provide discounted birth-control medicines in an effort to forge brand loyalty with women. But language in the act made them unable to continue the practice, which Crowley says was an unintended result of the legislation.
Tamblyn, who is starring in the forthcoming film "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," was along to add her support.
She says she became aware of this issue from young women who wrote in on her Web site's message boards. She said the issue has been a "hot topic" since the price went up four months ago and continues to grow "exponentially."
"It just seems like a no-brainer," Tamblyn said of Congress overturning the provision in the deficit reduction act.
"Young women face many hurdles in life. To add another financial hurdle makes no sense. We should be making it easier, not harder, for young women to take control of their lives," Tamblyn said in a statement released by Planned Parenthood.
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