Colleges Raise Birth Control Costs, Making Natural Family Planning More Attractive

Sept. 9, 2009 - PRLog -- College women in the Chicago area and around the country have seen skyrocketing prices in birth control on their campuses over the last year, due to a change in federal law.
The monthly cost of the birth control pill jumped from around $12 to $50, and the cost of the NuvaRing has jumped from about $18 to $36, according to a report in the New York Times. A recent federal law now prevents some clinics from offering reduced prices, thus raising costs.
It is due to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, in which President George Bush removed college health centers and some other clinics serving the poor from group discount drug programs. Some clinics stocked up on birth control pills for a while and were able to offer them at the lower prices, but that has changed.
Jenny Wawrose, a college sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin, complains that her monthly birth control pills have gone up from $20 - $30 per month to $65. “I don’t know, I don’t think I can keep taking it, or this kind that much longer because it’s $700 a year, which is absurd,” Wawrose said, as reported in MyFoxAustin.com.
Natural Family Planning (NFP), on the other hand, involves fertility awareness, and is very low in cost and safe since it involves no drugs or devices. The Sympto-Thermal Method of NFP is based on scientific research and helps women know when they are fertile and when they aren’t. Many women don’t realize they are fertile for only a few days a month.
The Sympto-Thermal Method costs only $135 for a course taught by the Couple to Couple League and can be learned in three classes. There is also the CCL Home Study Course, available from CCL Central, for $150.00 plus shipping.
Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered to married and engaged couples and can be taken at 15 locations in the Chicago, IL Archdiocese, as well as in southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. The next class begins soon. For more information, go to http://www.naturalfamilyplanningchicago.com.

# # #

The Couple to Couple League (CCL) is an international, interfaith, non-profit organization dedicated to teaching Natural Family Planning (NFP) to married and engaged couples. This news article is sponsored by the Chicago chapter of CCL International.