Students demand college install contraceptive vending machine

A feminist group wants the University of Florida to install a 24-hour vending machine so college women can have access to contraceptives around the clock.

Advocates with the National Women's Liberation (NWL) group held a so-called speak-out on campus this week to spread the word on what they want to be carried in the machine.

The university does offer emergency contraception at a discounted rate through the student health center but members of the NWL say that is not accessible enough.  The health center is not open in the evenings and weekends.

"If I had the ability to go to a vending machine and get the pill, I wouldn't have had to deal with any of that harassment or embarrassment," Kendra Vincent of the NWL says.

Supporters want the vending machines to include emergency contraceptives as well as condoms and other feminine products.

"I think that this is something that is long overdue. People shouldn't be embarrassed to go and get a 'morning after pill' from physicians," student Paige Arneson says.

Leaders of the NWL say they need one more thing to move forward with the forward and that is a designated area to put the machine.

The director of a local pro-life women's pregnancy center says that she is concerned that young women will not think about the long-term effects of using emergency contraception if they can simply go to a vending machine to get it.