Graphic by Namari Lock
The Independent Florida Alligator
Graphic by Namari Lock
University reactions to the overturn of Roe v. Wade were wide-ranging: Few took action to provide abortion medication, while most institutions decided to keep their distance from the conversation.
UF, like most universities, chose not to issue a statement addressing the Supreme Court’s decision. The university had no intention of doing so, UF spokesperson Cynthia Roldan wrote in an email to The Alligator after the decision.
Although, there were a few institutions that commented on the decision.
The University of California and the University of Michigan released statements condemning the decision. Others, largely faith-based private institutions like Liberty University and the Franciscan University of Steubenville, released statements applauding the decision.
Health protocols for UF students seeking abortions remained constant. Nearly six months later, students looking for abortion providers can still use the UF Student Health Care Center as a resource.
UF, along with every other Florida university, doesn’t provide abortions, but does supply information on where to get one locally if a student wants that option.
The UF Student Health Care Center provides support and information for pregnant students seeking options. The clinic provides a variety of resources for students that are meant to be inclusive, said Jocelyn Gravlee, UF SHCC interim director.
The clinic gives information about All Women’s Health Center, located at 1135 NW. 23rd Ave., and Bread and Roses Women’s Health Center, located at 1233 NW. 10th Ave., for students seeking abortions.
The UF SHCC also supplies students with information for anti-abortion organizations that promote other options than terminating a pregnancy. UF gives information for Community Pregnancy Clinics, located at 1800 W. University Ave., and Sira, located at 912 NW. 13th St.
Jennifer Donelan, UF SHCC family nurse practitioner, said the clinic informs students about local adoption services, midwives and obstetrician-gynecologists. All of this information is on a resource list given out to students and is updated over the years, Donelan said.
“Our focus is on prevention of unintended pregnancy and empowering all UF students to stay healthy,” Donelan said.
GatorWell Health Promotion Services provides UF students with services and information for health and wellness. It offers similar information to pregnant students seeking options such as abortions.
Samantha Evans, a GatorWell sexual health educator and health promotion specialist, said she’s only met with a few undergraduate and graduate students over the years looking for counseling on terminating pregnancies. Evans would refer students to either the UF SHCC or local clinics, she said.
In light of the Roe decision, Evans had to expand her research on referrals to abortion clinics outside of Gainesville, she said.
As of Nov. 21, Evans said she hasn’t met with a student since July about any issues or concerns regarding pregnancy options like abortion. Despite this, she knew she needed to update her resources to give out to students potentially seeking help, she said.
“I wanted to make sure that I knew as much as I could before the semester started, so that I could redirect people in the best way that I can,” Evans said. “I'm going to be on top of it more so than ever because of what has changed.”
Evans has conducted more research into abortion clinics that are outside of Gainesville, she said, in case there was a higher demand at local clinics that prevented students from being seen.
Just a few miles away, Santa Fe College students have their own pregnancy resources — although smaller than UF.
SFC has a clinic with only one registered nurse. Any student who’s pregnant and seeking options in the clinic would be referred to their primary care provider, Gravlee said.
Outside of Florida, some government and educational institutions are attempting to bring abortions to students by offering medication abortion — colloquially known as the abortion pill — on campuses to students.
Barnard College, a private women’s college in New York, announced in October that it would give students access to abortion pills starting Fall 2023.
Prior to the Supreme Court decision, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 24 in 2019, which requires California State University and University of California campuses to offer abortion pills beginning January 2023.
At the end of July, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed House Bill 5090 into law, stating that public colleges and universities must legally offer access to medication abortion from school health services or from accessible local resources. The bill took inspiration from California’s bill.
Other Florida universities, such as Florida State University, have a similar protocol as UF for handling pregnant students. Identical to UF, FSU provides pregnancy testing and referrals to outside clinics, according to its website.
Students looking to book an appointment at the UF SHCC can call its number: 352-392-1161. There are same-day services for students with urgent concerns. SFC students can contact their clinic by calling 352-381-3777.
Contact Claire at cgrunewald@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @grunewaldclaire.
Graphic by Minca Davis
Amid their usual Summer Session, UF student senators Faith Corbett (Change-District C), Joe Andreoli and Ryan Athay were confronted with urgent public comments from students asking for reproductive health resources. The senators were quick to step in.
About a month after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision removing federal protections for abortion, Student Senate passed a bipartisan resolution authored by the trio addressing the need for 24-hour emergency contraception on campus.
The resolution proposed morning-after pills be available through outdoor vending machines located in high-traffic areas of campus, including inside Newell Hall, the Turlington Breezeway, the McCarty Breezeway and outside The Hub. The resolution passed with 67 yes votes, one no vote and one abstention.
But those vending machines are still yet to be installed.
“Students want resources that are going to be accessible to them and known to them,” Corbett said. “That's the context in which this legislation was heard.”
While Senate acknowledged and approved the project, resolutions are inherently non-binding. This means the legislation didn’t include a solidified plan on how or when vending machines will become available.
But Corbett, the only of the three original authors to run and win reelection this Fall, said she’s ready to pursue the project this term.
“There's so many resources on campus that students feel like they kind of should be given as the bare minimum, but that we have to continue to fight for,” she said. “And I think that contraception is turning into one of those things as well.”
While unconventional, the resolution wasn’t the first of its kind: In March, Boston University opened its first Plan B vending machine, selling the pills at a discounted rate of $7.25 each — as opposed to the $40 to $50 pharmacy price range.
The student government at the University of Texas at Austin passed a similar resolutionin April, asking for vending machines to sell morning-after pills at $10 or less.
The idea isn’t new to UF either. The Gainesville chapter of National Women’s Liberation, a women’s rights organization, paired with SG to make vending machines a reality in 2018. But the idea failed in the legislative process and wasn’t reintroduced for another four years.
With the Dobbs decision limiting abortion access nationally, as well as Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, the resolution’s authors noticed their constituents wanted and needed easier access to emergency contraception.
Andreoli, who represented the graduate seat during his term, said he worried about how the decisions would affect graduate assistants in particular. Graduate salaries often don’t cover the cost of living for one person, he said, much less the costs of having a child.
“I thought about all of the graduate students in my department and the departments I've worked with,” he said. “What are they going to do if now they are going to be forced to have a child?”
So, the authors revived and updated the 2018 resolution.
Aside from addressing recent judicial decisions, the new resolution took into consideration campus maps and population, which were foundational to choosing vending machines’ locations.
Having a master’s degree in geography, Andreoli said he was known in Senate as the “geography guy” — he often analyzed maps in the chamber. So when the question turned to placing vending machines, Corbett turned to Andreoli for help choosing the best high-traffic areas.
“I encourage senators who are serving and those senators who assumed their seats due to the recent election spend a lot of time researching because there's a lot of high quality data available to improve the legislation,” Andreoli said. “You just have to find it.”
It mattered to Corbett and Andreoli that vending machines be available outdoors so students could access them 24-hours a day. Although the on-campus wellness center sells discounted morning-after pills, it’s closed for extended periods on weekends and over Summer.
Athay, a Gator senator at the time, responded to Andreoli’s request for additional authors and helped write the resolution.
The delay on the project, Corbett said, was due to then-imminent Fall SG elections. Given she was on the ballot for reelection, she didn’t want to start the project without the confirmation she’d be in Senate to finish it.
“It's a very exciting opportunity to be able to work on this,” she said. “But I think it would mean nothing to me if I wasn't able to do it appropriately and with the purpose of actually seeing it completed.”
Having won reelection, Corbett is formally pursuing the project. Although Athay and Andreoli are no longer senators, Corbett said she’s looking for committed colleagues in the Change caucus.
Her first step in completing the project is doing more research, she said. Her second is to find alternative routes for funding, including grants and fundraising — SG made it clear during the approval process it wouldn’t financially support the project, Corbett said.
“It's going to be a lot of revisiting old plans, but also remodeling them to a different time, a different space and a different context,” she said.
Although she provided no timeline for the project, Corbett emphasized she would be reaching out to groups for help within the coming weeks.
“I think the importance of advocacy for resources is you shouldn't be doing it selfishly,” she said.
“My motivation is definitely for women on campus who have been in an emergency.”
Contact Alissa Gary at agary@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter at @AlissaGary1.
Graphic by Namari Lock
Alexandra Monaco and her colleagues hurried to get an abortion approved for a pregnant patient in September. The patient’s doctor had recently discovered her baby had a fetal anomaly encephalocele, where one in five babies are born alive.
The patient was 14 weeks along. With Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, it was a race against the clock.
“We not only had to support her through the emotional turmoil that she’s going through but then also had to help the patient go through these logistical barriers,” Monaco said.
Situations like these have started to increase for UF health care workers like Monaco, a clinical assistant professor with the obstetrics and gynecology department.
Between the overturn of Roe v. Wade and Florida enacting new constraints on abortion, UF OB-GYNs have experienced firsthand some of the effects on their ability to provide care for their patients. Despite abortion procedures being scarce in medical school curriculum anyway, Florida’s encroaching restrictions on abortions came as a disappointment to Monaco, she said.
“We expected that this was coming,” she said. “But once it happened, it was definitely devastating for us as physicians and knowing what our patients will have to go through.”
With a continually changing landscape on abortion access in the state, many medical school OB-GYN departments at universities like UF are left to learn how to navigate it.
The 24-hour waiting period rule has been one aspect of Florida’s abortion laws that training OB-GYNs have learned to work under. It requires patients requesting an abortion to have a counseling appointment reviewing materials about alternative options a full day before the procedure. This rule was signed into law in 2015 but was caught up in legal battles until a judge upheld the law last April.
In addition to the 24-hour law, Florida also enacted its 15-week abortion ban, which allows for three exceptions after 15 weeks: risk to the pregnant person’s life, risk of serious injury or in the presence of fetal abnormalities that would result in “death upon birth.” It doesn’t allow exceptions for a pregnancy conceived through rape or incest.
After Florida legislative elections unveiled a Republican supermajority in the Florida House and Senate, incoming Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, said she would consider a a 12-week ban. However, Passidomo also wants rape and incest exceptions, she said.
Monaco trains OB-GYN residents at UF, meaning she observes and instructs them in a hospital environment. The UF residency program gives students experience with procedures like hysterectomies and pelvic exams, as well as managing labor and delivery for both high-risk and low-risk pregnancies. The curriculum doesn’t require experience with abortions, although she often takes it upon herself to keep those students informed on what’s happening with state laws, she said.
Discussions with her colleagues over concerns about residents being unable to learn the skills needed to perform an abortion with these stricter laws have heightened, Monaco said. However, this concern isn’t a new one.
A Stanford University study published in 2020, before Roe was overturned, found standardized abortion training was scarce in American medical schools. There was concern about the availability of abortion training back when OB-GYN department chair John Smulian was in medical school during the 1980s, he said.
Even before the Florida laws were enacted, the UF OB-GYN department didn’t offer elective abortions — abortions performed for reasons outside of miscarriages and other medical conditions like fetal anomalies.
Because of this, Smulian thinks that in terms of education, the department will remain mostly unaffected by new legislation, he said. Techniques involved in late-term abortions are also used for procedures like cesarean sections, which OB-GYN residents do get experience with at UF.
“They’re just procedures that are tools,” he said. “The fact that one might be applied in the realm of abortion doesn’t mean you don’t learn that technique.”
The main change brought about by the overturning of Roe has caused an increase in the amount of uncertainty felt by UF OB-GYN faculty, Smulian said. There’s a need for flexibility, since new legislation could be proposed to police abortions more thoroughly, he said, and UF needs to stay tightly within those guidelines.
“This is going to evolve,” he said. “You can count in months, or even days, the duration of some of these [laws].”
These increasing state restrictions also make abortions that need to happen quickly, like the patient with the sudden fetal anomaly, difficult to perform, Monaco said.
Finding time to schedule a counseling appointment and then schedule the abortion can sometimes take more than a week. But while Monaco was trying her best to speed through the process, the patient was also going through emotional stress as well — the pregnancy had been highly desired, Monaco said.
That abortion was a heavy decision.
Monaco feels the added weight of legal barriers isn’t something good for patients or medical students preparing to enter the world of health care, she said.
“It’s really difficult to watch the patients go through,” she said. “And patients don’t deserve that.”
Monaco aligns with the abortion rights movement. Working as an OB-GYN in a post-Roe world can be frustrating, she said. But one of the reasons she said she chose UF as the place to start her medical career is due to comparatively less restrictive laws than other places.
She completed her residency at the University of Tennessee in 2020, where state law now bans abortion at all stages of pregnancy. She didn’t want to work somewhere she’d have to recommend patients options out of state, she said. Now she’s seeing out-of-state patients from places like Alabama, with a total ban, and Georgia, with a six-week ban.
“Realistically, patients need this care,” she said. “They will come in bleeding with a miscarriage, they will come in with an infection and need to have a pregnancy removed.”
It’s possible students from nearby states with total abortion bans, like Alabama and Mississippi, may begin to look at UF as a possibility for their OB-GYN training, Smulian said. However, abortions aren’t a common part of UF curriculum in the first place, he said.
Communication about UF policy between staff, administration and patients has been transparent, he said. But the combination of politics and medical protocol has been a new experience for his faculty.
Navigating the legislative world can be challenging when procedures are changed based on political interpretation, he said.
“It is a new variable,” he said. “Health care providers and health care systems, they don’t traditionally walk in that world.”
As the issues of health care and political opinion combine, medical student organizations have also seen an increase in membership.
Haley Fox, co-president of UF Medical Students for Choice, said she saw just under 10 students who regularly attended meetings before the announcement that Roe was overturned. Now, about 50 students attend regularly.
MSFC hosts speakers from abortion providers and workshops — one upcoming event in the spring centers around teaching students how to perform abortions using papayas. Despite their efforts to educate through the organization, Fox, a second-year UF medical student, also thinks the main issue is the unpredictability of how formal medical education might change, she said.
“I think what we’re able to provide is that initial exposure,” she said. “But it’s really uncertain what’s going to happen in the future with actual training and residency across the country.”
Medical Gators for Life President Katie O’Byrne was contacted for comment but didn’t respond in time for publication. The club’s faculty advisor Paul Gulig declined to comment.
Contact Siena at sduncan@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @SienaDuncan.
Graphic by Minca Davis
Emma Van Dyke gladly walked away from her hometown where she experienced homophobia and proudly stepped foot onto UF’s campus with rainbow-colored pins on her backpack.
Van Dyke, an 18-year-old UF theater and political science freshman, escaped outward criticisms of her sexuality by entering the college bubble.
But with the appointment of Sen. Ben Sasse as UF’s 13th president, Van Dyke said she feels like the university environment will regress in terms of sexual and reproductive health because of his history of criticizing LGBTQ landmarks and penning anti-abortion legislation.
“After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it feels like a giant hand is coming to squish everything that we’ve done at UF and everything we stand for,” Van Dyke said.
Sasse’s contentious selection as President Kent Fuchs’ successor called into question some of his views and legislation while as an acting senator, despite his unanimous approval by the Board of Trustees.
Van Dyke fears for the future of accessible reproductive health resources on campus and students who are unaware or unable to seek private consultation, she added.
Some students like Branyon Skinner, a 21-year-old UF management senior, think student opposition to Sasse is an overreaction.
Sasse has been the victim of unjust flack, he said. Skinner believes Sasse is a qualified pick.
“People act like he's going to make it illegal to be gay on campus or make it illegal to do whatever,” he said. “If you have any sort of common sense, that's just not something that he has the power nor the conviction to do.”
Throughout his political career, Sasse was outspoken about his opposition to LGBTQ issues and abortion protections.
In July, Sasse published an opinion piece in World News where he celebrated the overturn of Roe as a half-century’s work of victory. He touted the anti-abortion movement as the culmination of work by activists exploring options other than abortion.
“The pro-life movement’s strength never came from laws or court cases — it came from truth and love,” he wrote.
Roe soured politics and destroyed lives, he wrote. He claimed the overturn will create a future marked with love.
In a speech from the Senate floor opposing the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have codified Roe, Sasse said to improve the quality of the abortion debate, Democrats must recognize the humanity of unborn babies, and Republicans must find compassion for women and pregnancy.
“Being pro-life means being pro-science, pro-mom and pro-baby,” he said. “It means starting with love, not with legislation.”
And in her 2014 endorsement of the senator, National Right to Life President Carol Tobias said Sasse was deeply committed to the anti-abortion agenda.
“Ben Sasse will use his knowledge and expertise to strengthen a culture of life throughout the nation and in Congress,” she said.
In 2015, Sasse authored the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which required doctors to care for infants resulting from failed abortions. For the course of six years, the act failed several times — most recently in 2021.
During his time in the Senate, Sasse was endorsed by several anti-abortion organizations including the National Right to Life Organization, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Family Research Council Action and Nebraska Right to Life.
In one of his most recent appearances at the university during his Oct. 10 UF Q&A forum, Sasse said he would defer to the state government in regard to his personal political beliefs if he were president. But not all members of the Gainesville community believe his vow of “political celibacy,” as he put it.
Adin Kortuem, a 20-year-old UF psychology sophomore, said as a female student, she believes UF should be doing its best to protect her right to choose, and Sasse isn’t an adequate face of that effort.
“If Ben Sasse became the next president of UF, he would definitely try to limit and reduce the amount of information the school is able to give out about this topic,” she said.
Without proper resources on abortion, students could end up dropping out of UF, Korteum added.
“If they had the information out there where they could find a safe, reliable abortion clinic or a counselor to even just talk about it, they may be able to continue their time at UF and graduate,” she said.
Ashley Sanguino, a UF Generation Action Planned Parenthood spokesperson, said her initial reactions to Sasse’s finalist status were disappointment and anger.
“Many emotions that I feel ring true with how most students feel,” she said. “They feel betrayed by the institution that's meant to protect them.”
UF’s leaders should be protecting bodily autonomy and enriching student life, Sanguino added.
Lauren Manso, a 19-year-old UF sociology and sexuality studies sophomore, said Sasse’s anti-abortion stance stands in opposition to UF’s future as a sex-positive community.
“To have someone be so anti-abortion doesn't really sit right with me,” she said. “This is a college campus. There shouldn't really be someone who so staunchly supports pro-life sentiments being in power.”
Contact Peyton at pharris@alligator.org or follow her on Twitter at @peytonlharris.
Graphic by Namari Lock
In one UF athlete’s mind, reproductive health isn’t talked about enough in sports. And, at least in her experience, not at all in college basketball.
Gators junior forward Jordyn Merritt knows how to dribble a basketball up the court, hit a wide open three-point shot and defend both the paint and the perimeter with an intensity only a dedicated athlete who knows their body’s strengths and weaknesses can manage.
However, off the court Merritt said she also knows her body’s rights. And she isn’t happy.
“Being an athlete, if you happen to get pregnant, that could honestly jeopardize your career,” she said. “Not a lot of people are in the financial spaces or even mentally, physically able to take care of a child. And that could really throw your life off course.”
Merritt is just one athlete who understands the ramifications of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 court ruling that guaranteed nationwide abortion access, being overturned. She hasn’t seen anyone in the athletics department actively reach out to teach athletes about reproductive health in sports, Merritt said.
UF’s 2021-2022 student athlete handbook has 10 pages dedicated to student athlete’s health. There’s no mention of reproductive health.
However, Jocelyn Gravlee, UF associate professor and interim director in student health care, said student athletes receive their care through UF’s Student Health Care Center and the women’s clinic.
“We discuss reproductive health with student athletes in the same way we discuss it with students,” she said.
As an advocate for women’s health, Merritt believes everyone — including athletes — should have a general knowledge on reproductive health, especially with the changing political and social climate.
Merritt learned about the history of Roe at Plano Senior High School, where, at the time, abortion was still federally protected. Since then, she’s become educated about the importance of reproductive health from her UF human sexuality courses she’s chosen to take.
Still, Merritt wishes health instructors would come speak to athletes about reproductive health.
“We have the resources to hire the proper people to educate us,” she said “It's just whether or not it is ever done.”
In 2008, the National Collegiate Athletic Association released “Pregnant and Parenting Student Athletes: Resources and Model Policies” to guide universities on what to do if a student athlete got pregnant.
The handout outlines protections for pregnant athletes such as not excluding them from sport activities on the condition of “pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, termination of pregnancy or recovery therefrom…”
Title IX, a law banning discrimination on the basis of sex, also protects the athlete from being penalized for taking a pregnancy leave. However, the handout states they may not necessarily be reinstated to the specific position they formally held.
With Roe reversed, it’s unclear how states that have banned abortions will respond to a student athlete who’s pregnant — even with the handout.
With Florida’s 15-week ban, it’s also unclear how this may affect UF athletes.
"I can’t speculate on any future revisions or updates," NCAA spokesperson Chris Radford told USA Today, "but the NCAA is continuously evaluating emerging health and safety issues that may directly impact student-athletes and the membership that it supports."
Although reproductive health may be an uncomfortable topic to discuss in athletics because people have varying political and religious beliefs, Merritt said, it needs to be talked about.
“It's just like racism — not everybody wants to talk about that because it’s such a hard topic,” she said. “If you want to make progress, you need to speak about it, you need to have the difference of opinions, you need to be educated.”
Like Merritt, Gators softball first baseman and outfielder Avery Goelz agrees full bans on abortions shouldn’t be legal; however, she said it’s not the athletics program’s job to inform athletes on these matters.
“Our programs are responsible for keeping us healthy so we can play to the best of our ability, but since we are adults I feel it is our responsibility to seek information if we want it,” she said. “I think our sport doesn’t discuss the topic because we already spend a lot of time on our overall health and practice.”
UF’s nutritionist provides the softball team with vitamins and minerals if their bodies are in need of something, she said. They also hold meetings throughout the year to discuss how to stay healthy.
“If we feel something isn’t right with our bodies, we go to our trainers, discuss what the problem might be and move forward from there,” she said.
Goelz hasn’t felt differently since Roe was overturned, she said, which may be because abortion is still legal in Florida and she takes safety precautions.
“I’m sure some of my teammates have a fear about this issue,” she said, “but it’s not something that is really talked about on our team.”
Women ages “20 to 24 had 34% of abortions nationwide” in 2014, according to Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research and policy organization. By the age of 45, one in four women, according to the institute, will also have an abortion in their lifetime.
And for women ages 18 to 24, “sexual assault is at a higher risk”, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
UF Assistant Athletics Director Denver Parler and several UF coaches reiterated health as being the greatest importance to the athletic department.
“Student-athlete health and well-being are of the greatest importance to us, and our policies, commitment of resources, and care provided reflect that,” Parler said. “Our goal is to empower student-athletes to take ownership of all facets of their lives, including healthcare. We will continue to provide exceptional medical care and support to all student-athletes.”
Parler and several UF communications specialists — including Senior Associate Athletics Director Steve McClain, gymnastics and soccer communications director Mary Howard, volleyball and lacrosse communications director Katie Callahan and swimming and diving communications assistant Nick Yuska — declined to comment further on the specifics of what this care entailed and if there’s a concern among UF student-athletes and professionals in abortion access.
Contact Isabella Douglas at idouglas@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @_issadouglas.