Cost Hikes Get College Students Pregnant

And it's President Bush's fault. Pro Ecclesia relays a Chicago Sun-Times story that seems short on the facts of life, and on financial perspective. The theme is supposed to be that the removal of birth control subsidies for colleges are getting college students pregnant. The story opens with a 20-year-old pre-med student who is having to miss her planned trip to Costa Rica because she stopped using birth control when her prescription cost at the university clinic went up from $10 to $35.

I assume that it wasn't simply ceasing to use the birth control but also some other extra-curricular activities that ended the young lady in her current condition, but as she's a pre-med student I guess I can figure that one out for herself even if the reporter can't.

Now, as someone who at age 20 got through each college semester on around $250 in spending money: color me unsympathetic. By age 20, you should be able to do some basic math and use your brain a little. If you're planning a trip to Costa Rica, you have at least some money. And yet the sum of $25 (best measured in college as two pizzas and a six pack of beer) was apparently enough to encourage this student to stop taking birth control, but not stop having sex. Without consideration for the fact that raising a child is generally an expense of more than $25.

If people can't be virtuous, you'd think they could at least think.