During the Undergraduate Government elections at Boston College (BC) last week, students passed a “sexual health referendum” by a wide margin. BC’s student leaders are promising to promote to the administration the referendum which demands access to free birth control and condoms on campus.

What started as a campus petition, reportedly receiving the needed 1,000 student signatures in less than 24 hours, the sexual health referendum made it on the ballot due in large part to the efforts of BC Students for Sexual Health, according to The Heights, BC’s student newspaper. The referendum calls on Boston College to offer support for “affordable sexually transmitted infections testing, the availability of prescription birth control medication, and condoms on campus.” The actual text of the ballot language is available on the Boston College website.

Eighty-nine percent of the students who participated in the election voted in favor of the referendum.

“Clearly Boston College, as a Catholic institution, should not give in to student demands for free contraception, and I would be shocked if they did so,” said Patrick Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. Source: The Heights