Ann Brooks says she has developed a pretty good sense of how to
help a student considering abortion.
Brooks, the nurse manager of Women’s Health Services at
the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center, does the bulk
of pregnancy counseling at the center. Depending on how the student
feels, she can make a referral for psychological counseling or
pregnancy termination.
“I’ll give them information, and I’ll suggest
that they talk about it with people that are important to them and
with a counselor or somebody who can help them decide what’s
the best decision for them,” Brooks said.
Whether to terminate a pregnancy can be a difficult decision for
the student both in regard to her psychological and physical
well-being.
“It’s okay to regret; it’s okay to feel
sorry,” Brooks said. “I just don’t want them to
beat themselves up about it in the future.”
If a student decides to terminate the pregnancy, they are
referred to a faculty physician in the UCLA Department of
Obstetrics and Gynecology or to other offices.
The physician referrals are based on the student’s
financial situation and convenience.
“The staff at the Ashe Center is really good about giving
(students) their options and giving them recommendations of where
they can go for services regardless of their insurance or ability
to pay,” said Gita Patel, the department’s management
services officer.
Depending on the patient’s insurance, the procedures are
more expensive at the UCLA Medical Center than at a private
practice.
Planned Parenthood, a national organization that offers sexual
health information and services, has set fees for abortions and
accepts a wider range of insurance providers than are accepted at
UCLA.
Coverage for abortion services is included in the UCLA Student
Health Insurance Plan.
The Ashe Center itself does not offer abortion services, and
information on abortion is not yet available on its Web site.
“We try to include in the information about women’s
health services that we provide women’s counseling and
referrals,” Brooks said. “We try to make it clear that
we offer that service ““ we do quite a number of pregnancy
tests.”
Last year, 2,069 pregnancy tests were ordered and processed by
the Ashe Center. From October to January of this academic year,
approximately 380 pregnancy tests were ordered and 66 came back
positive.
The obstetrics and gynecology department of the Center for
Reproductive Health Services provides both medical and surgical
forms of abortion within the first trimester.
Medical abortion is administered with the drug mifepristone,
which causes the abortion to take place several hours later.
Surgical abortion involves insertion of a tube connected to an
aspirating machine to remove uterine contents. This procedure
usually takes less than five minutes.
Students can receive either procedure with a referral from the
Ashe Center. But accessibility to pregnancy services is more
difficult nationwide and globally.
According to the Planned Parenthood Web site, about 80 million
unplanned pregnancies occur globally every year.
Around the world, an estimated 20 million abortion procedures
are performed under unsafe circumstances.
In 2001, President Bush reinstated the “Mexico City
policy,” or what is sometimes known as the “global
gag” rule, which bars foreign agencies from receiving aid
from the United States if they provide abortion services.
If UCLA students are faced with an unplanned pregnancy, Brooks
feels that most know where they can turn for access to services and
counseling.
“I think probably most students know that there are
resources here, but then again I saw the number of people lined up
outside our door doing STD testing, and I wondered why they
didn’t know they could come here to do it,” said
Brooks, referring to the vans currently offering free HIV and STD
testing in Bruin Plaza, organized by the UCLA AIDS Institute.