Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 20. September 3, 1968

Editorial — September 3, 1968 — Contraceptive machines

Editorial

September 3, 1968

Contraceptive machines

Opinions expressed in Salient are not necessarily those of VUWSA.

The Prime Minister and the good women of the Dominion Council of the National Party don't like the idea of contraceptive vending machines on university campuses. The reactionaries reacted, predictably perhaps, to the decision of the Executive of Canterbury University Students' Association to look into the possibility of vending machines on their two campuses.

If there are any arguments against the installation of the machines they are certainly not the arguments of the reactionaries who are afraid that young people may learn they can get away with fun without much danger. This danger, danger of pregnancy, is to be the only motive for the morality the National Party plans for New Zealand.

Immoral contraceptives may well be (depending on your particular theological standpoint), and some types even repulsive, but nobody can, in sanity, view a used French letter as more immoral or repulsive than an unwanted baby and its mother.

The question that Students' Associations have to answer is this: are the tragedies likely to be prevented by contraceptives worth the public goodwill lost by the installation of vending machines—public goodwill measurable in bursaries, staff salaries and building development?

The good women of the National Party have most forcefully pointed out that this is a moral question. Students' Associations must decide whether contraceptives should be encouraged, or unwanted babies. In deciding on such a moral question no weight should be given to questions of public goodwill and the government-given money tied thereto.

Contraceptives in various forms are available to anybody who wants them, and more effective types than the French letters likely to be available in any machine. The most satisfactory types are used mainly by people enjoying stable long-term relationships. French letters remain useful for more casual relationships.

As the machines cater for casual relationships and impulsive instances the argument that the machines are superfluous is countered by the distance of the nearest urgent pharmacy and the time taken for mail order delivery.

The Students' Association should not only install a machine at Victoria, but actively encourage their installation in other public places.