A new vending machine being installed on the campus of Yale University will soon start selling students the morning-after pill.
Yale Daily News reports that the so-called 'wellness to-go' vending machine will be installed in the Good Life Center at the university's Silliman College before the winter break.
While typical vending machines offer soft drinks and snacks, the vending machine at Silliman's will sell the the Plan B pill as well as lubricants and condoms.
Plan B is a morning after pill that can be taken to delay ovulation or prevent the implantation of a fertilised egg in the uterus.
It costs around $50 at major pharmacy chains and Ileana Valdez, a Yale College Council (YCC) representative, said the vending machine price would be comparable or even lower.
'The point of this is to make Plan B more accessible and to make medications in general more accessible,' she said.
'Hopefully this will set a precedent for more machines to show up around campus that contain other things so Yale students don't have to go out of their way to go to CVS, especially students from the new colleges.'
Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart told the newspaper that 'emergency contraception' is currently available to all students free of charge and 24/7 at the Yale Health Pharmacy and Acute Care.
The vending machine was the idea of Grace Cheung, who said that unprotected sex was happening frequently on campus and that it was a 'humiliating process' to have to obtain 'emergency contraception'.
In addition to the YCC, the vending machine has been backed by the Reproductive Justice Action League at Yale.
Last year, Stanford University installed a 'wellness' vending machine selling condoms and Plan B alternative, My Way, at subsidised rates.
The Vengo machine was installed inside one of Stanford's all-gender restrooms. A snack vending machine was installed outside the gender neutral restrooms 'as nausea can be one side effect of emergency contraception'.
