DePaul University, a Catholic college in Chicago, Illinois, prohibits the distribution of birth control of any kind on its campus.
But that doesn’t stop student activists in an underground “womb service” from sharing condoms and Plan B emergency contraception with students who need it.
It’s simple: The network — which was once a chapter of Planned Parenthood Generation Action and was later removed as an official student organization on campus — gets a text, walks to a designated site with the items requested in a paper bag, and does a hand-off.
“It was seeing a need in the community and trying my best to address it right away,” the group’s leader, student Maya Roman, told the Associated Press.
Students distribute emergency contraception like Plan B to those in need. Photo by Sarah Mirk (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Roman said the group receives about 15 to 25 orders for contraception each week and also hosts sex education seminars, despite it being against the university’s policies. As long as they occur just off campus, the group can continue its activities.
“As long as the distribution happens on public property, it doesn’t violate DePaul’s guidelines,” Roman told The 19th.
Similar efforts are happening at Catholic colleges across the country, with students filling a need where institutions are failing them.
“What’s at stake for these students is their bodily autonomy — the direction of the rest of their lives, their ability to pursue their goals, get a degree, have a career or start a family at the time it suits them,” said Jill Delston, associate professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who has studied contraception access.
It’s a risk Roman doesn’t think her peers should have to take.
“It is possible; it is feasible,” she said, of other students at Catholic institutions working to make change from within. “And you’re not alone in this fight.”
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A version of this article was originally published in The 2026 Feminist Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
Header image by Towfiqu barbhuiya via Pexels
