Black-owned and operated emergency contraceptive (EC) company Julie and its non-profit arm Julie For All are working to remove the stigma and shame frequently associated with the morning-after pill.
Julie wants to ensure that people who have been long underserved by the healthcare system have access to EC products. As part of this mission, Julie is partnering with and hosting events on college campuses across the country, including Howard University.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, access to birth control and EC has become even more critical, and especially for Black women.
According to a National Institutes of Health article, “[r]elative to white women, African-American women may face a ‘contraception desert,’ wherein they live nearer to pharmacies, but those pharmacies have characteristics that may impede the purchase of contraception.”
“At Julie, we’re creating a space for those who are ‘othered’ and left out––we want to make women feel included, help them understand that their voice matters, and that they have agency over their own bodies,” Julie Founder and President Amanda E/J Morrison told ESSENCE.
“When we decided to activate on college campuses, we wanted the schools where we showed up to be as diverse as the women who take emergency contraception,” Morrison continued.
For “The Safe Space” event at Howard, Julie teamed up with on-campus groups aimed at empowering women, such as Miss Howard University, Jewels, and the Ladies of the Quad Social Club, as well as Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta sororities.
The goal of the event: create a safe space for participants to share stories about their sexual health, discuss EC, and also learn more about Julie.
Ten other university campuses across the country are hosting the “Julie: There When You Need It” campaign. Julie wants to “educate college students on the ins and outs of taking emergency contraception — explaining how it works, how to take it to make it most effective, and any other questions students might have,” Her Campus reports.
Why college students? Morrison recognizes that there are numerous factors that can affect a college student’s ability to access EC. “You have to get [EC] in people’s hands, or they won’t use it,” she stated.
“They might be too scared to go buy it, they might be worried about what people will say about it, or they might not have the money [to purchase it],”Morrison explained.
“I was excited to activate at Howard this fall, not only because it’s my alma mater, but because I know firsthand that Black women are often left out of conversations concerning sexual health. By marketing to groups that are typically excluded from the conversation, we’re changing the face of women’s health,” shared Morrison.