LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Shippensburg University is a secluded public institution of 8,300 students. Some students are enthusiastic about the services provided by the vending machine.

"I think it's great that the school is giving us this option," junior Chelsea Wehking says. "I've heard some kids say they'd be too embarrassed" to go into town of  Shippensburg with a permanent population about 6,000 for the pill called "Plan B."

The machine is in the school's Etter Health Center, which only students and university employees can access, Gigliotti said in a statement. In addition, no one can walk in off the street and go into the health center. Students must check in at a lobby desk before being allowed in.

Federal law makes the pill available without a prescription to anyone 17 or older. All current students at the college are that age or older, a spokesman said. It doesn't appear that any other vending machine in the U.S. dispenses the contraceptive, which can prevent pregnancy if taken soon after sexual intercourse.

However, if the embryonic person has already come into being, he or she is ejected and killed by chemical abortion before he or she can reach the safe home of their mothers womb. Thus, the pill is also abortion inducing. This is not simply a "religious" position, but a scientific one. 

The vending machine has been around for about two years, and its existence wasn't widely known until recently. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration are contacting state officials and the university to gather facts.

The FDA's sudden interest took place amid a furor over the right to the Free Exercise of religion which is currently being violated by the Mandate issued by the Health and Human Services Department. It will require Catholic and other Religious institutions and organizations to dispense contraceptives and provide for sterilization or face punitive consequences.

In addition, an official resigned from the nation's largest breast cancer charity Tuesday over Planned Parenthood funding. Planned parenthood is the Nations largest provider of abortions. Also, the Republican presidential candidates attacked the Obama administration for a recent ruling requiring church-affiliated employers to provide free access to contraceptives - including the "morning after pill" - and sterilizations or face ounitive measures.

People have long been able to insert a few coins for the likes of aspirin, ibuprofen, antacids and other common over-the-counter remedies. Some experts see other worrisome trends in making drugs like Plan B available in a vending machine.

"Perhaps it is personalized medicine taken too far," Alexandra Stern, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan says. "It's part of the general trend that drugs are available for consumers without interface with a pharmacist or doctors. This trend has serious pitfalls."

Taking Plan B within 72 hours of rape, condom failure during voluntary intercourse or forgetting to use contraception allegedly cuts the chances of pregnancy by up to 89 percent. Manufacturers say it "works best" if taken within 24 hours. However, Plan B is also an abortion inducing drug if the embryonic life has already begun within the mother. 

Stern questioned whether the machine would make it possible for a young person to buy the drug without discussing their risk factors with a health care professional.

Carol Tobias, president of the Pro Life group National Right to Life, says that other services would be more appropriate, such as referral to a Center which is not only concerned about the mother but respects the possibility that a child has already been formed within her.

"It would be a much more productive use of funds if universities would partner with local pregnancy resource centers where students can get real help if they need it," Tobias said.

NOTE: An earlier version of this story reported that machines are available to students in the restroom. The story has been corrected to indicate there is only one machine and it is located in a self-help care center, and not in a restroom. Thank you to Pete Gigliotti of Shippensburg University for the correction. 

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