Emergency contraceptive pills continue to take the field in a game without any real winners

Every death is a tragedy — particularly those that involve youth — and the passing of Kevin Eckerman, who did not recover from a head injury incurred at Massanutten last week, is no exception.

A mere four days earlier, the Board of Visitors reversed its previous decision on the Plan B emergency contraceptive pill.

In the most literal interpretation of "adding insult onto injury" committed by The Breeze in recent memory, Eckerman's death announcement was forced to the left of the front page by the headline article "Overturned," which effectively dominated four-fifths of the page.

Eckerman, a senior, was permitted a picture of his face the size of an adult male's thumb, to make room for a picture of a Plan B pack the size of an adult male's face.

I guess you could make the argument that he deserved it. After all, he attended a university where birth control apparently takes priority over student tragedy. It's just the way things need to be if you want to get into Mother Jones Magazine.

Not only that, but he had his accident within a week of the board's flip-flop. Sure, the death of the computer science major that helped found the snowboarding club is important, but hey, we got our ECP back.

This is not the first misstep we have taken with regard to the ECP issue since April. The most recent decision by the board is just another inning in the same ballgame we've been playing for almost a year.

Emergency contraception is back on campus. Not that it was ever off campus, but now it's actually sold on campus again. Plan B is again on the list of drugs you can purchase on campus.

Whatever happens, Student Body President Levar Stoney is "ecstatic about [the issue] coming to an end." Be happy. Now that Plan B is back in the University Health Center, girls can continue buying their shirts at Baby Gap. This is victory, and it sure tastes sweet.

But we really didn't win. No one truly can win this game. Not the Board of Visitors, not the administration, not the alumni, not the students, not Levar Stoney, not junior Krissy Schnebel.

In the absence of long-term studies on the long-range effects of Plan B, as well as a reported correlation between Plan B use and entopic pregnancy, student health was not victorious either. Helen Blackwell was one of the two board members unwilling to roll over and play dead when the going got tough.

"I thought the board should be aware that the university might be found liable for a student's complications at some future time," Blackwell said.

At least we know that there are still some board members perturbed at this willingness to sacrifice the welfare of students.

But the board fared worse than most of us throughout the whole mess. By taking a strong stand on an issue and then acquiescing when 2,700 students put their names on a piece of paper, they effectively castrated themselves.

They then put their emasculation to an official vote, which effectively "grants authority for all future health-related decisions pertaining to students to the administration and its medical staff," as board member Meredith Gunter said.

However, Blackwell found the clause removing the board from "health-related decisions," to be particularly objectionable.

"In my opinion, it is an abandonment of our responsibility as the Board of Visitors to set the policies of the university, " she said. "I don't see what point there is in having a board at all if it is going to defer critical policy decisions to the administration."

In other words, the board charged into battle, found out the other side was armed, and ran away with their tails between their legs. Lead on, fearless ones.

We students effectively cannot claim victory, either. It's one thing to attend a school that administers Plan B, as most Virginia state universities do; it's entirely another to fight tooth and nail to get Plan B administered. Therefore, we at JMU now are defined further by birth control, so people naturally think we're having a lot of sex. I guess it's an improvement — we used to be known for our smell.

In the scheme of things, at least birth control is also more entertaining than chicken processing. For example, there is a list floating around online about what Virginian college students do when they wake up in the morning.

At the University of Virginia, you find your physics paper online. At Virginia Tech, you check your sports rankings and cry about it. At JMU, you roll over and introduce yourself.

Ah, the spoils of battle. We fought long. We fought hard. Needless to say, it's not a victory. In the end, we got hurt, they got hurt and Eckerman got shoved to the sidelines. In this game, no one could have come out the winner, and no one did come out the winner, with an exception for the manufacturers of Plan B. And, of course, Baby Gap.

Brian Goodman is an undeclared freshman.