Brenna Stroup is passionate about reproductive rights.
As president of the WSU chapter of Vox, a national organization of pro-choice student groups on college campuses, Stroup, 20, said educating students on their reproductive rights is something she loves.
“Everyone deserves the right to make choices for their own bodies,” she said in an email. “Educating students on how they can stay safe is really important.”
Sydney Hobson, 20, a WSU junior communication major and vice-president of Vox, said she joined the organization after noticing that most people seemed to understand very little about safer sex methods.
“We are willing to talk to anyone and are working to make WSU safer-sex savvy,” she said in an email.
Stroup said the WSU Vox is comprised of nine members along with others who get involved less regularly. They meet each Monday at 4 p.m. in CUB LL37.
Anyone is welcome to the meetings, which normally consist of discussing upcoming events, reproductive legislation, petitions, pro-choice and pro-life news and collaborating with other groups to improve their cause, Stroup said.
In addition to educating the university community on reproductive health and rights, Stroup said the mission of Vox — Latin for “voice” — is to inform people about the services of Planned Parenthood, which has a health center located in Pullman.
“One of our big focuses is making sure that students know that it exists and that they have a lot of great services to offer,” Stroup said.
Vox also offers sex education programs to all residence halls and Greek houses and will set up tables at any of their events if requested. Vox also conducts local pub crawls but Stroup said they do not have enough members older than 21 to warrant doing any this semester but hopes to resume them in the spring.
Stroup said tabling at campus events is what students seem to best respond to. Vox holds “Free Condom Fridays” each week from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the CUB, giving out educational literature, Planned Parenthood items and, of course, condoms.
The organization was part of two events on the Glenn Terrell Mall on Oct. 12 — the V-Day Festival, an event raising awareness of gender-based violence, and the “Take Back the Night” march, which rallies against sexual and domestic violence.
Stroup said the club will also be setting up tables at several events in the area this semester, including Saturdays at the Moscow Farmers’ Market and the once-a-month TabiKat drag shows, also in Moscow, where Vox hands out safer sex kits.
They will be in attendance at the drag show from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. this Saturdat at the Moscow Moose Lodge.
Vox will also host an event on Nov. 10 called “Sex and the Cinema,” which will feature a viewing of “12th and Delaware,” a documentary film about the battle on abortion rights in America.
