Birth Control- IS MEDICINE

 I saw this post on tumblr:

"Do women have medical issues with their lady-parts? Sure.

Should they be able to get help with those issues? Absolutely.

But that’s what doctors and legit medicine are for.

 I’ll say it again: Women, birth control is not medicine, at least not in the “take two of these and call me in the morning” sense of the word. It isn’t designed for anything but the prevention of conception, and you have no legal right to expect it for free simply because you cry about needing it. Grow up.
         Also, as hard as it apparently is to believe, you aren’t just going to spontaneously die without it, either. You think Joan of Arc or Elizabeth I or Cleopatra or any of the other women history remembers for their greatness had birth control? Of course not! But they didn’t let that stop them from being ballers. They didn’t whine like bitches about how mean and unfair it all was. No, they lived their lives, and lived them so well that even today we remember them.

        So stop confusing birth control with actual medicine. Find insurance that’ll cover it for you if you can’t / don’t want to pay out of pocket. Stop expecting me to buy your pill or your shot or whatever else, and let that be the end of it. "

The following is my (very angry) reaction:


Dear OP,
You are wrong.  You are incredibly, ridiculously, DANGEROUSLY wrong.

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I was raised to believe the way that you do.  That birth control is JUST that- birth.control.  I was raised that you don’t go on birth control unless you are planning to have sex.  Because if you’re not planning on having sex, it’s just not necessary.  There’s no birth to control.

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Do you want to know how I found out differently?

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I got CANCER.  I got Uterine (also known as endometrial) Cancer.  And while it’s true there is no guarantee being on birth control would have prevented it: it would have lessened my risk CONSIDERABLY.  In fact, it’s been shown that having been on regular birth control medication for an extended number of years can drastically reduce the risk of Endometrial (and other gynecological cancers).  What that means is that it is MEDICINE.

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On top of the preventative aspects of being on Birth Control, I also didn’t see a gynecologist until I was 29 and in excruciating pain (you know, because of my CANCER).  If I’d been on regular birth control from the age I should have been (having started my period at 9, age 15 probably would have been a good time to start), I’d have been seeing a gyno regularly, and maybe it all would have been caught earlier on- like, before it hit my lymph nodes.  But I’m guessing gynos aren’t on your listing of “legitimate” medicine and doctors.  After all, no sex, no babies, no gyno needed right?

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I am currently on my second round of Chemo.  In July, thanks to chemo and daily radiation treatments, I lost my job.  Why? Because after an emergency D&C (the “medical procedure” not the “abortion method”), I was instructed not to return to work until after my Hysterectomy (during which they removed my uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes).  After my hysterectomy there was a complication with my incision’s healing which kept me from returning to work.  Then, it was time for a month of chemo and daily radiation.

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Now, it’s October.  I’m on my second round of chemo, and it blows OP.  Fuck all the “strong cancer patient” shit, all the “oh brave fighter” propaganda.  You know Cancer treatment is?  It’s a fucking bastard.

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You know what else it is?  Medicine.

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You know what else is Medicine?

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BIRTH. CONTROL.

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So I’ll tell you what OP.  I have 2 more chemo sessions left.  If you want to talk more about what Birth Control is, and isn’t?  Why don’t you come down to Dallas.  You can sit with me while they pump me full of poison, and hold my hand when my anxiety gets the best of me.  You can call the nurse if I have an allergic reaction and can’t breathe (again).  Then you can stay with us for the next 3 weeks and I’ll keep you awake while I’m awake, and when I’m ready to vomit, you can hold my scarf away from my face (since there’s no hair left to hold back anymore).  You can sweep up my eyelashes and eyebrow hairs off my desk as they fall.  You can finish finding and cleaning up the chunks of hair that started falling out of my head before I gave up and shaved it off, I found a few lost “clumps” just this evening actually.

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You can try to find something I can eat, or drink, that doesn’t taste completely wrong.  You can try to see friends and family and have some kind of active life with me around my bone-wrenching exhaustion.

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And when my bones and joints ache and scream, I’ll have someone bash in your shins with a baseball bat so you can understand the kind of pain that I live in.

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And if after all that you still want to tell me that Birth Control is not medicine?  Then you can go jump off a fucking cliff and do the world a favor.

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“Birth Control” is the least accurately named product in the medical field.  And you are an ignorant asshole.