The Thing About Birth Control

I’m back from the hospital, sore, tired, and glad to be home. And on the way home we were talking about all of this legislation about birth control and reproductive rights, and what legislators (and other talking heads) do and don’t know and understand about birth control.

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And it seemed so apropos of this week, as I come home to recover from my D&C, to point out that education about birth control in this country is abominable— at best. And here’s why:

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I am a 30 year old virgin. I’m a lesbian. I have no worries, or fears about accidentally finding myself pregnant because I had sex. I’m a virgin partly by choice and partly by circumstance but the point is that’s not really important. Yesterday, I went to the hospital to have a D&C because my uterus, for whatever reason, stopped shedding the way it’s supposed to. And it’s not really a new problem for me. I got my first period at the age of nine and I have never once been regular.

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All my life I’ve had long periods of time where I wouldn’t bleed at all, or I’d go months without a period and then I’d flood for 3 days and pass clots. In all that time, no one ever said— hey, maybe you should ask about birth control.

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Even as I got older, no one suggested birth control to me. In my upbringing, birth control was just that- Birth. Control. It was for the “slutty” girls, the sexually active girls, the ones with “no self-respect.” The ones who wanted to go out and screw anyone they came across. No one told me that birth control had another purpose. No one told me that there was another use for it.

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It didn’t help that with my sexual abuse history, I put off going to the gynecologist until I was desperate, but the point is that in all those years of school, in all those sex-education and abstinence education (thank you Catholic high school)— no one ever said— this is MEDICINE. This is something that will regulate what happens to your body so that it does what it’s intended to do if for some reason it won’t do it on its own.

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If someone had told me when I was 15.. hey, there’s this drug that can regulate that for you, that can make your schedule normal, and typical, and predictable. It can help with your pain, it can help make things the way they SHOULD be… maybe I wouldn’t have spent the night in a hospital with an epidural catheter in my back and an iv on my arm and fear in my chest. If someone had told me when I was 18, hey there’s a drug that can help with that… maybe I wouldn’t have had a panic attack in the prep room, I wouldn’t have had to be afraid and anxious and stressed out. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to miss work. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to have lived with pain for over a year. Maybe my whole reproductive life would have been different— if someone had just told me that Birth Control was for more than just… preventing birth.

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We have a responsibility to teach our children about their bodies. And about the things that exist to heal, and sooth, and regulate, and normalize all of the processes that happen with their bodies. And that includes taking away the stigma that birth control is what “sluts” take to keep from getting “knocked up.” It includes teaching girls that it is ok to say, “My body isn’t doing what it should be.” It’s ok to say, “I think there is something wrong with my periods.” It’s ok to say, “I think I might need birth control.”

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And we have a responsibility to stop stigmatizing those medications. Because no thirty year old woman should have to break down in terror at the thought of a simple D&C. Because if I’d been on the pill at 15… or 18… or even 20— my night in the hospital might have just been completely unnecessary.

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The point of this is not to say that those who want birth control for.. birth control are any less deserving of it. Or that they should be looked down on, or judged… this is not about “slut-shaming” (which I am vehemently against). This is about the need to take away an old, stuffy, white-man’s ignorance about a medication that is more than justbirth control, so that those with medical need don’t have to fight with his bigotry in order to get what they need to be functional. So that those with any need, don’t have to fight bigotry to get what they need.

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We have to raise a new generation of woman— and men. So that when our grandchildren go to their doctors they know that there are medications out there that can help them- even if their title seems limiting. And so that their doctors know that birth control is so much more than that. So that when our legislators gather to pass laws and set regulations— they are not blinded by bigotry and ignorance. Female reproductive health affects everyone. And if you don’t understand it, you can’t possibly hope to fairly legislate it. We have a responsibility to raise a generation that is better educated than this one— so that when they come to office they will see their forefathers mistakes and dis-assemble them. So that they will recognize laws made in fear and ignorance and have the knowledge and the confidence to right those wrongs.

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Today I found out I have Cancer. 

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I keep thinking it will sound less strange if I keep saying it, but it doesn’t.  If you are a parent, if you are a teacher in a position to speak about it, if you are a friend, a sister, an aunt, an older cousin… if there are younger women in your lives… give them a safe space to talk about their bodies.
Teach them that birth control is not just about preventing babies.  Teach them that going to the gynecologist is not something to be afraid of.  Teach them that if they have been molested, or abused, or raped that getting checked and tested and examined is even more important.
Teach the women in your lives that fear doesn’t stop disease.

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Teach them that ignorance does not equal bliss.  Teach them that if one doctor shuts them down… they need to find another.  Teach them to be friends with their bodies, to not let anyone shame their size or weight.  Teach them that if one doctor dismisses them because they’re “fat” that they need to find another who will listen.

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Teach the women in your lives that their health matters.  That preventative screenings matter.  That living in fear of being touched does not outweigh the benefits of early detection.
I have Cancer.  And maybe if someone had given me that safety way back when, I wouldn’t.