I learned about Planned Parenthood during my first semester of undergrad. Sometime during the first week of school, my roommate and I ran into a girl from my hometown who worked for Planned Parenthood. I can't remember what her name was. I knew her because she went to high school with my uncle, and I went to high school with her brother. She immediately recognized me and called us over to where she was distributing condoms. She talked to us for a while about how we were adjusting to college life and then began stressing the importance of sexual health and safety. She told me to open my backpack and began putting handfuls of condoms into the pack. She also gave us a lot of literature about safe sex and safety on campus to avoid rape, date rape, etc. Her liberal distribution of condoms went on for the remainder of the year. She could always be counted on to have bags of "goodies" for me and stressed her availability to talk about anything I might need to discuss. Our dorm room became the "Planned Parenthood" of Bishop Hall, and girls knew they could come grab condoms out of our bowl if they thought they needed one that night. As a joke, we bought a fishbowl and kept the multi-colored condoms front and center just like Planned Parenthood does - or did in the 90s.
At a time when most girls were mainly concerned with not getting pregnant, I was made aware of a greater threat - the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases. I cannot recall getting a safe sex discussion in high school or by my mother. What I do remember is being told to not have sex. Period. My mom, my priest, and the bible school instructors stressed abstinence and nothing else.
Abstinence wasn't going to fly with me, so this interaction with Planned Parenthood was more than welcomed. For me, PP was a place I could go for anonymous birth control and HIV testing. Even though I always used condoms, PP taught me the importance of getting tested for HIV anyway. They always pushed the importance of a complete sexual health awareness. Not once was I approached with the subject of abortion by the employees, so perhaps I was naive to not associate Planned Parenthood with abortion. For me, Planned Parenthood was freedom. I was able to embrace my sexual freedom without having to involve parents or their health insurance.
I really don't remember when I learned that the words Planned Parenthood had negative connotations. For some, Planned Parenthood is synonymous with abortion - with killing babies. In grad school, I did a research project highlighting the services of Planned Parenthood that didn't include abortion. I wasn't advocating abortion or making excuses for the procedure. I simply stated the statistics and moved forward with the rest of the information. I've never been the kind of person to tell others how they should live their lives. I understand that regardless of the actual percentage of abortions that are performed, even one is too many for some groups. Planned Parenthood will always be a 100% enemy for those people.
Nevertheless, I continued with my research project and stressed how this organization made itself an advocate for sexual health in high schools all around Corpus Christi. The introduction to my paper included my own experiences with the organization as a teen and again when the Director allowed me to visit high schools with her and partake in the presentations with the students while I worked on my research project.
As someone who was never told that there were options beyond abstinence, I'm glad that students are able to have this information available to them without having to seek it on their own - because let's face it, most kids will talk to each other before they seek a professional's advice. Remembering all the ridiculous urban legends I was confronted with in high school, I'm glad I had that Planned Parenthood connection in college and was able to find a place to discuss sexual health openly and at my convenience.
Why am I suddenly talking about Planned Parenthood today? After years of having insurance and not needing free or cheap healthcare, I found myself without a prescription for birth control and unable to get an appointment with a doctor that accepted a la carte payment for services. For the last few weeks, I've been calling local doctors trying to get an appointment to obtain birth control. I was either turned away because they weren't accepting new patients, urged to sign up for Obamacare so I could then "afford" their services, or I was told that I'd have to pay an additional cost for a "routine procedure" to make sure I was fit for birth control. It didn't matter that I've been on birth control for over a decade. These doctors wanted to get money from someone who seemed to have limited options. Maybe I was calling the wrong places or asking the wrong questions. I don't know why so many were unwilling to cooperate. With two weeks remaining on my current prescription, I became desperate and finally remembered Planned Parenthood.
This morning, for the first time since undergrad, I walked into Planned Parenthood as a patient. The receptionist welcomed me and quickly explained the charge for getting a prescription without insurance coverage or an examination. She didn't try to persuade me to sign up for Obamacare or insist that I get a battery of tests I don't need and can't afford right now. They were swamped today so couldn't take me until tomorrow, but I now have peace of mind that I will get what I need without extensive and unnecessary exams at a low cost.
Why the urgency and desperation?
The absence of birth control in a pill form doesn't mean there's a greater chance I might get pregnant. For me, the absence of that pill means that I'll suffer more migraines in a month. I've been suffering from excruciating migraines since I was a kid. Most times, I just dealt with the pain because I always thought they were really bad headaches that Advil might help remedy. It never did so I slept - sometimes for days. I missed school or fell asleep at school because the pain was so bad, and my mom forced me to go anyway. People don't stay home for headaches, she would say. Sometime in my early 20s, I learned about migraines and began experimenting with migraine treatment. My gynecologist recommended I start taking birth control to help with the menstrual migraines, and it turned out that the pills helped me all month long. Now I'm dependent on them, and I'm okay with that dependency. Once you've felt the horribleness that is a TRUE migraine, you cling to any relief that is available. Birth control helps me obtain the relief necessary to live day to day without feeling like someone is stabbing my head with an icepick. If I have to get that relief through an organization that others picket and hate, so be it. My main concern today is Me.
This interaction with Planned Parenthood is just another reason I'm thankful that, in a world full of skepticism and darkness, I'm still able to see the good in most things.
Today, I need that good to make myself whole.
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