It was probably obvious yesterday that we earnestly thought the FDA might finally turn around a longtime decision, one largely against all advice, information and recommendations from sexual, reproductive and adolescent health and rights experts and advocates, when it came to unfounded restrictions long put on teen access to Plan B.
And that was going to actually happen. The FDA was on board this time around and made the decision to ditch those restrictions. People under 17 were finally going to have the same kind of access to a safe, important kind of contraception those over 17 had, a kind of access there is simply no sound reason to restrict.
And yet.
In what Jodi Jacobson of RH Reality Check so rightfully said can, "only be called an astounding move by an Administration that pledged on inauguration day that medical and health decisions would be based on fact not ideology and for which women are a major constituency, today Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) overruled a much-awaited decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make emergency contraception (EC) available over-the-counter (OTC) to women of all ages."
I don't think we can express enough how tremendously and deeply frustrated and infuriated we are here that our optimism was in vain and was so outrageously gutted.
You can read more about it here, here and here and see the memorandum from Kathleen Sebelius here.
If you're like many of our readers and Facebook fans, reading those things will leave you feeling just as angry as we feel about it, if not more so.
It's so tremendously important your frustrations and opposition be heard (perhaps particularly by an administration which rallied youth for their support in getting elected and were so greatly benefitted when young people stood up for them).
It's so tremendously important that your requests for rights like these be heard. And that the incredibly sound, sage things you say like this from reader Arai, "These politicians really need to get on the same CENTURY as the one young people live. All the questioning for contraceptives, abortion rights, gay marriage are real in today's society," or this from reader Katrina, "Politicians on both sides of the aisle reach unheard of levels of cluelessness when it comes to youth reproductive rights and needs," are heard and seen. It is, of course just as important that they are also very thoughtfully and with great intention considered in choices like this, but we can't help much with that part, save continuing to say things like that and continuing to be ardent supporters of youth rights, including reproductive rights.
But what we can certainly help with is to provide at least one place where you can speak your mind about this and be seen and heard, and then take those comments and get more eyes on them from there.
Please leave your comments here about this decision if you are unhappy with it. Please pitch in to help add your voice to other youth voices about this issue if you want to do one of the most basic things you can, the most important things you can, to work towards a different, better, fairer, outcome.
Like we told one of our readers today when she asked why young people should have to ask, beg even, for rights you should have in the first place, the only answer we have is that you shouldn't. But just like other groups have had to voice a strong desire for rights they never should have -- like women and people of color seeking the right to vote, people of color seeking the same essential useful rights white people had, LGBT people asking for the same rights, freedoms and protections cisgender or straight people have -- you've got to keep doing the same with rights like this if you want them.
You shouldn't have to: you absolutely shouldn't have to. But, for now, you do.
Speak your mind: we want to hear you and other people, including this administration -- whether you're a citizen or not -- need to start hearing you. And listening.
P.S.: Would you rather blog about it in a different place? If you do, leave a link!
P.P.S.: The Change.org petition in protest of Secretary Sebelius' action is here.
You may have heard that the FDA may finally remove age restrictions for the morning-after emergency contraception pill in the United States. If you've heard that, you may have started to hear some panic or fear-factoring, not just gratitude and relief.
Currently, in the United States, someone must be over the age of 17 in order to get Plan B at a pharmacy without a prescription. Until two years ago, the age limit was 18. It's still kept behind the pharmacy counter for people of all ages, but those over 17 do not need a prescription from a doctor or a clinic to purchase it.
For a long time now, organizations like ours and many, many other reproductive choice, justice and health organizations, have been lobbying to remove that age restriction, something other nations -- like Canada, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Israel and others -- do not apply; a restriction which has never been supported by sound health data. The restriction per age has long been about politics, not health.
In fact, a medical council formed expressly to inform the FDA about Plan B in 2003 recommended it be provided without prescription regardless of age then, a recommendation the FDA did not follow. More than one staff member at the FDA during the years this has been an issue, including the highly dedicated Susan Wood, resigned in protest of decisions about Plan B access and the political motives for those decisions, which stood counter to sound medical information, what the basis of FDA decisions are supposed to be about.
We feel, like so many other sexual health and adolescent health organizations feel, like you might yourself, that young people should have the same rights with their reproductive choices that those over the age of majority do, including the ability to access safe contraceptive methods the same way as those over the age of majority do. We feel that decisions for all citizens like this need to be centered on credible health information, not political or personal agendas or religious beliefs.
Given this possible sea change, you may find yourself, not unlike some former members of the FDA, having discussions or heated arguments about this with people who really do not get it for a while, and in those, you're probably going to face a serious lack of facts. In case you need them, here's a quick and dirty roundup of some typically uninformed statements with some factual information and context to counter them with.
But Plan B is so unsafe! It's like a GIANT dose of birth control pills!
A lot of over the counter medications, also without age restrictions are not only dangerous, but far more associated with serious health risks.
For instance, you can get all of the following over the counter here in the U.S., none of which have any age restrictions (links are to informational listings about them, including health risks): ibuprofen, acetaminophen, cough syrups or cold medications which contain dextromethorphan or pseudoephedrine, sleeping pills or energy drinks. Heck, you can get candy bars within reach even if you are still only crawling around in footie pajamas, but we don't hear people talking about putting them behind the counter for the safety of diabetic kids.
Plan B is a medication just as safe or safer than some of those things, especially when those things aren't used as directed, which happens a lot, no matter how young or old people are. No deaths have been linked to Plan B, and we can't say that about any of the other things I put on that list above.
It's also not quite right to say that it's a "giant dose of birth control pills."
Most people who use the pill use combined oral contraceptives: a combination of a synthetic estrogen and a synthetic progestin. And while both of those things carry potential health risks, especially for people who have health or lifestyle issues that heighten those risks, the larger risks tend to lie with the estrogens or the combination of estrogen and progestin. Plan B does not contain any estrogen, only levonorgestrel, a progestin. That matters and makes it tough to compare to the most common daily-use oral contraceptives. That's also some of why reputable medical organizations assert that emergency contraceptive pills are usually safe even for people for whom regular contraceptive pills are unsafe. The World Health Organization lists no medical condition for which the risks of emergency contraceptive pills outweigh the benefits.
Too, people who use either combined birth control pills or minipills tend to use them for longer than one or two days like with emergency contraceptive pills, but instead will take a pill every day for weeks, months, years or decades, depending on how long they use them for. Very few people will start using birth control pills and only take two out of a pack.
Most oral contraceptives have 100 to 150 micrograms of levonorgestrel per pill; emergency contraceptive pills contain either two two 750 microgram levonorgestrel pills to be taken 12 hours apart (or together: taking them apart is mostly about reducing the chance of feeling nauseated) or one 1500 microgram pill, to be taken 12 hours apart. Almost everyone who uses a birth control pill for more than a week or two is taking in as much of the hormone in Plan B or, and most typically, far more. And these medications aren't like a sleeping pill or even an advil when it comes to overdose, if that concerns someone about the amount of hormone in Plan B. Not only do we know this is a safe amount to be used as directed, "overdosing" with oral contraceptives does not present the kinds of dangers we see with other kinds of medications. It might also help to take a look at the facts about frequent use of emergency contraception: in a word, we have no evidence so far, after more than decade of research, that has found any more or different risks than ongoing, proper use of other hormonal contraceptives.
Let's not forget that pregnancy can be one of the riskiest things there is when it comes to people's health. Preventing pregnancy with a safe medication like Plan B poses far less risk to someone's health, especially a young teen's health, than a pregnancy does.
But, but... it is SO DANGEROUS for TEENS!
But, but... it isn't. Not that anyone has discovered so far with many years of scientific study, anyhow. There has NEVER been broad medical or scientific support for the decision to require a prescription for minors, but not older people. It's been the other way around: most healthcare professionals and medical organizations, like the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, as well as, again, many doctors at the FDA, have objected to these age restrictions. The people who tend to oppose it most are people like this. (Note: that link is to an anti-choice site, the American Life League, which is hopefully obvious from the first sentence, but may become more so by the total lack of contextualization with the information given there, such as a lack of mention that all the risks they list for the MAP exist with a pregnancy. And maybe when reading their website.)
So much of what people know and have heard about emergency contraception has been informed and greatly influenced by people and organizations who are anti-choice, and who oppose Plan B and often other kinds of contraception, not because of concerns for anyone's health, but because of their political agendas to limit the control people -- most commonly women -- have over their bodies and reproduction.
Again, know what's dangerous, sometimes truly, earnestly dangerous? Pregnancy. Now, that doesn't mean people need to be afraid of pregnancy or that we're saying people who want to become pregnant shouldn't make that choice if it's a wanted choice. But there's a reason why maternal mortality rates are so high in places where pregnant people can't get sound, consistent care during pregnancy, labor and deliver from healthcare providers, including educated midwives. That's because pregnancy is dangerous. Preventing pregnancy with safe, studied contraceptives is always statistically safer than becoming pregnant. So, if someone wants to flip their lid about how dangerous contraceptives like Plan B are, they better at least be pulling out all the same stops and more about how potentially dangerous being pregnant and giving birth can be, too.
And even though legal abortion is also very safe, and in the first trimester, safer than a full-term pregnancy, emergency contraception is safer than abortion, too.
Some people have concerns that teens will not be able to understand how to use EC properly without getting a prescription from a doctor. While it doesn't make much sense to have that concern about EC and not all the other medications a young person can currently get over the counter, some studies have found that concern also is not sound. "Two studies were published in 2009 regarding emergency contraceptive label comprehension for teens. Raymond et al. found that 79% or more of adolescents aged 12-17 correctly understood six key concepts found in labeling: 1) EC prevents pregnancy after unprotected sex 2) it should be taken as soon as possible 3) it should be taken within 72 hours 4) it should not replace regular contraception 5) it does not protect against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) 6) it should not be used by women who are already pregnant." (The Reproductive Health Technologies Project, Tough Questions and Answers about Adolescents and Over-the-Counter Emergency Contraception, 2009) By all means, patient and consumer literacy is always something to be concerned with, but we have no reason to believe this is a greater concern with teens regarding Plan B than it is with people of all ages.
It might also help to know that there are already some contraceptive methods as available to teens as to those over the age of majority which we know or suspect may pose different or greater risks for them, like Depo-Provera, which may present risks around bone density for younger teens. And young people should be informed by their doctors or pharmacists of any risks these or other medications or devices present to them based on age, when there are any, just like people should be informed when older age increases a risk, or when a given health condition or lifestyle issue may increase risks.
And if there were different or greater risks with Plan B for young people than those one, three or ten years older, those same standards should be applied and, you can be certain, would be applies. Thing is, based on all the study of these medications so far, we don't have any data to suggest the risks are different or greater for those under 17.
I am not okay with teenagers being able to give themselves an abortion by just walking all willy-nilly into a pharmacy.
Even as a strongly pro-choice person, I don't know if I'd feel comfortable with that, either. I am, however, a fan of walking willy-nilly. It's much more fun than just plain old walking, that's for sure.
But that's moot, since no one of any age can give themselves an abortion by just walking into a pharmacy and getting Plan B, including in places where people of every age can access emergency contraception without a prescription. That's because you can't use emergency contraception to terminate pregnancy.
A lot of people -- some out of ignorance, some who know better but know how easy it is to obscure the facts by just muttering the A-word -- have the odd idea that emergency contraceptive pills and a medical abortion, or "the abortion pill" are the same thing. They're not. Plan B and other emergency contraception not only is a very different medication, it does very different things. Even if someone wanted to terminate a pregnancy with Plan B, this medication can't do that: it lacks that capacity.
You can get information on the "abortion pill" -- a bit of a misnomer by itself, since medical abortion involves two medications, not just one -- here.
But more people will have sex without using birth control if they can just get EC easily.
Emergency contraception has the word contraception in it because that is what it is: it, like other methods, is contraception. Is it as effective as several other methods? Nope. It's also more expensive, too, especially if people are using it often.
I'm not sure why anyone is this concerned about people choosing this method of contraception rather than others by this token, but for those who are, so far, we also don't have any data that shows that when EC is made more available, including giving minors the same access those older have, that there's any basis for that concern. As reported by the Alan Guttmacher Institute years ago, providing adolescents with advance doses of emergency contraception neither increases their likelihood of having unprotected sex nor negatively affects their use of condoms or hormonal contraceptives.
Perhaps more to the point, if one is worried about people not using contraception, then it's tough to figure how it makes sense to limit their access to contraception.
Want more information about emergency contraception, including teen health concerns? Check out these links:
If and when you get tired or arguing with someone about this who just will not let go of the non-facts, do yourself a favor and just print them out, pass them on, and give yourself a breather. Bashing one's head into walls is something we know isn't healthy. :) If, on the other hand, like some of us (coughcough) you seem to have dedicated much of your life to arguments like this and you find what we gave you here isn't enough? Leave a comment with an aspect or issue you want more information about or help voicing. We're glad to help you out.
My boyfriend and I have been going out for more a than a year now and we have grown extremely close. We use to have sex regularly and then he just kind of halted it. I want to have sex but he does not want to because of the potential of pregnancy. I suggest using condoms but he still refuses. Is there any way I can convince him to have sex again or will it seem like I am desperate? Please help!
My boyfriend and I had anal sex and then after went on to normal intercourse, can this cause infections?
I'm 18, and I've been sexually active for about three years. I met my current boyfriend in August of 2010 and we've been inseparable since. He just celebrated his 21st birthday. My problem is, my mom seems to think I'm her angelic, virginal teenager. (I'm one of five kids) She doesn't know I'm dating or that I'm not a virgin. Before I go away to college, I'd like to come clean to her. I'm just not sure how to do that without shattering her image of me completely, though it seems inevitable. So, how do I begin to tell her?
What do we know about teen parents? Take a moment to make a mental list (or, if you’re motivated to get out a pen and paper, I won’t stop you) of all the facts and statistics you’ve heard.
In case you’re coming up short, I’ll give you a few:
You can read more here or here or here or watch any episode of 16 and Pregnant that features Dr. Drew. He’ll usually cover most of these points before the hour is up – while interviewing young people who are actually parenting.
Beyond these “facts”, we hear plenty of other messages on what The Candie’s Foundation calls “the devastating consequences of teen pregnancy;” their print ads tell teens they won’t move out of their parents house if they have a teen pregnancy; they’ll be spending $10,000 a year on their baby; they’ll have to breastfeed every two hours or come up with money for formula. The Candie’s Foundation isn’t the only organization putting out these types of messages – most teen pregnancy prevention, sex education, or public health organizations presume that their audience will immediately understand that teen pregnancy is harmful to young people, their children, and their communities as a whole.
Even the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy says that teen pregnancy is:
...risky for all of those involved. Compared to women who delay childbearing, teen mothers are more likely to end up on welfare. The children of teen mothers are at significantly increased risk of low birthweight and prematurity, mental retardation, poverty, growing up without a father, welfare dependency, poor school performance, insufficient health care, inadequate parenting, and abuse and neglect. (From Halfway There: A Prescription for Continued Success in Preventing Teen Pregnancy)
And if the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy says it’s a huge problem, they must be right… right?
Well… not really. You might have heard the saying that "there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." When it comes to teen parents, the statistics’ metaphorical pants are definitely on fire. First, we have to recognize that the young women who become teen mothers are different from some other young women. Not radically different, not different in a way that means we can marginalize or demonize them, but different in that: a) they chose to have sexual relationships as a teenager (most of them – some pregnancies are the result of sexual abuses or assaults; b) they probably didn’t use birth control when they were having sex (maybe they didn’t learn about it, maybe they couldn’t access it, maybe they couldn’t afford it, maybe they wanted to get pregnant, or maybe they did use it and it failed, as all methods can); c) they chose not to have an abortion (again, presuming they made this choice themselves, and had affordable access to safe abortion if they had wanted one).
Of all the teenaged women in the country, which young women are most likely to meet all of these criteria? Demographically, we know that it’s women and girls who grew up in low-income communities that have the highest likelihood of becoming young mothers.
Why is this? As I said earlier, it takes money to avoid parenthood if you’ve decided to have sex: you have to be able to afford birth control (and/or abortion), and sometimes that can be really expensive. It also helps if you went to a good school with a comprehensive sex education program, and we know that schools in low-income communities rarely have the resources needed to give students the educations they deserve. (Surprisingly, not all teens know they can get a ton of free sex education here at Scarleteen – provided they can afford or access a computer.)
But there’s also something else, and that's the extent to which young people have big plans for themselves that will conflict with parenthood. Are you planning on going to college? For some young people, the answer is an immediate "Yes!" because their parents went to college, their older siblings went to college, all their friends are going, and between their family and financial aid, they will be able to afford a post-secondary education that will help them pursue their dreams and find a decent job. However, for some young people, the answer is "I don’t know" or an ambivalent shrug, or even a straightforward "no." Maybe no one in their family has gone to college, maybe their school doesn’t have a college counselor that can talk to them about the application process and financial aid, maybe they just know they can’t afford it or what it might be able to offer them. They see their parents working jobs that don’t require a college degree. They expect to have a mid- to low-paying job, because that’s the type of job everyone around them has.
Now imagine there are two 16 year-olds, one who knows she’s going to college – she’s got a whole plan mapped out, and she didn’t even have to map it out all by herself. That’s just what she expects because that’s what everyone she knows does, and that’s what her parents expect of her. Then there’s the other one, who doesn’t expect to go to college, but she does expect to work hard at a job so she can contribute some money to her parents. That’s just what she expects because that’s what everyone she knows does, and that’s what her parents expect of her.
Both young women want to be mothers one day. Both are having sex with a boyfriend.
The first young woman has that college plan, though – and having a baby would really get in the way. It’s really hard to go to college with a new baby, and she knows that. Plus, she doesn’t know anyone who had a baby in high school. Her parents would be mortified if she got pregnant. Having a baby now would change the trajectory of her life. It’s an unacceptable risk. One night, when her boyfriend’s condom breaks, she goes to the pharmacy and buys emergency contraception. She decides if she’s pregnant, she will have an abortion. She talks to her doctor about going on the birth control pill so that she won’t have to worry should the condom break in the future.
The second young woman has a different plan. She’s going to graduate high school and get a job in the preschool where she now works part-time, and maybe eventually become a teacher there. It’s an hourly wage job, and she knows most of the women who work there already have children. Her cousin was a teen mom, and her mother had her older brother when she was 17 years old. She knows teen moms work hard and pinch pennies, but she’s going to be doing that anyway. If she has a baby now, she can count on her parents’ begrudging acceptance, and she knows that her mother would help with babysitting. She doesn’t want to live with her parents forever, but she’s not planning on moving out when she turns 18, anyway. One night, when her boyfriend’s condom breaks, she decides to wait and see. She doesn’t know much about emergency contraception, and she doesn’t have $60 to spend on it anyway. She doesn’t think much about abortion – she doesn’t think she’d be comfortable with the idea, but since she doesn’t know if she’s pregnant yet, she won’t stress about that at the moment. It’s a risk she’s willing to take: she definitely wants to be a mother someday, and if she is pregnant now, she knows she’ll find a way to deal with it.
Not-so-surprise ending: A few weeks later, the first young woman breathes a sigh of relief when her period arrives on time. The second young woman takes a test, and the plus sign appears. She’s pregnant.
Now, don’t over generalize: if you’re having vaginal intercourse, there’s a chance you’ll get pregnant, even if your dad has a vault the size of Bill Gates’. And, of course young women in low-income communities have hopes and dreams for their future. But the material privilege that a person has, the likelihood that they feel they’ll be able to achieve their goals, and the examples provided by people in their community – each of these things contributes to the decisions that they’ll make, the risks that they’ll take, and the different paths they’ll choose when faced with the same dilemma. We can conclude one thing very clearly and concretely: low-income women are more likely to become young mothers than middle and upper-income women.
What does this have to do with all those statistics we hear about teen pregnancy? It means that when we compare teen mothers to all other mothers and say, "Hey! Look how badly they’re doing!" we’re not really being fair. A woman who grew up in poverty in the United States is likely to live in poverty as an adult, too (despite what we hear about The American Dream) – and poverty itself is a huge risk factor for many adverse outcomes, including the outcomes listed in those statistics at the top of this page. When we compare teen mothers to older mothers, we’re also almost always comparing poor or poorer mothers to mothers with more resources, and that’s a problem. So, let’s look at some better comparisons:
None of this means that being a teen parent isn’t really, truly, incredibly hard. But hey – all parenting is a challenging. Newborns need to be fed in the middle night no matter how old their mothers are. Toddlers need to be constantly chased around just as much if their mom is 37 or if their mom 19. Some teenagers might not be up to the task – some adults in their thirties or forties aren't either. Let’s not ridicule, stereotype or misrepresent young parents as a justification for preventing teen pregnancy!
So now you’re probably scratching your head and asking: why, then, should we prevent teen pregnancy? For that, I invite you to stay tuned.
Gretchen Sisson is the author of Finding a Way to Offer Something More: Reframing Teen Pregnancy Prevention. You can follow her on Twitter @gesisson.
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2. Geronimus, A. (2003). Damned if you do: culture, identity, privilege, and teenage childbearing in the United States. Social Science and Medicine, 57, 881–893.
3. Geronimus, A. (2001). Understanding and eliminating racial inequalities in women’s health in the United States: the role of the weathering conceptual framework. Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association, 56(4), 1–5.
4. Geronimus, A. (1996). Black/White differences in the relationship of maternal age to birthweight: a population-based test of the weathering hypothesis. Social Science and Medicine, 42(4), 589– 597.
5. Geronimus, A., & Korenman, S. (1993). Maternal youth or family background? On the health disadvantages of infants with teenage mothers. American Journal of Epidemiology, 137(2), 213–225.
6. Hoffman, S. (2008). Updated estimates of the consequences of teen childbearing for mothers. In S. Hoffman & R. Maynard (Eds.), Kids having kids: economic costs and social consequences of teen pregnancy (2nd ed.). Washington: Urban Institute Press.
7. Hotz, V. J., Williams Elroy, S., & Sanders, S. (2005). Teenage childbearing and its life cycle consequences: exploiting a natural experiment. The Journal of Human Resources, 40(3), 683–715.
8. McCarthy, J., & Hardy, J. (1993). Age at first birth and birth outcomes. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 3, 373–392.
9. Rauh, V., Andrews, H., & Garfinkel, R. (2001). The contribution of maternal age to racial disparities in birthweight: a multilevel perspective. American Journal of Public Health, 91, 1815–1824.
10. Rich-Edwards, J., Buka, S., Brennan, S., & Earls, F. (2003). Diverging associations of maternal age with low birthweight for Black and White mothers. International Journal of Epidemiology, 32, 83–90.
I'm and 18 years old and have been having sex for a year and been on the pill for about a year. I take my birth control like a ritual at the same time every day (the combination pill). Sometime my boyfriend and I don't use a condom in the beginning to get him hard then we always put one on. My question is, when on the pill do you absolutely have to use condoms? They say that every time you have sex you NEED to use a condom. I know it is the most effective way, but I thought that the one of the points of the pill is so you don't need to use a condom.
I had a favorite line, in high school, when debating people on the subject of abortion. It was "Hey, that thing in your stomach's not gonna come out a toaster, right? It's a baby!"
Oh, I thought I was really, super clever with that one. Because I loved talking about the babies. I talked about the babies at the high school Young Republicans Club--not only was I the president, but also the founder. I talked about the babies at Club 412, the evangelical punk teen hang-out in Fort Worth I frequented with my friends. I talked about the babies in class. I cried about the babies while I strummed my guitar. I wrote songs about the babies, imagining myself as a broken, murderous whore who regretted her abortions.
I didn't have an opinion one way or the other on abortion until I started hanging out with right-wing punk rock kids in high school. Then, somebody -- probably one of the older teenage punk rock boys I would later fend off in the back of a car or behind the chapel at church camp -- handed me a pamphlet with an aborted fetus on the front. The pamphlet told me abortion causes breast cancer and how women who abort can never be redeemed in the eyes of God and will live with heartache and depression for the rest of their lives, a shell of the beautiful thing they could have been if they'd only carried to term. I was outraged. I couldn't believe women were killing members of my own generation -- my sisters and brothers! -- just because they couldn't keep their legs together.
Because while I said it was about the babies, it wasn't. It was about slut-shaming.
I absolutely loved slut-shaming. Because I was saving myself for marriage -- well, oral sex doesn't really count anyway, does it? -- I knew that I would always be right and virtuous and I would never be a murderer like those sluts. The issue couldn't possibly be up for real debate, to my mind: either you were a baby-killer slut, or you behaved like a proper Christian woman and only let him get to third base. Babies were simultaneously women's punishment for having premarital sex and beautiful gifts from Jesus Himself. That didn't seem like a contradiction in my mind. It was just another one of God's perfect mysteries.
After all, I was 16, 17, 18. I knew everything. And what I knew more than anything else was that anyone who got herself into the position of having an unwanted pregnancy was filthy in body and soul. And again, since I would absolutely never have premarital sex, I would absolutely never make the decision to murder my child. Because I was pure, and so were babies, and together, me and the babies and my perfect hymen, we were all going to be fine if we could just fight the ignorant sluts. So that's what I did. I talked and argued and cajoled and pontificated. I ministered to the heathen nerdgirl sluts in Telnet chats and online bulletin boards. I stood up for what I believed in, which was: If you do not believe like me, you deserve whatever brand of God's wrath comes your way.
But, you know, to hear me talk, it was all about the babies. The innocent children. The mass genocide! Perpetuated, of course, by millions of American women who I imagined happily scooping out their wombs with ladles before heading back out for another gang-bang. In private, my anti-choice friends and I would laugh and laugh (or, in some cases, LOL and LOL, if we were chatting online) about how stupid women were for having premarital sex. How evil they were for not being able to control themselves. How great I was for not having sex with my boyfriend. How loved and special I was in the eyes of God because I didn't let my boyfriend, you know, do it with me.
If I'd thought about it any, I might have realized that it takes two to create an unwanted pregnancy. But the conversation was never, ever about men or their behavior. It was only about women.
So, what happened? How did I come to be editing a lefty, pinko-assed feminist blog?
Well, I got off my religious high horse and on to a sex life I enjoyed and found fulfilling.
At college, I met a wonderful, sweet Jewish boy who fell in love with me and who I fell in love with right back. And he didn't have any hang-ups about sex, though he was also a virgin. And we did all of the things except for The Big Sex, and the more I grew to love him, the more I thought back on those people I knew back home who told me sex was awful and would break me. How could sex with this guy, this absolute sweetheart, break me? And so we had The Big Sex. And it was great and fun and loving, and we kept having all of The Big Sex, for about three weeks, until I realized it was about time for my period.
Suddenly: I was the dirty, filthy slut. I was the horny bitch. I was the callous murderer-in-training. What, did I think my womb was going to grow a toaster if we had a condom mishap?
Of course not. I didn't think babies were toasters and I didn't believe I was going to birth a toaster if I got pregnant, so how had I managed to belittle women for years with this condescending, patronizing line about a small kitchen appliance? I was frozen in a kind of moral limbo: I couldn't believe I found myself simultaneously relieved that I could access an abortion if I wanted to, and saddened and stressed out by the possibility of having to make that decision.
So I went right the heck out and got myself some hormonal birth control, is what I did.
I marched into my college women's health center -- oh, thank God they had one -- and I got my first pap smear and the Ortho-Evra patch and talked to the nurses about STD's and pregnancy and how to take care of my body. I had never had any of those conversations with my family or church or friends or teachers back home in Texas. I learned more in a two-hour visit to that college women's health center than I had in the 19 years leading up to it. And yet as a passionate anti-choicer, I had considered myself an expert on sex and reproductive health -- my own and everyone else's -- because of a few pamphlets and preachers.
Today, I see that nothing about my religious anti-choice views did anything to prevent abortion. They did a lot to shame myself and my friends, but nothing to prevent abortion. Today, I hear anti-choicers talk about the babies and the unborn and the American genocide, but what I really hear beneath all that is slut-shaming and fear of female sexuality. I hear that language clearly because I spoke it once, myself. It is a familiar language to me.
And I even have a little bemused sympathy for old men who try to pass anti-choice legislation. Because they really will not ever have to worry about abortion. And once, I thought I wouldn't, either. So I see where they're coming from. I see how blind to the experiences of others they are. Privilege does that to people. If they weren't so damned full of themselves, and so damned politically powerful, I might even find them funny.
What saddens me more than anything else are women who want to make abortion either so inaccessible as to render it impracticable, or who want to outlaw it altogether. Because I truly believe that most women, anti-choice or otherwise, who've experienced even a flicker of uncertainty about a pregnancy in this country since 1973 have been glad, in their hearts, to have a choice. I believe wanting to take that choice away from others is deeply about shame and punishment and judgment, and not about righteousness and love. I believe that because I rarely see those who want to outlaw abortion doing anything to combat its cause: unintended pregnancy, and I see them doing a lot to punish and shame women.
There is nothing "pro-life" about sonogram bills and denying Medicaid funding to (some!) rape victims or allowing doctors to opt out of giving pregnant women life-saving abortions. I know that what has kept me from having to make a decision about an unintended pregnancy is not the prospect of hearing a fetal heartbeat or having to go through a 24-hour wait period, but safe, easy and affordable access to contraception and good, honest medical information disseminated by doctors and medical professionals without religious agendas.
I was a girl growing up in Texas who was failed by abstinence-only education and soured by extreme religious dogma.
I don't want other girls to go through that, too. And so if you've gotten through this whole essay, consider donating to Planned Parenthood. Get on a NARAL mailing list. Fight HR3. Stand up against empty religious and political pandering and stand up for real solutions like affordable health care, comprehensive sex education and contraceptive access.
Originally published at Hay Ladies.
© 1998 - 2011 Scarleteen/Heather Corinna. All Rights Reserved.
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