I’ve been thinking a lot about the birth control debate that’s going on right now and what we can actually do to make a difference — and, honestly, if we even could make a difference. The right is moving so far right they want to enact legislation that goes backwards into the 1950s. That’s just shameful.
But why? My guess is that the anti-choice types are incredible active, incredibly political and incredibly graphic. Honestly, I don’t care if someone thinks that life begins at conception. That is their right. What I do care about is that their religious beliefs are infringing on my health and access to treatments that affect my body (as well as that of every other woman in our country).
Today, when I was doubled over in pain at the grocery store and working VERY HARD not to vomit in the cleaning aisle (believe me I’m fully aware of the irony), I had an idea — why don’t the women who suffer from horrible and debilitating cramps and other menstrual-related issues document their pain in horrifying graphic detail and send it to every member of Congress that supports HR 1179? The majority of these people are men, and my guess is that they are incredibly uncomfortable with the comings and goings of a woman’s reproductive cycle. If they got hundreds or thousands of emails and letters explicitly detailing what cramps or ovarian cysts or endometriosis feels like (possibly with photos), maybe they wouldn’t feel so comfortable ignoring the medical needs associated with birth control. (Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything we can do to fight their ethical issues other than to get them the hell out of office.)
For every anti-choice person who sends them a disgusting picture of an aborted fetus, let’s send them an equally graphic and disgusting picture of a chocolate cyst. Send in a picture of yourself hunched over in the fetal position next to a bucket with three heating pads tied to your back. Show them the first degree burns you sustained from the heating pads or the vomit itself. Describe the nausea and the shooting pains down your legs that make you crippled for hours or days. Explain that the only time you’re not like this every month is when you’re on the pill. Explain that the pill costs less to your company (and your country) than the lost hours or days of productivity. Explain whatever the hell it is that happens to you in the way that you’d explain it to your mom or best friend or the nurse at your office or school that would send you home with a medical excuse. Don’t be shy. They’re not shy about stripping away your rights, so they should probably see what the after effects are.
