Ah, Buy Your Own Stinkin' Birth Control! This is America!

By Grace Antares Clare

Getting Birth control sounds easy enough, doesn't it?

But not really.

It requires a doctor's prescription.

Poor Women are discriminated against enough when trying to get it for medical reasons.

I am going to tell you my tale.

It took me more than a year to get birth control.

For medical reasons.

To begin with, when I was a senior in high school, my mother took me to the doctor because I was having menstrual issues.

I was bleeding far too much far too long.

I was using triple the amount of feminine hygiene products that a normal girl would have every month.

For at least four days, I would lay on the couch and attempt to block out my extreme headaches and cramping.

The heating pad was my best friend.

The Doctor she took me to, a medicaid doctor, told me to use a condom with my boyfriend.

I'd never had a boyfriend before or any sexual contact. My mother had to ask, as I was far too embarrassed to.

I can still remember the small white room we were ushered into, and quickly ushered out because of her request for me.

I had been more than shocked by the female doctor's tone: it was one of disinterest, one that was heavy with derision and coldness.

I cried after as my mom drove me home.

I was furious.

I went another year before the menstrual problems became too much to bear.

I started college that fall and finding the time to go to the doctor was hard.

For the second year, I had no insurance because I was above the age of 18, so I had to go to the local clinic that served the poor with no insurance.

There were no appointments.

They gave you a time--the same time that they gave everyone for the normal medical clinic--and told you to show up three hours early if you wanted to be seen.

The order you arrived in was the order you would be seen in.

I was lucky that it was after school--I was, and still am attending college--or I would not have been able to go.

It was only after I went three months and three weeks without a menstrual cycle that my mom found somewhere for me to go.

The first doctor I saw prescribed bloodwork that I didn't have to pay for.

He was mainly worried about me being pregnant, which there was no way.

I have never had sex.

He told me that he would have prescribed it for me right then, but I had to wait until their gynecologist clinic to open.

But I went and got the bloodwork.

Meanwhile, I gained nearly 50 pounds
.
I restricted what I ate and began working out an hour a day.

I didn't lose a single pound with a 900 calorie a day diet.

I was growing hair on my face and stomach and it took four months of waiting to get into the Gynocologist clinic wait list.

Just the wait list.

When I finally saw a gynecologist a month after that, she ordered a pelvic ultrasound.
I had small cysts on my left ovary.

But she didn't want to perform a pap smear even though my great grandmother died of ovarian cancer.

She said it wasn't immediate enough to count.

So she renewed my bloodwork, and I went and got it done, and yet another month passed before they called me back.

She said everything looked good and on the next visit after they did some more bloodwork on my liver panel.

I heard back from them two months later.

She called me in, again having to show up three hours early each time I was to be seen.
I was very frustrated by that time.

I knew they were just running me around.

They canceled that appointment the day of, after I had drove more than 30 miles to get there on time.

It took three more months before they called me back and the gynecologist, a woman, told me all I needed to do was eat less and workout more and see a dietician and my menstrual issues would be solved even though my hormones were more than twice what they should have been.

We never went back there.

My mom took me to another clinic, but this was one that had to be paid for.

The doctor there ran some blood tests and two weeks later, he handed me a prescription for Ortho.
I had it filled and began taking it.

This is my fifth month taking hormonal birth control.

I am finally able to feel normal.

Before, I was hormonal to the extreme.

The doctor told me that it would take about three months for my hormones to settle.

And then I would be able to lose weight.

Just because I was poor, I was put through more than a year of pain and misery.

Affording health insurance was something I couldn't do.

And this is the struggle every poor woman will have to face if they are not offered contraception coverage or contraception counseling through their insurance.

Even as a virgin, I could not get it through any channel besides paying for a doctors visit.

And that was money my family didn't have at the time.

I hope no one else has to go through this--this particular part of the healthcare law made me love it.

Because if you need it medically, you should be able to get it.

There shouldn't be a run around.

If they were doing it to me, how many others were they doing it to as well?

Not only is the supreme court saying that Hobby Lobby, a corporation, could have a religion, but saying that their right to express their beliefs trumps our needs.

If it was hard to get Birth Control before this ruling, how hard is it going to be to get it after the ruling?

So, that is why, Hobby Lobby, I am not going to your stores any longer.

I will not spend my money so you can oppress your female employees.

I bought a lot of your stuff before you brought this case to the supreme court.

Your hypocrisy is stunning.

You support having Viagra and vasectomies, but no Birth Control (The supreme court has come out and said that it applies to the whole contraception mandate).

Don't pretend that we don't know this is about profits, go ahead.

You stunning inadequacy at understanding basic science is mind-boggling.

There are many like me who will never set foot in your store ever again.

You were worried about your profits before?

How about now?

Sincerely,
A Furious Lady

****** 
Oh,That's an exception...RIGHT, Supremes?