Feminist Becky // On birth control.

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thisthat-and-liberalstuff:

So, I see a lot of arguments talking about how “but birth control isn’t JUST to prevent pregnancy, it’s health care X, Y, and Z!”

And I’m just sitting here like “is the prevention of unwanted pregnancy suddenly NOT legitimate healthcare?”

When people give reasons as to why birth control in its various forms should be provided cheap and affordable, prevention of pregnancy is always listed last, as an afterthought, or is presented as “well yeah, SOME people use it so they don’t get pregnant, but MORE people use it for ~medical reasons.~”

So, my wanting to have control over when I become a mother isn’t “medical” enough for you? My wanting to have safe sex while not having to compromise the goals that I have laid out before I enter motherhood isn’t a ~legitimate~ reason as to why I shouldn’t have to struggle to pay for BC, or go to the Health Department because I have no insurance where the people don’t or can’t give me proper reproductive services other than “use condoms” and send me on my merry way without having the decency to help with the constant bleeding after sex/unusual pains/ect?

What I’m trying to get at, is, why isn’t safe sex and pregnancy prevention not considered a legitimate reason for people to have birth control? Is it because it doesn’t fit into the GOP’s “traditional family,” where everyone is magically virginal until marriage, and then the sole goal after he “puts a ring on it” is to reproduce at the rate of rabbits, and any kind of hindrance on “God’s Plan” shall surely send us into the pits of hell?

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that people don’t want to acknowledge that we weren’t put on the planet to be incubators for future generations.

Or maybe it’s because people don’t want to realize that those of us capable of getting pregnant like to have sex (and sometimes a lot of it) without the hassle of also being pregnant. Perhaps they realize we don’t give a fuck about their shitty standards of how we “should” act, and that pisses them off because they can’t have total control over us.

Whatever the reason is (and all of these reasons and then some probably fall as a reason) my decision to prevent pregnancy IS legitimate health care, and I am honestly sick and tired of hearing people place the qualifier “but people use BC for health and medical reasons, not just prevention of pregnancy” as if preventing pregnancy ISN’T a medical decision, or like I should be ashamed because a big reason that I’m on birth control is because I fuck, and I like it, and I DON’T want to be a mother.

perfectly said

we shouldn’t have to justify our use of birth control

however, to the people who view preventing pregnancy as shameful and immoral and who have a lot of power in this country… it becomes necessary to discuss the other benefits of birth control.