Planned Parenthood
posted by bitchphd
Kameron at Brutal Women has a good post up about her experience of Planned Parenthood. I'm inspired to do a post of my own on the subject.
I've used Planned Parenthood once, when I was 17. Despite the fact that my mom was pretty open about birth control issues, pretty accepting, I still didn't want to tell her that I was planning on sleeping with my boyfriend. So I went to PP rather than asking her to make an appointment for me with her ob/gyn. (Many years later I discovered this was a good thing; this is the ob/gyn who tried to shame my sister for having untreated chlamydia. Which she'd had for four years. Because she was raped at 14, and was too ashamed to tell anyone. For four years. But hey, that's a different story.)
In contrast to my mom's asshole ob/gyn, everyone at PP was lovely. This was, I guess, before the anti-abortion forces started picketing clinics, and we just walked in, no problem. My boyfriend went with me (I insisted) and they said how impressive, and rare that was. They signed me in. I asked how much. They said, "free, but if you can make a contribution, please do." I couldn't, so I didn't, but years afterwards--when I was older and had money of my own--I sent them a check. The doc asked if this was my first ever pelvic, I said yes. She told me everything she was doing before she did it, was very gentle, asked me if things were ok, did this hurt, talked me through the process. I felt treated with dignity and concern. She made quite a point of asking me more than once if I had questions, making sure that I understood my b.c. options, telling me what side effects I might expect and what to do if I had them, talked to me about STDs and condom use, asked if I'd had sex yet, commended me for coming in for birth control and bringing my boyfriend ("good for you! And good for him!"), and sent me on my way.
Later, when I got the first migraine, I knew what it was, called PP, stopped taking the pill, got a new prescription, everything very smooth and easy because I knew what was up. Need I point out that they provided better health care than my current doc does?
After that I went off to college and mostly used student health services, which were usually pretty good (I had an excellent nurse practicioner in graduate school, who disappointed me terribly because she couldn't be my care provider once I got pregnant--although the ob/gyn I found ended up being quite good). Perhaps because my first visit to PP was so good, I've always had a very high expectation of my health care providers, and I've always felt entitled to ask questions and take up their time if I don't understand something.
My other revelation about PP came many years later, in a casual conversation with my sister-in-law. She mentioned going to PP and I was a bit surprised, because in my mind PP was something I'd used as a teenager, not an adult. SIL pointed out that she didn't have health insurance and that, because of that PP was the only health care she received, period. When she went in for her bcp, they also asked her about her general health, gave her physicals, and provided prescriptions she needed for other issues. Suddenly I realized that those who attack PP, who picket it, who make it difficult for women to go there, are not only hindering women receiving gynecological care; they're also standing in the way of many, many women for whom PP is the only affordable, respectful, thorough health care they get. At all.
And who knows. At 17, unwilling to tell my mother I needed bcp, if PP hadn't been there--or if I'd had to cross a picket line to get to it--I might not have gotten bcp. I might not have had a good experience, and I might not have succeeded, my entire adult life, in preventing unwanted pregnancy until I was ready for pseudonymous kid. My sister-in-law, and many other women who lack health insurance (or whose health insurance doesn't cover birth control), would be unable to see doctors, would be unable to get birth control. This, of course, is the real point: abortion is only a small (but necessary) part of what women's health clinics provide. The attack on women's health clinics is, effectively, an attack on women's health; when and if anti-abortion crusaders shut down clinics, all they do is promote more, not fewer, unwanted pregnancies--by removing access to birth control, by removing respectful, affordable health care, by removing the education and support women need to learn how to take care of themselves, including planning pregnancies when and if they want them.
So anyway. That's my story about why women's health clinics like PP and Women's Health Care Services in Wichita matter so much.
I've used Planned Parenthood once, when I was 17. Despite the fact that my mom was pretty open about birth control issues, pretty accepting, I still didn't want to tell her that I was planning on sleeping with my boyfriend. So I went to PP rather than asking her to make an appointment for me with her ob/gyn. (Many years later I discovered this was a good thing; this is the ob/gyn who tried to shame my sister for having untreated chlamydia. Which she'd had for four years. Because she was raped at 14, and was too ashamed to tell anyone. For four years. But hey, that's a different story.)
In contrast to my mom's asshole ob/gyn, everyone at PP was lovely. This was, I guess, before the anti-abortion forces started picketing clinics, and we just walked in, no problem. My boyfriend went with me (I insisted) and they said how impressive, and rare that was. They signed me in. I asked how much. They said, "free, but if you can make a contribution, please do." I couldn't, so I didn't, but years afterwards--when I was older and had money of my own--I sent them a check. The doc asked if this was my first ever pelvic, I said yes. She told me everything she was doing before she did it, was very gentle, asked me if things were ok, did this hurt, talked me through the process. I felt treated with dignity and concern. She made quite a point of asking me more than once if I had questions, making sure that I understood my b.c. options, telling me what side effects I might expect and what to do if I had them, talked to me about STDs and condom use, asked if I'd had sex yet, commended me for coming in for birth control and bringing my boyfriend ("good for you! And good for him!"), and sent me on my way.
Later, when I got the first migraine, I knew what it was, called PP, stopped taking the pill, got a new prescription, everything very smooth and easy because I knew what was up. Need I point out that they provided better health care than my current doc does?
After that I went off to college and mostly used student health services, which were usually pretty good (I had an excellent nurse practicioner in graduate school, who disappointed me terribly because she couldn't be my care provider once I got pregnant--although the ob/gyn I found ended up being quite good). Perhaps because my first visit to PP was so good, I've always had a very high expectation of my health care providers, and I've always felt entitled to ask questions and take up their time if I don't understand something.
My other revelation about PP came many years later, in a casual conversation with my sister-in-law. She mentioned going to PP and I was a bit surprised, because in my mind PP was something I'd used as a teenager, not an adult. SIL pointed out that she didn't have health insurance and that, because of that PP was the only health care she received, period. When she went in for her bcp, they also asked her about her general health, gave her physicals, and provided prescriptions she needed for other issues. Suddenly I realized that those who attack PP, who picket it, who make it difficult for women to go there, are not only hindering women receiving gynecological care; they're also standing in the way of many, many women for whom PP is the only affordable, respectful, thorough health care they get. At all.
And who knows. At 17, unwilling to tell my mother I needed bcp, if PP hadn't been there--or if I'd had to cross a picket line to get to it--I might not have gotten bcp. I might not have had a good experience, and I might not have succeeded, my entire adult life, in preventing unwanted pregnancy until I was ready for pseudonymous kid. My sister-in-law, and many other women who lack health insurance (or whose health insurance doesn't cover birth control), would be unable to see doctors, would be unable to get birth control. This, of course, is the real point: abortion is only a small (but necessary) part of what women's health clinics provide. The attack on women's health clinics is, effectively, an attack on women's health; when and if anti-abortion crusaders shut down clinics, all they do is promote more, not fewer, unwanted pregnancies--by removing access to birth control, by removing respectful, affordable health care, by removing the education and support women need to learn how to take care of themselves, including planning pregnancies when and if they want them.
So anyway. That's my story about why women's health clinics like PP and Women's Health Care Services in Wichita matter so much.
Posted at 3:04 PM
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