Dear Mr. Trump,
I still hear the booming roar of your voice, as you shouted over the podium, “I will defund Planned Parenthood.” I know you cannot, and may never, understand the way that echoes in my mind, makes me cringe, and leaves me fearful for the well-being of millions of American women. For years, Planned Parenthood’s name has been soiled by abortion, abortions that are only a minute percent of the services provided. No one speaks of the women who have sought Planned Parenthood facilities as a safe house, a saving grace, a resource center for STD testing, contraception, and prenatal care. No one ever acknowledges the times Planned Parenthood has stood in the place of moms and dads who did not advise their children about the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases and did not equip them with the necessary knowledge about safe sex.
Though you have assured the American people time and time again that you oppose abortion services in any case other than rape, incest, and a risk to a mother’s life, and that you are irrefutably pro-life. I am not sure that I believe you, Mr. President. If you really did want to dedicate your presidency to reducing abortion rates, as you claim, you might reconsider your defunding of Planned Parenthood as it provides affordable contraceptives. If you really were a pro-life advocate, might you consider expanding sexual education in our school systems, or providing health care that accommodates women’s birth control needs, instead of leaving women unable to accommodate additional expenses for their regular birth control? Might it be wise to advance your cause against abortion by making pregnancy prevention as easy and affordable as possible? Yet, you plan to do none these things. Instead, you elect a chief strategist who deems women on birth control as slutty and unsexy, and turn your head to the needs of millions of American women.
President Trump, your disregard for birth control and its importance has offended me in a way that you will likely never know. I, like many other American women, take birth control for reasons far beyond sexual activity. My particular birth control prescription has saved me from my crippling anxiety, the anxiety I fought every day for nineteen years of my life. It corrected the hormonal imbalance that I could not fight on my own. Now, because of your actions and your decisions, I must face the stress of yet another financial burden for the medication that quite literally saved my life. I live amongst women whose birth control has alleviated chronic menstrual pain, migraines, and unbearably heavy periods, allowing them to get out of bed in the morning. I would hate to think that be satisfied with yourself knowing you are leaving women to suffer through the pain of pre-existing conditions and the burden of additional medical expenses.
I know if you were to read this, you would still stand strong in your opposition to abortion, and that is fine. I will not penalize you for your beliefs. But how dare you criticize a woman for having an abortion, and shame her for her decision, a decision you will never have to personally make? Take the time to consider the emotional turmoil that comes with every and any abortion. I have been there to witness firsthand the hours of crying, the fits of depression, and paralyzing grief that comes with every procedure. While I can agree that abortion should never be a woman’s first choice of contraception, governmental officials, and society in general, must stop presenting the decision to have an abortion as if it is an easy one. Though I have never had an abortion myself, and hope I never have to, I will not act as if the majority of these abortions are made frivolously or carelessly. I can say with rather great confidence that many of these women will spend years dealing with the emotions that arise as a result of this traumatic experience. Quite frankly, as a man, you will never know the trauma involved in the decision to have an abortion; and because of this, I am not sure that your male privileged opinion is the one that deserves the greatest consideration.
So Mr. President, with all due respect, though your administration may tear down the foundations of Planned Parenthood, we will not waver in our efforts to fight for the reproductive rights of women who need to be fought for. Although, this does not mean that your actions will not have detrimental consequences. I hope you are not ignorant enough to suppose that your defunding of Planned Parenthood will end abortion. Rather, such an act will only eliminate the practice of safe abortions. I can only hope and pray that you someday you will realize the vast amount of women you are endangering, physically, emotionally, and financially, simply because you cannot empathize with the mere concept of an abortion.
You may be my president, but you will not be the voice for my body and for the bodies of the women who surround me.
Sincerely yours, the Angry Feminist Who Stands with Planned Parenthood