Last week, President Trump repealed the federal requirement for employers to require birth control in their health insurance coverage because of their religious beliefs or moral convictions. According to the New York Times 55 million women in the United States have access to birth control without copayment because of this mandate originally put in place by Obama.
I’ve been taking birth control since I was in high school, and I’m so grateful to not have to pay for it because the pills can cost anywhere between $15-$50 a month depending on what type of pills or method of birth control you take. I come to school on financial need, and don’t even have money to buy myself a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks, let alone pay that much money for birth control every month.
Here are some reasons why I and 55 million other women take birth control:
1. Acne
I personally, suffered from really bad hormonal acne, and it ruined my self-esteem when I was in high school. Luckily, taking birth control was the perfect solution for me. About 14% of women on women birth control use it for the treatment of acne. Acne cannot only have effects on your own self-esteem, but can affect your life socially, because in our society looks play a really big role in our lives whether we like it or not. Men also suffer from acne and know what having it is like, so if there is a solution for it for girls why take it away?
2. Menstrual cramps
Let me just say these are the worst. It feels like all your guts are being twisted, and they can hurt so much that it makes you angry, want to cry and some women cannot even carry on with their daily lives because of this pain. The pain can be so severe that pain relief pills such as Tylenol, Advil, or Midol do not work, so guess what is the solution? Birth control. Birth control helps alleviate this pain many women suffer from and actually this is the second most common reason women take birth control.
3. Regulation of our periods
This is also another major reason, why I personally take birth control. I suffered from irregular periods, and was getting them every six months, and when I did a blood test to check my female hormones, they were completely out of whack. Thanks to birth control my hormones are finally in balance. An imbalance of female hormones can lead to breast tenderness, mood swings, irregular periods, weight gain, and even thyroid dysfunction. Besides a girl deserves to have a heads up of when she might need a tampon or pad, so we do not have to deal with trying to find one from someone else.
4. And last but not least, preventing pregnancy
If a woman is going to get pregnant I think that responsibility should be put in the hands of a woman and not a man. Preventing pregnancy is obviously the number one reason why women take birth control, and it makes perfect sense because we have the right to our own reproductive systems. If a women is not ready to be parent, she’s not ready and birth control gives her a greater guarantee she will not become one, and are men seriously going to complain about that? Women are willing to take birth control and make the crazy adjustment to their bodies so that men do not have to deal with the worry of possibly becoming a parent, isn’t that nice?
Now if employers want so save money by not covering women’s birth control, how about employers stop spending money on cakes, t-shirts or an unnecessary amount of pens.
I think what makes me really angry is that Viagra is not even thought about or mentioned being removed from health insurance, but a pill for women’s basic healthcare is? With plans already to defund Planned Parenthood and rolling back Obama’s birth control mandate is this the beginning of a war on women’s healthcare?