"Women are the vessels of life, men are but the servants."

-Joseph Campbell, from The Power of Myth

 I can tell from  a couple of comments on Rebecca Sarwate's post that her topic is not a popular one, especially with men, and I can only imagine mostly because they are completely outside of it.  They cannot nurture and give birth to life, therefore they don't have the ability to choose to complete that cycle or not, and they feel powerless and love to interject their insecurities about that fact in low-handed ways.

 I'm not sure why some women let men rule their reproductive rights, and why they in turn want to rule other women's bodies, because any woman (look at this world we live in - the United States of America - where we are still second-class citizens) really knows this debate has no business being in the politics of government.

I'm very tired of the debate too.  My dad, who I love very much, is not on the same side of the political debate as me.  But I think he took pause when I told him I go to Planned Parenthood for my healthcare.  I can count the number of sexual partners I've had in my life (I guess I'm being very honest here) on just one hand, and yet I have a virus that may cause cervical cancer.  I do not have a conventional job and therefore cannot get affordable healthcare, so I go to the one place I can at least get reproductive healthcare.  And for women, this is an obvious necessity.  If I were to become pregnant, I'd still need a place to go...I'm not sure why "Planned Parenthood" has become synonymous with "abortion", especially when the majority of women who go there do so for the same reasons I do, and would.

(I just found an article as I was proofreading this post.  Apparently a lot of women are thinking the same thing, I feel like she took the words right out of my mouth:  http://sundial.csun.edu/2011/04/cutting-planned-parenthood-hurts-healthcare-not-abortion/ Cutting federal funding for Planned Parenthood won't affect abortions because that's not where the money goes.  Sorry to break it to you, Conservatives, you're simply taking away women's healthcare...and I have suspicions as to why.)

 If it were not for this place, I wouldn't have learned recently that the virus is gone, however the abnormal cells remain.  If my local Planned Parenthood loses funding, my choices are:

Wait and see if I get ill enough to go to the doctor again and rack up a bill I'll probably never have the money to pay off (therefore contributing to escalating healthcare costs), and then they'll refuse me for surgery and/or treatment because I don't have insurance -

Or, find a regular OB/GYN at a hospital I won't be able to afford and have those bills stack up (again, contributing to healthcare costs) -

Or, if I'm lucky, I'll be fine.  Maybe I'll even hit it big, or just get a good wage for being an artist, and then I'll never have to worry about how to get healthcare again...but what about everyone else who's still in my previous position?

I live in the real world, a world where if I go back to school for a Master's and incur more debt, then spend more years of my life accumulating some kind of clientele, I might eventually be able to make a living.  In a recent debate my dad said "This is the grown-up world, honey, get used to it" and although at the time I took slight offense to that, thinking back on it I'm even more offended, because he obviously didn't hear me when I said, "I'm at high risk for cancer."  Apparently balancing the budget is more important than living; I didn't realize I was worth so little.

Rebecca probably doesn't know, but I am a fan of her writing, and her follow-up to the IUD post is even better because that is precisely what I might be going through soon.  I hope she is able to get the care she needs, because this whole thing is just not right.  I'm tired of living in a world where "that's just the way things are".  They don't have to be that way, people can change the world, we have before and we will again.  My great-grandmother desegregated the maternity ward in her hometown for chrissake, by the simple action of insisting she be let into the white ward that had plenty of beds, as she was not going to have her baby on the hallway floor of the overcrowded black ward. 

So yes, I know change is possible.