Lupus Never Looked So Good

Elizabeth Banks: I Thank Birth Control Pills for My Son

Just over a year ago, my son Felix was born via gestational surrogacy. He came out of me nine months early and because of my broken belly, his babycake was baked in a wonderful angel’s oven and now — I can’t believe it — he’s a year old and walking. He has expanded my capacity for joy a thousand-fold.

His life would have been much harder to come by if not for the birth control pill. How’s that, you ask? Well, it’s a simple fact: The pill is used for many situations that have nothing to do with the prevention of pregnancy. The pill was prescribed to me when hormonally induced migraines kept me locked up in dark rooms for days at a time. It was prescribed to me to regulate insanely painful cramps every month — cramps so painful that I often vomited.

And here’s a little secret I am happy to blow the lid off of: The pill is often prescribed during the IVF (in vitro fertilization) process to help MAKE BABIES! That’s right, women dealing with infertility are often put on the pill to help regulate a cycle so that they might have a more successful IVF. The pill is used to manage ovarian cysts, endometriosis and other conditions too. Not to mention, it helps couples plan for wanted children.

Obviously, I’m not a doctor. I’m just a woman grateful for my necessary and very helpful medication. And I’m sure glad I don’t have to discuss any of these conditions, including infertility, with my employer.

A girlfriend and I recently wondered what would be more mortifying: having to tell her male employer she needed birth control to mitigate a heavy flow or just bleeding all over herself in the office?

So with that image in mind, I encourage all women — and the men in their lives — to protect access to birth control, and encourage our politicians to take women’s health issues out of the political process.

For more information, please visit the most comprehensive and willing advocates for women’s health in America: www.plannedparenthood.org.

This is a lovely story, and I’m glad Elizabeth felt she could share it…but can we as women PLEASE stop this?  Stop caving and folding under the pressure of patriarchal conservative nonsense and start REALLY standing up for ourselves?

YES.  The pill is used for more than just pregnancy prevention.  But pregnancy prevention is not a bad thing.  So many of us have immediately stopped fighting for women’s rights and have started to humiliatingly beg for forgiveness by pretending that we take the Pill for every other reason besides sex.

No, please, GOP, don’t take my right to have birth control away, I swear I don’t use it for anything naughty.  I’m just using it so that I can regulate my cysts or calm PMDD.  By making this your argument, you invalidate ALL women who use the pill for it’s primary (and completely moral and valid function) of being a birth control option.  So fucking STOP it.  

Every time I hear a woman stand up and say something like this in favor of BC rights, I think…you are intentionally trying to please the same people who call us sluts for having sex, who think it’s our fault for getting raped, who openly think that we are immoral for simply having sex drives.  You are apologizing to them.  And we need to stop, and say that Birth Control should be covered, accessible and affordable for any of those who are SMART enough to use it.  

Sorry.  This whole “I use birth control for a totally innocent reason that has nothing to do with sex..so I should be allowed!” argument is really fucking pissing me off. 

(Source: judygrimes)