So I found out the attorney general in my state has joined this bullshit lawsuit against the Obama administration over requiring insurance to cover birth control. I am, of course, fucking livid. And disgusted on whole new levels, given this attorney general is a fucking WOMAN. So I made angry phone calls and left angry messages, and just sent this angry email:
Ms. Bondi, let me tell you a story. It's not a fun one. When I was 18 years old, I was diagnosed with an unpleasant little condition called PCOS - polycystic ovarian syndrome. It's a nasty bugger that means my ovaries don't release eggs properly and that they instead crystalize into cysts, which then cause all sorts of ugly medical problems. Weight gain. An increased chance of diabetes and ovarian cancer. Some women are unlucky enough to have male pattern baldness and problems with hirsuitism - a fate I've mostly been able to avoid - mostly. The worst part is you don't have periods normally. You can go months or even years without menstruating properly... and sometimes when you bleed, it'll be because your uterus has so filled with excess lining and blood that it literally leaks out.
Even worse for some women is the incredible hardships they face should they want to get pregnant. It's an uphill battle, and some may find that their ovaries are too scarred from cysts that they will never bear children. If you are lucky enough to get pregnant, you face further complications during pregnancy that most women would not have to deal with. My mother had PCOS; she had three miscarriages.
And the cysts themselves? They can grow large and burst, causing the sort of pain that makes the worst menstrual cramps feel like nothing. Some of those cysts get so large that they cause irreparable damage - such as the one that I was hospitalized for at age 20. A cyst the size of a grapefruit had formed on one of my ovaries and was leaking fluid. The pain this caused was bad enough to land me in the ER - if I had been unlucky enough to have this cyst burst, it would have possibly killed me. It certainly would have put me in a galaxy of pain like none I had ever experienced before. The surgery left me with a 6 inch scar across my abdomen, took one ovary and fallopian tube, and required over 2 months to heal.
So why do I tell you this medical history? Because you, madam, have decided to sue the federal government over their new law requiring health insurance companies to provide birth control.
PCOS's symptoms are largely controlled by taking hormonal birth control pills. These pills alleviate not only the obvious physical symptoms, but actually allow women to menstruate and to do so without the excruciating pain I experienced in the few periods I had before I was put on birth control. Further than that, they make it possible for women like me - which make up AT LEAST an estimated 5-10% of the population, with more evidence arriving every day to show that there may be even higher numbers of women with PCOS - to some day HAVE CHILDREN, should we so desire.
Birth control pills have quite literally made it possible for women with PCOS to have children, and to not be sterilized by our disease.
And you want to deny this basic human right to us. You want to tell us that instead, if we aren't "lucky" enough to have the ability to pay out of pocket for birth control, that we must continue to suffer the symptoms of PCOS. Not only the painful ones, but the physically embarassing ones and the likely impossibility of becoming pregnant and carrying a child to term.
I had a friend with PCOS who had to shave her face like a man every day. She was not so "lucky" as me - she could literally grow a beard. She had a bald spot at age 21. When she finally got a job that covered birth control medication and she began taking it, her symptoms were noticeably reduced. And please note that I put the word lucky in quotes for a reason: she still has both her ovaries, whereas I don't.
I don't have any ovaries.
You see, there was an extended period of several years where I couldn't afford birth control. I was poor enough that the decision came down to paying for prescriptions or keeping the electricity turned on, and I sacrificed my prescriptions. As a result of those years, the remaining ovary I had after my surgery continued to develop cysts, which frequently burst and caused me great pain. My periods would not show up for eight months, then last for six weeks when they did arrive - complete with horrible cramping and bleeding so bad that I could bleed through a tampon AND pad within three hours.
By the time I had a job where I again could afford to pay for my birth control prescription, the damage had been done - my remaining ovary was so badly scarred up when it was removed that the doctor took pictures of it and commented on it to me after the surgery.
This was all something that could've been prevented if I'd been able to pay for birth control pills in those years I was forced to do without.
So you see, Ms. Bondi, I find you an absolute disgrace and shame. I am beyond disgusted with your decision to join this frivolous lawsuit - a lawsuit Florida can ill afford to waste money on when we are already facing a budget deficit. I am disgusted on the behalf of all women who have PCOS and suffer with it every day of our lives. For us, using birth control is not a matter of contraception. It is a purely medical matter. In some cases, it can be a literal matter of life or death.
That you, as a woman, would be so absolutely lacking in empathy and understanding of the importance that ALL women should have access to this important medication is shameful.
If you continue to persist in this lawsuit, then I will have no choice but to support anyone who runs for office against you and does not think that women should be denied medication for religious reasons. I will gladly give money to any organization that pledges to fight this lawsuit and your actions.
I am considering printing it out and sending it, too, but I'm not sure if I should waste a stamp on this unctuous cunt of a bitch. I focus on the medical issues in this letter because, well, for one they get ignored in the Republican freaking-the-shit-out over the idea that women might be able to HAVE SEX without risking procreation. Cause god forbid we let women have sex for enjoyment and not for MAKIN' BAYBEEEZ. But quite honestly, fuck you if you don't think that birth control should be covered by ALL health insurance, full stop. I'd go as far as to say fuck you if you don't think birth control should be fucking FREE to all women, as a matter of fact, but seeing as how there are people in this country who think it's okay for people to die so's they don't have to pay a little extra for universal health care, I know that's a goddamn pipe dream.
And there's a few things that aren't entirely true in the letter, full disclosure. My mom was never diagnosed with PCOS, for example. However, given the multiple miscarriages, her own ovary removal at a young age, lifelong reproductive issues, and eventual hysterectomy in her early 40s, it's almost a certainty she had it. The thing is in the 70's and 80's nobody knew what it was yet. I also left out that getting the ovary (and everything else) out that didn't explode when I was 20 was a voluntary choice -- but it was in part driven by the fact that I was goddamn shit-tired of having cysts burst.
And I quite honestly spent so much time on the difficulties women with PCOS have in getting pregnant because I know that plays on the sympathies of most people. Although I never wanted kids, I know that the vast majority of people DO, and the thought of a woman having a hysterectomy and becoming sterilized at age 26 will fill most people with a whole boatload of shitty negative emotions. After all, a lot of women who find out they can't have kids get pretty fucking emotionally destroyed over it.
Seriously, though, fuck this shit. If you support this absolute bullshit about not covering birth control under health insurance, I have no qualms about labelling you as the woman-hater you are.
Ms. Bondi, let me tell you a story. It's not a fun one. When I was 18 years old, I was diagnosed with an unpleasant little condition called PCOS - polycystic ovarian syndrome. It's a nasty bugger that means my ovaries don't release eggs properly and that they instead crystalize into cysts, which then cause all sorts of ugly medical problems. Weight gain. An increased chance of diabetes and ovarian cancer. Some women are unlucky enough to have male pattern baldness and problems with hirsuitism - a fate I've mostly been able to avoid - mostly. The worst part is you don't have periods normally. You can go months or even years without menstruating properly... and sometimes when you bleed, it'll be because your uterus has so filled with excess lining and blood that it literally leaks out.
Even worse for some women is the incredible hardships they face should they want to get pregnant. It's an uphill battle, and some may find that their ovaries are too scarred from cysts that they will never bear children. If you are lucky enough to get pregnant, you face further complications during pregnancy that most women would not have to deal with. My mother had PCOS; she had three miscarriages.
And the cysts themselves? They can grow large and burst, causing the sort of pain that makes the worst menstrual cramps feel like nothing. Some of those cysts get so large that they cause irreparable damage - such as the one that I was hospitalized for at age 20. A cyst the size of a grapefruit had formed on one of my ovaries and was leaking fluid. The pain this caused was bad enough to land me in the ER - if I had been unlucky enough to have this cyst burst, it would have possibly killed me. It certainly would have put me in a galaxy of pain like none I had ever experienced before. The surgery left me with a 6 inch scar across my abdomen, took one ovary and fallopian tube, and required over 2 months to heal.
So why do I tell you this medical history? Because you, madam, have decided to sue the federal government over their new law requiring health insurance companies to provide birth control.
PCOS's symptoms are largely controlled by taking hormonal birth control pills. These pills alleviate not only the obvious physical symptoms, but actually allow women to menstruate and to do so without the excruciating pain I experienced in the few periods I had before I was put on birth control. Further than that, they make it possible for women like me - which make up AT LEAST an estimated 5-10% of the population, with more evidence arriving every day to show that there may be even higher numbers of women with PCOS - to some day HAVE CHILDREN, should we so desire.
Birth control pills have quite literally made it possible for women with PCOS to have children, and to not be sterilized by our disease.
And you want to deny this basic human right to us. You want to tell us that instead, if we aren't "lucky" enough to have the ability to pay out of pocket for birth control, that we must continue to suffer the symptoms of PCOS. Not only the painful ones, but the physically embarassing ones and the likely impossibility of becoming pregnant and carrying a child to term.
I had a friend with PCOS who had to shave her face like a man every day. She was not so "lucky" as me - she could literally grow a beard. She had a bald spot at age 21. When she finally got a job that covered birth control medication and she began taking it, her symptoms were noticeably reduced. And please note that I put the word lucky in quotes for a reason: she still has both her ovaries, whereas I don't.
I don't have any ovaries.
You see, there was an extended period of several years where I couldn't afford birth control. I was poor enough that the decision came down to paying for prescriptions or keeping the electricity turned on, and I sacrificed my prescriptions. As a result of those years, the remaining ovary I had after my surgery continued to develop cysts, which frequently burst and caused me great pain. My periods would not show up for eight months, then last for six weeks when they did arrive - complete with horrible cramping and bleeding so bad that I could bleed through a tampon AND pad within three hours.
By the time I had a job where I again could afford to pay for my birth control prescription, the damage had been done - my remaining ovary was so badly scarred up when it was removed that the doctor took pictures of it and commented on it to me after the surgery.
This was all something that could've been prevented if I'd been able to pay for birth control pills in those years I was forced to do without.
So you see, Ms. Bondi, I find you an absolute disgrace and shame. I am beyond disgusted with your decision to join this frivolous lawsuit - a lawsuit Florida can ill afford to waste money on when we are already facing a budget deficit. I am disgusted on the behalf of all women who have PCOS and suffer with it every day of our lives. For us, using birth control is not a matter of contraception. It is a purely medical matter. In some cases, it can be a literal matter of life or death.
That you, as a woman, would be so absolutely lacking in empathy and understanding of the importance that ALL women should have access to this important medication is shameful.
If you continue to persist in this lawsuit, then I will have no choice but to support anyone who runs for office against you and does not think that women should be denied medication for religious reasons. I will gladly give money to any organization that pledges to fight this lawsuit and your actions.
I am considering printing it out and sending it, too, but I'm not sure if I should waste a stamp on this unctuous cunt of a bitch. I focus on the medical issues in this letter because, well, for one they get ignored in the Republican freaking-the-shit-out over the idea that women might be able to HAVE SEX without risking procreation. Cause god forbid we let women have sex for enjoyment and not for MAKIN' BAYBEEEZ. But quite honestly, fuck you if you don't think that birth control should be covered by ALL health insurance, full stop. I'd go as far as to say fuck you if you don't think birth control should be fucking FREE to all women, as a matter of fact, but seeing as how there are people in this country who think it's okay for people to die so's they don't have to pay a little extra for universal health care, I know that's a goddamn pipe dream.
And there's a few things that aren't entirely true in the letter, full disclosure. My mom was never diagnosed with PCOS, for example. However, given the multiple miscarriages, her own ovary removal at a young age, lifelong reproductive issues, and eventual hysterectomy in her early 40s, it's almost a certainty she had it. The thing is in the 70's and 80's nobody knew what it was yet. I also left out that getting the ovary (and everything else) out that didn't explode when I was 20 was a voluntary choice -- but it was in part driven by the fact that I was goddamn shit-tired of having cysts burst.
And I quite honestly spent so much time on the difficulties women with PCOS have in getting pregnant because I know that plays on the sympathies of most people. Although I never wanted kids, I know that the vast majority of people DO, and the thought of a woman having a hysterectomy and becoming sterilized at age 26 will fill most people with a whole boatload of shitty negative emotions. After all, a lot of women who find out they can't have kids get pretty fucking emotionally destroyed over it.
Seriously, though, fuck this shit. If you support this absolute bullshit about not covering birth control under health insurance, I have no qualms about labelling you as the woman-hater you are.