This Is Why I Go To Planned Parenthood

I will be the first person to admit that I don’t follow political news all that closely. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s due in part to my unsuccessful bid for 9th Grade Senator at Northport High School—where several “Senators” were elected and I was not one of them—which immediately ceased any desire I had to become The First Woman President of the United States. Shortly after that embarrassment, I turned my attention towards Broadcast Journalism, and then later to Psychology, and then later to Music, but now we are really getting off subject with why I am writing this.

I know there is something going on right now where Republicans do not want Planned Parenthood to have funding because they think that Planned Parenthood gives women abortions all the time and they do not like abortions and they think Planned Parenthood is bad. Something like that, right? I bet there’s more to it than that, but that’s kind of all my ignorant mind understands. I’ve been going to Planned Parenthood as a patient, on and off, for about 20 years. Twenty years. That’s like… many visits. So I was thinking about all of this and even though it’s personal and I don’t usually share personal things like this, I wanted to write down what I was thinking. So here it is.

This is why I go to Planned Parenthood.

When I was a teenager, I would get so sick during my period that I would double up in pain and throw up multiple times in a day. Once a month—every fourth Wednesday—I was incapacitated. I had to plan activities around this day. One memory I have is being on the floor of a hallway outside the music room at my high school. I can’t remember if I was sitting on the floor or lying on the floor but I couldn’t get up and I think my mom had to come get me. It was terrible. It was my mom who suggested I start taking birth control pills. You see, birth control pills can, for some women, ease menstrual pain. Luckily for me, they did. Once I started taking them, my periods were much less painful and I didn’t throw up anymore and I could plan to do things on every Wednesday.

I went to Planned Parenthood for the pills because it was convenient and inexpensive. And that’s the reason I’ve gone ever since. There have been times when I had health insurance and visited a private doctor’s office simply out of convenience. But now that I no longer have insurance, I’ve been going back to Planned Parenthood. There was a short time in my 20s when I went off the pills, but my old symptoms came back and so I went back on them, and I’ve been on them ever since.

In order to receive pills at Planned Parenthood, you need to have a checkup first. You don’t just show up and ask for pills and go on your way. I get a checkup, too. This is good, because I can stay informed with how my body’s doing. Fortunately, it’s been doing just fine. The doctors are always nice and I feel as though I can ask them anything. These are all good things.

If Planned Parenthood didn’t exist, and there were no inexpensive women’s center options, I would most likely have to visit a private doctor’s office for the pills. The option of not taking birth control pills is impossible for me. I need to be on them in order to function normally. 

I continued visiting my last private doctor as a patient for maybe a year after I left my job and no longer had insurance. The visit cost without insurance was about $250. I was required to have two checkups a year. The pills themselves were about $35 a month and I had to pick them up at a pharmacy. This all added up to $920 a year. This did not include the cost of blood work, which was sometimes an additional few hundred dollars paid to an outside lab.

At Planned Parenthood, I am only required to have one checkup a year. The visit costs $125 and the pills, which you can pick up there, cost $20 a pack. This adds up to $365 a year. If you don’t feel like doing the math, don’t worry! I will. Let’s be conservative and not consider the extra cost of blood work. That’s a savings of $555 a year. I can buy a lot of groceries with $555. For example, I can buy 111 packages of Morningstar’s vegan buffalo wings and let me tell you, those are so good I squeal with delight when I see them in our supermarket’s freezer section. I probably would not buy 111 packages of those in a year, though—that was just an example.

The wait time at Planned Parenthood is about the same, if not shorter, than it was at my private doctor’s office. The doctors are just as good, just as nice, just as informative as any you might find at a private office. I am getting just as thorough a checkup. But I am saving at least $555 a year.

Here’s my stance on abortion, for the record: I’ve never had an abortion. I’ve never been pregnant. If I accidentally became pregnant at this point, I would probably go through with the pregnancy. But I’m in my 30s, I can support myself financially and I have a loving partner. Other woman are not as lucky as I am. I am not “pro” abortion. I can’t imagine anyone is “pro” abortion. That’s ridiculous. But if a woman feels the need to terminate a pregnancy inside her own body, for whatever reason, she should be able to.

So that’s why I go to Planned Parenthood. Thousands of other women all have their reasons for going, too, and their reasons are just as valid as mine. I am so thankful for Planned Parenthood. I hope I can continue to go there. Thank you for reading this. And if Morningstar wants to send me some coupons for their vegan buffalo wings, I would not be opposed to that.