Not having an abortion is 1% luck and 99% birth control. My numbers have shifted over the years, depending on the birth control I’ve used. In the 5 years that I’ve been sexually active, I’ve never questioned whether or not I would have access to contraception. We rarely think about the privilege to engage in safe sex. Of the nearly 61 million people who can get pregnant in the United States, 43 million of them are sexually active and don’t want to conceive. The level of access among these 43 million individuals is not uniform. As a cis white woman living above the poverty line, my access has been and always will be easier than others. Despite my parent’s religious tendencies, my mom took me to our OBGYN at age 18 to get a NuvaRing prescription. My parents paid for my birth control each month up until I got my IUD 2 years ago. While my IUD was free because of my parent’s good insurance, if it hadn’t been or if I had any complications that required follow-ups, I know they would have fronted the bill.
My experience is one of great privilege. With the Trump Administration and much of the Republican Party waging what feels like a full-fledged war on reproductive rights, many women have and will continue to find themselves struggling to have access to basic reproductive healthcare. This is despite the fact that the majority of Americans support access to abortion and other reproductive health services. More importantly, the majority of people who can get pregnant in the United States are using contraception.
Within the past two weeks, we’ve seen major legislation in states like Georgia, Ohio, and Alabama. The politicians who push for these bills claim these changes are needed to reflect the views of their constituents, a religious demographic. Yet if we look at the statistics, they don’t seem to be in line with the restrictive legislation. Only 2% of Catholic women use family planning as their form of birth control, and the majority of religious women are on some type of contraception. 68% of Catholics, 73% of Mainline Protestants and 74% of Evangelicals at risk for unintended pregnancy use a highly effective method of birth control (sterilization, oral contraception or the IUD).
If the majority of affected individuals, even the religious ones, are using what some Republicans are deeming an abortifacient, why is this agenda being pushed? To place the emphasis back on the reproductive value or woman, rather than our social and economic advancement. The ability to achieve higher levels of education and work participation is directly affected by the ability to family plan and space out pregnancy. Where access to reproductive health is restricted women will suffer–but they already know this. People of color will be disproportionately affected by these laws–but they know that too.
There will always be pockets of the population who will never have to worry about this access. Whether because of wealth, gender, race, or all of the above, they will likely always have access to safe sex. Why must we force women to go to great lengths to ensure their reproductive autonomy? Danger should have no place in reproductive healthcare, but when stripped of access, it may be inevitable.
–Rose Hill
“Contraceptive Use in the United States” Guttmacher Institute, July 2018, https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states.
Abma, Joyce C, and Kimberly Daniels, Ph.D. “Current Contraceptive Status Among Women Aged 15-49: United States, 2015-2017” NCHS Data Brief, no. 327, 2018
The Orgasm Girls 