Of Speculums, Morning-After Pills, and Lobbying the Legislature

Last night I was watching the news and they ran a piece about the state Majority Leader's proposal to require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims. It's appalling to me that this even has to come to legal requirements--it's just the right thing to do. Women who don't want it for their own personal reasons don't have to take it, but anyone who has just experienced such horrific violation shouldn't have further control over their bodies taken away. As for the people who call it abortion, I would suggest some remedial biology courses, focusing on female anatomy and the reproductive system.

Anyway, I didn't come here to discuss the pathetic state of affairs in which women have to fight tooth and nail to have some ownership of their bodies and reproduction. In the news coverage of this last night, they had a brief interview with a nurse from Planned Parenthood, herself a rape victim who testified about the intense further trauma she suffered waiting to find out if she had become pregnant as a result of her attack. It was the same nurse who did my annual exam last year, which was probably the worst exam I've ever had. She was snotty, she jammed the speculum in (which makes an already delightful experience a veritable picnic at the beach), and she demonstrated a total lack of interest in addressing any questions I had. I got a prescription for birth control pills, and she told me she'd also give me a dose of emergency contraception so I'd have it as back-up, but neglected to mention I'd be charged an extra $50 for this back-up I didn't really need or want. Annual exams are not the easiest thing to go through when you have a nice doctor or nurse, but when they're assholes, it can be quite upsetting. I did not care for her.

Now, it's kind of strange to me that someone who has been through something so awful could do such a crappy job in such a vulnerable setting, and it makes me sort of wonder why she's in this field of work. Maybe she would have been nicer if I had been raped, and maybe that's why she does this, to provide care for victims and the rest of us are just sort of a nuisance. It's hard to say. Regardless, I'm thankful that I'll have health insurance in another three weeks and won't have to put up with care providers who seem to hate their jobs.