Morning After
There’s got to be a morning after. The morning after pill should be available over the counter, right by the Listermint strips, the Mentos, the toenail clippers, the tabloids, all kinds of impulse buys.
I’ve heard that the fact that it may promote promiscuity is the main objection to its availability. I would keep a stash of them under my bathroom sink, just in case and I am married. My chances of promiscuity are nil. You cannot really be promiscuous if you are only with one person unless you suffer from schizophrenia.
How is it possible that the morning after pill would promote promiscuity anyway? It would promote ease in dealing with an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. Unplanned pregnancy does not equal promiscuity. All we are doing by making the morning after pill readily available over the counter is providing women with an alternative to having children they did not mean to have, preventing abortions, giving more choice to women in need of more choices.
So then, are we to assume that the prevailing attitude about women’s sexuality is that if left unchecked, without the consequence of the possibility of pregnancy, women will fuck willy nilly until everyone is left waiting for their dinners and their rides home from school and their au pairs because a vagina without restraint is just as good as a vagina gone wild at Spring Break? Have we no faith in prudence, common sense, reserve, education, social mores, parenting, when women are left to themselves?
This is a political debate. Who argues about choice for women and healthcare? If it isn’t politicians and doctors being lobbied by political groups, then who? If the argument against the morning after pill is that it poses a danger to underage girls, then why does this have to exclude all other women? Even so, isn’t having to have an abortion more of a danger to underage girls?
Look, I have had an abortion. If I were to use the most polite terms to describe my experience I would say, “It wasn’t a fucking tea party.” It is painful and hideous. Everyone leaves in a bad mood, which turns worse. If it could have been prevented by going to the drugstore and picking up a box of pills, then it wouldn’t have ruined my sex life for several months afterwards, as I tried to heal the wounds that the surgery had left behind. I would have been able to return to work sooner. I would have been able to feel like I wasn’t being punished somehow for the choices that I made for my own health and sanity.
We are all women, but we are not all mothers. No matter how close it is to Mother’s Day, and no matter how much love and respect I have for mothers in general. There are numerous women who are not cut out for that particular occupation. I, for one, am far too overqualified while still yet grossly unfit. I would be an unremarkable and selfish parent. In fact, I would go as far to say that I would be a ghastly mother.
If there is a safe way to avoid the horrendous methods that we use today to terminate pregnancy, give it over. Hand it over . Do it now. Do it nicely. Before it gets ugly. It is already too ugly to begin with.