September is Sexual Health Month, and in the United States, we have an administration that doesn’t respect a woman’s right to sexual and reproductive health. We also have a Supreme Court Justice nominee that doesn’t respect, nor understand, sexual and reproductive health (SRH). With so many countries making advances to women’s reproductive rights, the United States seems to stand alone in their efforts to regress on women’s health and rights.
The Trump administration has been using anti-women and anti-science propaganda to push their conservative ideologies forward, and who is this at the expense of? WOMEN. You do not have to be a woman to see how wrong this is.
Think of your mother, sister, daughter, friend, or any and every woman. Women should be able to walk into their doctor’s office and feel confident that they are being provided accurate information about their health. It should be their legal right. How could we even debate anything else? It should be illegal for a doctor to knowingly give a girl or woman the wrong information about their health just to confuse them. I remember when my mom first took me to the doctor to get birth control because my menstrual cramps were so bad that I would have to miss school. The doctor suggested I get prescribed painkillers every month instead, since she believed 17 was too young to be on birth control. My mom immediately stepped in and said that she would rather her 17-year-old daughter be on birth control than risk the chance of her daughter getting addicted to painkillers from taking them every month. Besides, 17-year-olds are definitely old enough to use contraception.
This happened before Trump got elected – but this is the type of care that the administration encourages. Whether it means funding abstinence-only programs (which go against science) over evidence-based, comprehensive sex education, or allowing an ideology that promotes misinformation of sexual and reproductive health services, the Trump administration has made it their mission to control women’s bodies.
When my mom was my age, she wasn’t worried about her right to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) being taken away. She thought that fight was already won. Why is it that I have to worry almost 30 years later? We need to build on progress, not demolish it. A woman’s right to sexual and reproductive health matters, and it’s time to prove it. The Senate needs to stand up for women and vote no on Kavanaugh – a person who has shown that he does not value women’s SRH and rights.