Share Your Story: What does birth control without co-pays mean for you?

What does birth control without co-pay mean for me? It means that, hopefully, my daughter won’t be turned into a baby-making machine.  She struggles with money, and only works 2 days a week. She has one child already. Birth control without co-pay means I won’t have to see young girls in our society ending up getting pregnant over and over again, till they end up with 10-12 children, with no means to support them, and not enough time for them. Any hope of that mother ever getting an education and/or good job would cease, because there’s no time for anything when one has to raise 10-12 children.  There’s never enough money either. THAT’s how it used to be when women had zero control of their reproductive situation.   I keep wondering why those “devout” Catholic women only have one or two kids these days.  That church is so anti-contraceptives that each one of those women should have at least a dozen kids these days.  What happened there?  Could it be that even those “devout” anti-contraceptive supporters are actually using contraceptives themselves? Hypocrisy prevails.  In my mid-twenties, I had a child and always wanted another.  But I was discovering out that my spouse was abusive.  Had I not been able to control my reproductive situation, I may have had ended up pregnant again, and then been perhaps permanently dependent on someone who was abusive, I would have been more dependent on someone I was growing to despise.  It was hard enough being married to the abusive one with me having one child, with even more kids I would have felt even more trapped. I would have felt trapped for the rest of my life. That really happened to MANY women in the 50s and 60s.  There were MANY dysfunctional families too.   In the 70s, I was so very thankful that I was able to go to Planned Parenthood. They were so kind, understanding, and non-judgmental. When I had no money, they helped me.  I feel like women everywhere are still faced with NEEDING to have control over their reproductive systems, that need has not changed from when I was younger till now, when my daughter needs the same thing.  I just cannot believe that some asinine males in this world want to disrupt, if not totally destroy, the well-being of all women, which ultimately destroys the well-being of our society in general.  Why go back to the days when women were treated like mere livestock?  THAT is where we are heading if we allow the Republicans/Teabaggers to take away family planning.   It SEEMS like the females of that party would not like what their male masters have in store for them. Go figure. Anyway, affordable ways for women to plan their families is one key to escaping a life of poverty and misery. So for me birth control without co-pay means we, as a nation, can take one step closer to being truly independent and free from poverty. Through nonviolent conflict resolution, May Peace prevail on Earth

When I was a teenager and got my period for the first time it was extremely heavy and irregular. I had it for 5 months straight and I began losing too much blood and got very sick. I had no energy and lost a lot of weight. Taking birth control for a short 4 months stopped my terrible period in its tracks and it became very light and only stayed for a maximum of 7 days a month after that. It saved my life. The power birth control has on the cycle of a womens body is invaluable. My sister is at risk of ovarian cysts and has already fallen victim of them. Taking birth control helped to dissolve the one she had and to prevent any further cysts from developing. My close friend is at risk of infertility due to an imbalance in hormones but taking birth control can easily help her and she is currently taking it to prevent becoming sterile. Birth control can eliminate debilitating cramps, regulate terrible periods and frankly all together save many lives. It is important to see birth control as a medicine through which many women regain their health and not just a contraceptive.  

I'm not in a situation where I need contraception for purposes of preventing pregnancy, but I get hideous cramps. I can't afford to be nonfunctional for a couple of days every month, so my doctor wants to try me on birth control pills as a way to try and make them less overwhelming. I'm a student and a single parent and money is tight; being able to work on this with her without copays to worry about takes a big load off my shoulders. 

While I am not in a position now to use birth control, all I can say is if it weren't for Planned Parenthood when I was young, god knows what would have happened to my life. I could not afford birth control, PERIOD. But Planned Parenthood had a sliding scale based on income and given that I made minimum wage back then, my co-pay was never more than $5 and most months it was free. Because of PP I never had to make the decision between eating or getting birth control. THANK YOU PP! I can only guess what the co-pay will do for women now. It's about damn time!