Feb
15th
Wed
15th
Practicing the Fine Art of Bitchitude Wednesday, February 15, 2012 Moral objections, forced confessions, and Senator Blunt’s amendment from hell… Let’s jump right on in, shall we? Longtime readers know that I had a hysterectomy in November of 2010. I had fibroids and endometriosis, both of which had been treated successfully for a decade. What folks might not know is that I had surgery to remove round 1 of my fibroids in 2001. After that surgery I had my first experience with a denial of coverage – my surgeon prescribed Lupron shots for 6 months post surgery so that I wouldn’t have a period while my uterus healed. Lupron is widely prescribed for infertility…my insurance plan did not cover infertility treatments…so each month I had the damn near indescribably drama of explaining to the insurance company that I had fibroids removed and my doctor prescribed Lupron for something other than trying to get pregnant. Trust that the woman working customer service at my then insurer knew more about my reproductive plans than my family…oh, and her boss too ‘cause we always had to call the manager in…um, and the pharmacy that we looped in for those multi-person conference calls…and finally the fantabulous staffer at my doctor’s office who was used to this bullshit and was often looped in when I was just too exhausted and stressed out my the process (two things one would think an insurance company would want a person just out of surgery to avoid…ugh). I went through that bullshit once a month every month for six months. Then I went on the pill…yes, that one…to make sure that my fibroids didn’t grow as rapidly as they had before and to try to keep my endometriosis at bay. And the pill did all of that for a decade, until 2010 when I had a hysterectomy. Pause…sip coffee…continue. When I heard that a certain Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) introduced an amendment to the Affordable Care Act that would allow any employer to refuse to cover whatever service they claim a moral objection to…well, I thought about my previous experience with Lupron and why I ended up on the pill. I thought about having to explain my bitness to my employer…about having to make some sort of case for meds that are legal and that I have no moral objection to. And I keep circling back to what the pill did for me…and what would have happened if I hadn’t been able to take it to control the growth of fibroid tumors and endometriosis. I would not have had choices or treatment options. I would have had a hysterectomy eleven years ago…at 28. Not because I wanted to or even needed to… …but because that would have been all I was left with. Which is exactly what happens to many women who face a lack of access to health care…a lack of options and choices that results from a lack of coverage. This so-called birth control battle is about a lot more than contraception…it is about not having to beg, negotiate, or endure a forced public confession to get access to services and medicine denied based on some employer’s morality glitch.
