I’m just gonna go ahead and show you some flowers first, before I make half of you mad.
I’m going to go ahead and apologize, because while this entire post will be fraught with references to dicks…none of them will be remotely funny. Maybe if you’re new or just really into a good dick story, read about the time I broke up with someone over Jon Hamm’s penis. It doesn’t disappoint. (Okay, huge lie, it’s an enormously disappointing story on every level, especially for Jon Hamm.)
Anyhooooo…
Today, I want to take a moment to thank Planned Parenthood. I want to thank them for the education that I was able to pursue, my health which is relatively stellar, and mostly, for giving me control over my future. It is because of Planned Parenthood, that I have never needed to have an abortion, and for the fact that I’ve never HAD to make a choice.
Thank you for giving nonjudgmental, factual, realistic education to anyone who wanted it, along with affordable birth control, to keep them safe and healthy. Your work has enabled so many millions of people to live full and happy lives, so that, when they are ready, they can have healthy families.
Thank you, Planned Parenthood, for getting me an immediate appointment when I was 20 and thought I was dying, only to find out that I was the victim of too-tight underwear. Thank you again for when I was 33, and convinced I definitely dying this time, because of a chronically unfaithful partner, and for literally holding my hand until the rapid test showed I was safe.
I’m hardly alone…I know my hands aren’t the only ones you held. Thank you for holding the hands of people that I love, who didn’t get good results, and for handling it with such love, compassion, and care, that they didn’t jump in front of buses or swallow every pill they owned. You steered them to medical help, counseling, and showed them that their lives, while altered, were not even close to over.
Thank you for providing prenatal care to women who have no insurance, but who wanted to do the right thing, and for giving easy affordable cancer screenings for women, who otherwise could never afford it, and maybe wouldn’t have gotten help until it was too late.
And yes, thank you for also providing safe and LEGAL abortion services for those that need it. Thank you for being a beacon of light, so my college roommate didn’t have her sexual assault compounded, by having her body taken over, again, by the son of a bitch who raped her. Thank you for hiring AMAZING staff, who treated her with such gentleness and compassion, that the only emotion she ever had following her procedure, was a deep and profound sense of relief. Thank you for ending the days my mother lived through, as a nurse in New York, in the 1960’s, where she saw many, many women lose their lives to blood loss and infection, because they were left to butchers when they were too poor to fly overseas, where it was safe.
Thank you for fighting for all of us, even those who fight against you, because you believe we should have options in our lives. Thank you for fighting the good fight, and getting so many millions of women through not only the best most amazing parts of their lives, but also the hardest and scariest. Thank you for taking care of our brothers, boyfriends, husbands, sons, and friends, who also count on you for their futures.
Just thank you…
Fisticuffs and Shenanigans 