Emergency Contraception: More than just the cost.

When you’re seventeen years old and you have your first serious boyfriend and a place at university for the following summer, the last thing you want to worry about is getting pregnant because the condom burst.

Lorne Sausage
Jul 21, 2017 · 5 min read

Such is life at seventeen when sex is new and exciting. You also haven’t really considered long term contraception, because you’re seventeen and you have your first serious boyfriend.

Such is life, as a woman. It’s always got to be your r e s p o n s i b i l i t y.

But then you remember, vaguely, some sex education you were taught the year before at school. At least some of it was useful.

“Don’t worry, we can get a morning after pill!” you say, looking on the bright side.

So off you trot to the nearest sexual health clinic. He waits outside and you’re called in. You’re in your school uniform because you’re an idiot, and went after school, like an idiot. You’ll tell your friends about it later on MSN, because somehow going for emergency contraception is a cool and grown up thing to do.

Your met by a tall, skinny and stern looking doctor in her late thirties to early forties, who definitely looks like the type that would complain to your manager in your part time Saturday job in McDonald’s. As soon as you sit down in your school uniform, you know she’s going to judge you.

She asks a series of questions that, reflectively, aren't really relevant to getting the morning after pill. She’ll ask you what his name is, how old he is, does he live in the area and does he have any other sexual partners. Because you’re seventeen, you tell her his name, you tell her that actually, you are two months older and you hope he doesn’t.

She’ll ask you about when your last period was and you’ll answer three weeks ago, but you can’t remember, you know it’s on it’s way because all you want to do is cry. And then you’ll think “Fuck, isn’t that a sign of pregnancy too?”

She’ll ask about your general health. Do you suffer from diabetes, she asks, boring through you like a drill, because you’re a bit fat and look like the type who will probably get diabetes at some point soon. She’ll ask about contraception and you’ll tell her what you used. Then she’ll hit you with “that’s not a very reliable method in the long term” but it completely contradicts everything you were told about at school because condoms are the only things that stop STIs and getting pregnant.

Finally, she prescribes you the medicine, half an hour after you walked in. You take it there and then and the doctor arranges an appointment to discuss ‘more long term options’.

He’ll be sitting on his phone when you get out of the office, that had quite intimidating looking stirrups and weird pictures of genital warts on the wall. You’ll be close to tears because you have been made to feel like you’re doing something wrong or dirty, despite the fact you’re over the age of consent.

On the way home, you look up how much it would cost you to go in and buy the morning after pill at home. “It would have been like, £12, £13 to buy from Asda.” You say to him. You calculate that it would take you four hours at your part time job in McDonald’s to earn enough to purchase a morning after pill.

Because it isn't an experience you ever want to through again, you go on the pill. You put on three stone and cry all the time, you’re covered in spots and your period is heavier than it was when you weren't on the pill. You come off the pill and your body, even eight years later, is never quite the same. You start growing hair on your chin, completely missing periods for three months on the trot. You’re seventeen. You go to the doctors, there are tests. They keep asking you if you’re pregnant but you say no, you literally do a pregnancy test once a week because you are so paranoid about getting pregnant. You need to go for a scan. They tell you you have poly cystic ovaries. That’s it. No treatment, no support. You’re left to look it up and get on your way. You read that, later on in life, you will find it very difficult to conceive naturally. You will have irregular periods (which actually sounds very good to you). You wonder if this is as a result of hormonal contraception, which you vouch never to use again, because your body is completely fucked and you’re barely eighteen. The doctor tells you to think about losing some weight and that may help.

It is only with hindsight that you begin to realise, because your boyfriend gets out of this pretty unscathed, that women’s bodies are ruined whatever they choose for them. If you choose not to have children at the age of seventeen by taking long term contraception for a year, you’re punished by growing hair on your chin and not having periods like a normal young woman. If you were to decide to have children at seventeen, society would look down on you as the scum of the earth, like some kind of Hester Prynne of the twenty first century. Then of course there are all the physical impacts having a baby has on your body — the grueling process of childbirth.

At age twenty five, eight years later, you spot on social media that Boots charge women three times more for emergency contraception than other pharmacies because, if it were cheaper, it would “incentivise use”. You wonder if any of the Boots Corporate PR team had to go through what you went through at the age of seventeen and what happened to your body after you opted for a ‘long term’ solution.

Instead you can opt to get free emergency contraception after an embarrassing ‘consultation’ with the pharmacist. Many women would rather save themselves the embarrassment and pay the money. But, some women simply aren't in that position. If you’re seventeen and you work in McDonald’s on a zero hour contract, and you don’t really want to tell your mum you need the morning after pill, then how can you afford emergency contraception? If free emergency contraception wasn't available, you shudder to think about the consequences.

As a society, we have become very adept at creating an illusion that women have any kind of choice over what happens to their bodies. If we are to seek emergency contraception, we are looked down upon. If we were to carry that through to an unwanted pregnancy at age seventeen, we would be looked down upon. Accessing emergency contraception is not just about the exorbitant cost if you simply want to buy it. It is about someone else deciding whether or not you can have it. Women need and deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies.

)

Lorne Sausage

Written by

Beleagured socialist dabbling in the Labour Party. Writing to challenge and provoke thought — hopefully.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade