Not for Sale

My vagina isn't being used for much right now, but it has plans for the future. Does it make you uncomfortable that I'm talking about this? Good. It makes me uncomfortable that my State Legislature decided to regulate it like a motorcycle. Even though I'm not worried about my sex life right now, this legislation does effect me right now.

According to Governor Pat McCory, NC has no money for anything that could directly improve the lives of regular people like me. What we do have money for is enforcing a motorcycle safety law and certain other things bundled with that legislation like new regulations for health centers performing abortions. As a result of the need to protect motorcyclists, many women will find that their health insurance plans won't cover pregnancy termination at a time when clinics may very well have to increase costs for these procedures in order to meet new regulations. Governor McCrory doesn't think this motorcycle safety legislation will restrict access to abortion services.

This new law also imposes fines on any doctor who has reason to believe a woman is terminating a pregnancy for reasons of sex selection. I wonder how the doctor is supposed to know? Hmm? I'm sure this provision in the motorcycle safety law has nothing whatsoever to do with a desire to shame women who seek safe abortion services by putting them through questioning to find out their reasons, right? This part of the legislation doesn't have anything to do with the lie that our country is under some kind of attack from radical extremists who want to turn us into China, right?

Because I'm a teenage girl, I know a whole lot about slut shaming. Every fashion choice, every conversation with a boy, even doing something as simple as eating a popsicle in public can earn you a slut label by the insecure and uninformed. Conservatives want slut shaming taught in schools under the label "abstinence education" to make sure that securing a man in wedlock is the first thing on every girl's mind when she thinks about sex. Girls, you better not give away the milk for free or no one will want to buy the cow. Above all ladies, you have to sell that cow. Bullshit.

I don't know exactly what my vagina has in store for it in the future, but I plan to take it to college with me. It would be nice if there were a women's health center nearby where I could afford to go get birth control pills because there are lots of good reasons for women to take those even if they aren't sexually active. It would also be nice if men didn't expect the decisions I make about my own body to be about them instead of about me. The rest I'll figure out later. For now, I just want to make it clear I'm not a motorcycle.