The Condom Broke

Bush is turning the United States into a parody of itself. Here’s some Friday Night fun. I found this thru Susie.

Friday night
the condom broke. But I didn’t panic, I thought to myself, with a huge
sigh of relief, “Wow, thank goodness it’s over the counter now!” and I
fell asleep (since there are absolutely NO 24 hour pharmacies within
100 miles of me). Saturday morning I awoke and phoned the pharmacy. I
asked them about EC and was told that they won’t be stocking it until
January 1st, until then it was still by prescription only.

Soooo,
I phoned my doctors office which informed me that the office was closed
and that I had to call the local hospital and have her paged in order
to reach her on the weekend. So I called her and had them page her. A
little while later she called back and I answered the phone
immediately. She sounded tired and really grumpy; I apologized for
having to page her for a thing like this and then asked her if I could
get a prescription for EC. She explained that I needed to go to the
Emergency Room to get it.

My heart fell, the ER has a 100$
co-pay attached to it. “Well,” I thought to myself, “that’s still
better than the price of a kid” so I called the Emergency Room to
verify the information and to ask what their procedures were. When I
called the hospital they transferred me to the ER. I asked the nurse
what the procedure was for EC and what would be the best time to come
down there (I didn’t want to wind up behind 3 critical people and end
up waiting for 12 hours). The nurse responded in a small, questioning
voice, “EC?” and so I explained. “Yes, Emergency Contraception. Plan B.
You know, right?”

“Oh” she replies. “Hold on just a sec” and she puts me on hold.

A few moments later another nurse answers the phone. “Can I help you” he says.

“Yes,” I reply “My name is BB and I was told that I need to come here to get a scrip for Plan B.”

“Oh,” he says, “Can you hang on a second?”

“Sure” I reply, becoming decidedly nervous.

He
puts me on hold and I sit on the edge of the bed frowning and fiddling
with a pen. I wait on hold for 15 minutes before he finally comes back
on.

“Have you talked to your doctor?” he asks.

“Yes, I talked to her this morning and she told me to go to the ER” I reply.

“Oh, so she won’t prescribe it for you?” he asks.

This
possibility hadn’t occurred to me. I just assumed that the ER was
standard procedure, “Hmmm” I say, “Well, I guess not. It’s not just
standard procedure to go to the ER?”

“No, not really. We don’t
really have this happen much.” He replies and then he says, “Well I
called the pharmacy to ask them because I had heard that it was going
over the counter. They told me that they won’t sell it til the first of
the year” I finished the sentence with him and explained that I had
called the pharmacy first thing this morning and was told the very same
thing.

“Well see,” he begins, his voice dropping a little,
“the problem is that you have to meet the doctor’s criteria before
he’ll dispense it to you.”

“Criteria?” I question.

“Well,”
the nurse sounds decidedly nervous as though what he really wanted to
do was hang up the phone completely, “Yes, his criteria. I
mean…ummm…well, are you ok? Is there any, ummm….trauma?” he asks me.

My face changes expression and I hurry to explain, “No, no” I said, “No. I haven’t been raped. This was consensual sex.”

“Oh…” he trails off.

I wait expectantly.

“Well, ummm….*clears throat*…So you haven’t been raped?” he asks again.

“No.
I have not been raped. The condom broke”. I state, becoming very
frustrated at this point and wondering what the hell is going on.

“Ok, well ummm….Are you married?” he mumbles the words so low I can barely hear them.

Suddenly I get this image of the poor nurse standing at the hospital reading from a cue card that was given to him by a doctor.

“No.”
I state plainly. “I am not married. I’ve been in a relationship for
several years and I have three children, I don’t want a fourth.” I
respond tersely.

“Oh, I see.” He says and then he hurries on,
“Well, see. *I* understand. I want you to know that I understand what
you’re saying. But see, the problem is that we have 4 doctors here
right now but only one of them ever writes EC prescriptions. But see,
the thing is that he’ll interview you and see if you meet his criteria.
Now, I called the pharmacy but I also talked to him and well….*clears
throat*….you can come down and try to get it. You know, if you meet his criteria he’ll give you a prescription, I mean, there’s really no harm in trying.” the nurse trails off, his voice falters as I realize what I’m being told.

He
continues, almost over eager at this point to distance himself from the
hospital, “See, I understand what you’re saying and all. I think it’s a
good thing that it’s going over the counter. I just thought I should
tell you what he told me. You know, you’ll just have to have an
interview with him and he’ll see if you meet his criteria. He’ll only
be on duty until 2pm today though and you should ask for him if you
decide to come down because he’s really your only chance.”

I
sigh and thank him before hanging up. I know exactly what he was
telling me. If I wasn’t raped and wasn’t married then too damn bad for
me.

I opened the phone book again and called the Urgent Care
in my county. Who knows, maybe they’ll do it for me. “No,” the nurse
said, “We don’t prescribe the abortion pill here”.

“No, wait I’m not asking for the abortion pill. I’m asking for EC!” I say, “It’s not the same thing.”

“Well, we use the words interchangeably here. Sorry, we don’t prescribe it”. She all but races to get off the phone with me.

I
start looking through the telephone book, dialing hospitals from
counties all around me. It seems that nobody will prescribe it to me.
None of the hospitals are willing to touch me, of the ones that will

prescribe it I am asked a series of questions to ‘screen’ me before I
come to the hospital. The results aren’t good. I’m not married and
wasn’t raped, so there’s very little they can do for me. But I can try the nurses tell me uncomfortably.

“But if I go through all this and I can’t get it will I still be charged the co-pay?”

“Well….ummmm…yeah. I’m afraid so Ma’am.” comes the reply.

I
called every hospital in every surrounding county and none of them
would prescribe me EC. Not even ONE. Of the 2 that said that they
sometimes will their ‘criteria’ was clearly not my situation.

Next
I tried Planned Parenthood. None of them were open. Not one. Every
Planned Parenthood in Ohio was either closed on Saturday or would be
closed before I could drive the 100 miles to them.

I was told
by every urgent care I called and every emergency room that I was shit
out of luck. I was asked my age. My marital status. How many children I
had. If I had been raped and when I became uncomfortable with the
questions I was told, “Well Ma’am, try to understand that you will be
interviewed and the doctor has ‘criteria’ that you need to meet before
he will prescribe it for you.”

When I asked about what
‘criteria’ there was that I had to meet, the reply was, “Well, he’s
kind of old fashioned”. I was told that I might be able to ‘talk him
into it’ anyway and that it can’t hurt to try (except for the fact that
each and every time I try it I’ll have to pay $100 co-pay).

I found that the more hospitals and clinics and doctors I called the more ashamed I became. Yep, you heard right. I was feeling ashamed
at being such an unworthy dirty whore. Well, at least in the eyes of
all these hospitals and doctors and clinics. I cried, then I sweated,
then I cried some more, then I called some more.