"ella," lower case contraceptive pill, tip toes here

How far did I have to go to find this picture?  To the UK where ella, the new "You have five days to take care of your unprotected sex encounter" pill    is now available.  Approved this week by the FDA as available by prescription in the U.S., none of the stories about it showed what its packaging looked like.

Call me paranoid, but this seems just another symptom of how frightened officials here are about making this breakthrough contraceptive pill available.  If you don't see it, will it go away?  Please.

In a braver time for women who demanded control over our own bodies, there's  this heartbreaking pin in my jewelry box.  Every now and then it appears on my shirt.  Probably has no meaning for women with no memory of time before Roe v. Wade.   Each time I look at it, I feel the sadness of my own experience and exasperation about the unwon battle for reproductive justice.  A recent find of a hangar slipcover left from our son's wedding in New Orleans (the year before Katrina) moved me to think about writing a post, "Meditation on a Hangar." But celebrating ella is more upbeat and hopeful for the future of my grandchildren.

My English friend Gillian who lived downstairs in my 4th apartment in Manhattan in two-year span and the one I returned to after my own illegal 1957 abortion, would  entertain as she described the dime store wedding band almost slipping off her ring finger during her visit to the NYC Planned Parenthood (link not historical indicates the ongoing struggle).  Why were we laughing?  We had cried so many times.

That was New York City in the 1950s when the only way a woman could get a diaphragm was visit to a gynecologist for a prescription.  Expensive.  The cheaper alternative was PP.  Gillian developed a complicated story for the doctor there.  At the time, the gyn would ask the patient supplicant to see if she could use the device properly.  And so the ring began to slip.  Her story became more hilarious when she returned to PP for a new diaphragm the following year and saw the same woman doctor who remembered her.  Gillian was seriously challenged to update her marital story.

All this to say, I wish the organizations that support CHOICE would spend some of our support bucks on powerful imagery.  Then get a couple of those "girls" on the TV show "Mad Men" to appear in national advertising with one on their breasts. From what I can see here of the ella pill, that would be a fine design, surrounded by the message, "Five days to Choice."  Sure, you can think up a better one but will the orgs listen to old ladies?

UPDATE:  The one place that gets my money in this never-ending struggle is the Center for Reproductive Rights.  Check their site for all their important legal work that could use your support .

Comments

[Rain]

Religion dominates way too much in this country and it has no logical basis for much of what it does. I agree with your points

[m.e.]

Absolutely I agree with everything you said on this. Even the thought of religion and its role in the spread of teen pregnancy and HIV rates makes my blood boil. When will the people in this country wake the hell up?

[Hattie]

I got a prescription from a Catholic doctor in Germany for a diaphragm. He'd never fitted one, so I told him my size. He said, "Don't come back to me if you get pregnant!"

[jaykaym]

Having lived through those days of limited access to birth control and illegal abortions I find it astonishing that the young women today are rather disinterested in reproductive rights, and our potential loss of such rights in this country. My own daughter doesn't see it as a major issue, maybe because she really doesn't understand the world without access to birth control and abortion. She see's it as a matter of "choice" not of life or death.

[Darlene]

I am 85 years old a clearly remember the fear of pregnancy among my friends. One girl (age 17) was going steady and talking of marriage after school. Of course, the inevitable happened. Her boyfriend was so terrified that his parents would find out that she was pregnant that he dumped her. She wanted to keep him so desperately that she aborted with the proverbial coat hanger and nearly bled to death. If her sister hadn't found her she would have been the one dead and not the fetus. We must not go back to those days and must make our young women realize what a gift they were given in Roe v Wade.

[RachelW]

Naomi, thank you for writing this post. I want to let it simmer a little bit, but I really appreciate it and also the comments that have been shared.