Donald Trump may claim he has so much respect for women, but his actions and even his words on more than a few occasions have proven otherwise. So when he and his equally women-hating administration recently rolled back a mandate that required employers cough up the money for birth control copay for their employees, it wasn’t a big surprise. But now, if you can’t afford your birth control, you can bill Trump. Here’s why you should absolutely invoice the Misogynist-in-Chief.
- We’re continuing President Obama’s legacy in our own way. President Obama believed women should have access to affordable birth control. As a feminist and overall awesome person, he fought for women to have the rights that, as human beings, we absolutely deserve. While in office, President Obama required that all employers cover the copay for whatever birth control option their female employees chose to use. Naturally, this was fought tooth and nail by the Conservative Right, most famously religious fanatics Hobby Lobby, that protested the mandate and won, citing religious freedom.
- We can’t let Trump win. He may have won the election thanks to a screwed up electoral college, but he still didn’t win the popular vote and he sure as hell doesn’t get to win anything else. Trump’s decision will affect millions of women. Actually, let’s give that million a number: 62. That’s right; 62 million women will find themselves without birth control health coverage thanks to Trump and his administration’s ongoing war against women. We can’t let this happen without putting up a fight.
- We need to stand together. Organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Women’s Equality Center, which launched the Keep Birth Control Copay Free campaign, need our support more than ever. Even if we can’t financially support these groups that advocate for women’s autonomy and reproductive rights, we can still do our part in getting the word out.
- We need to inform ourselves. The Keep Birth Control Copay Free campaign wasn’t just established to bring attention to just how detrimental such a rollback would be but it also allows women to see how much their birth control will increase annually with the rollback. For example, did you know that an IUD costs over $1000 without coverage? Or that oral contraceptives like the pill cost roughly $600 a year? Well, now you do.
- When we invoice Trump, we use our voice. Okay, so technically we’re using our fingers when the system prompts us to invoice the Trump administration as well as the Department of Health and Human Services, but we’re still making our voices heard just as we did during the Women’s March. If we remain silent, then we become complicit in denying ourselves what is rightly ours: autonomy and reproductive freedom.
- We need to give Washington a big “screw you.” Even before Trump took office and began demolishing everything, and I mean everything Obama accomplished, old white guys were deciding what women can and can’t do with their body – aren’t you sick of it? I’m sick and angry AF that this is still an issue, that we’re still fighting for basic human rights, and that there’s a room full of old men who probably haven’t gotten laid since 1975 deciding that me and every other woman out there shouldn’t have access to affordable birth control or, as sometimes the case may be, an abortion. You take away birth control then get pissed at us for wanting abortion to stay safe and legal? Really?! We’re in 2017, for goodness’ sake!
- It’s about pushing back. As Amy Runyon-Harms, Keep Birth Control Copay Free campaign coordinator, explained in press release, “Together, we are pushing back against President Trump’s dangerous political decision to reduce access to birth control and today we are sending him the bill … and we figure, with Donald Trump’s frequent proclamations that he’s ‘very rich,’ he shouldn’t have a problem absorbing the cost.”
- We need to realize it’s about more than just us. We didn’t get the right to vote because our female ancestors sat around eating bon-bons and not doing a damn thing to get that right. Every right we have today was fought for by the generations of women who came before us. Now it’s our turn to do the same. We’re not just fighting for ourselves, but fighting for future generations so our daughters and granddaughters aren’t standing outside the damn White House protesting the same shit we’re protesting today.
- But we need to be realistic. Is Trump, despite being “very rich,” going to pay these invoices? It’s not very likely. Nor is it very likely that he’ll have a change of heart, realize women are human, and immediately start respecting them. I mean, that type of thing would involve a lobotomy. But when we invoice, it’s another way of standing up against the people who try to keep us down.
- We also can’t stop. We don’t get to invoice Trump and walk away. Yes, we need to be realistic and understand that, as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we shouldn’t lose hope. We should be vocal about our rights, get organized, educate each other, and demand equality. If there’s going to be coverage for Viagra, then there sure as hell going to be coverage for birth control.
