14valentines Day Three: Health
Day Three of 14valentines is Health. Please take a moment to click the link so you can read today's essay and and the contributions posted in the comments.
Women's Health is a subject close to my heart. My flist has changed in the past four years, so it might be news to some of you that I spent my last two semesters at college interning at Planned Parenthood. I worked with the grassroots organizer doing campus and community outreach. Before I started working there, I thought I was fairly well-versed in Women's Health issues. Within a day, I realized that what I knew barely scratched the surface.
At a time when we're losing the fight for affordable health coverage in this country, there are a million things to talk about in regards to Women's Health, but this is the one that I choose to focus on at this moment:
When most people think of Planned Parenthood and other family planning organizations, they think of abortion. They think of clinics with protesters outside and bullet proof glass on the windows and teenagers sneaking away from their parents to have abortions. What they probably don't realize is that abortions count for less than 3% of the services provided by clinics like this. Planned Parenthood clinics offer free birth control. They offer sliding-scale gyno and pre-natal care. They offer adoption counselors. They offer mammograms. They offer all sorts of women's medical care that is affordable or free for those women in the country who can't afford to seek these services elsewhere.
Every time an anti-choice right-wing politician makes an amendment to cut funding to clinics that are offering abortions, for every three abortions they "prevent," they are denying 97 other women a chance for medical advice and services that could prevent the need for further abortions in the first place. They are denying the 97% of women who use PP to get pap smears and mammograms. They are cutting off pre-natal care. They are taking away a chance for adoption counseling.
Putting all other aspects of the abortion debate aside, isn't that a good enough reason to speak up?
***
There Must Be Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
eight;
Title: Right?
Fandom: In Plain Sight
Pairing: Mary/Marshall
Rating: PG
Summary: Mary's never slept with Marshall.
Mary's never slept with Marshall. She's slept with him, yeah. He's her partner and they've worked undercover and on the run and on a budget. Sometimes there's only one hotel room and sometimes they sleep in the SUV and sometimes Mary's too fucking drunk to care where she is when she passes out, even if she's sprawled across Marshall's lap. She's never had sex with him, though. That'd be... weird.
Right?
She loves Marshall. She loves him more than Jinx and Brandi, that's for sure. (It's not that she doesn't love them, it's that she has to love them, and there's something about that obligation that makes her choice a little sweeter.) She loves him more than Raph.
Which isn't--weird. No matter what anyone else thinks, it's not weird that she loves Marshall more than Raph because she loves Marshall differently. With Raph it's that thank-god-you've-done-my-laundry-awkward-date-home-cooking love. Boyfriendly love. The love that never feels like it fits right because it's always changing. Marshall's is old-sweater-with-coffee-stains-can-I-borrow-your-toothbrush-stretchy love. It's love she can wear around all the time because it's comfortable. It doesn't mean anything.
Right?
She's not betraying Marshall. She's just choosing to push her life forward. With Raph. And it's not like Marshall will care.
Right?
***
nine;
Title: Coming and Going
Fandom: The West Wing
Pairing: Sam/Will
Rating: G
Summary: Sam is used to being the one who stays, now. (Iowa!verse)
Sam left Lisa for the Beltway, he left the Beltway for a Congress dream, his dreams for Joanne, Joanne for the Beltway again, in a continuous cycle of abandonment and fear.
In Iowa, Sam is the one who stays.
At first, Sam was too deep in his bubble of apprehension to notice going and coming, leaving and staying. It wasn't until he got his head on level and opened his eyes to the wide, blue skies around him that Sam saw he was the one rooted in place as Will left in the mornings and returned in the evenings.
That's why it's hard to do this. Will is still in bed, the duvet pulled up to his neck. He's wearing slouchy sweats and an appropriated Princeton t-shirt. He doesn't even have his glasses on. Sam is in a suit and tie he hasn't worn in an age, holding a briefcase, and standing hesitantly at the bedroom door.
"Just go to your meeting," Will mumbles sleepily from the bed. "Please."
"I'll be back," Sam says.
Will lifts his head and looks Sam straight in the eye with more clarity than Sam expects for this early an hour on Will's day off. He smiles.
"I know," he says.
***
ten;
Title: Family Connection
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Sam Carter/Jeannie McKay
Rating: PG
Summary: Sam has a history with the McKay family.
It's not always advisable to hook up at these conferences, but Sam seen enough to know the ropes. She's not the wide-eyed, excited girl she was the first time she presented a paper to a room of men who spent more time staring at her tits than they did listening to her ground-breaking theory. So when the pretty strawberry-bonde says, "Please stick your tongue down my throat before these assholes' eyes burn a hole in my shirt," Sam can hardly refuse.
It's not a bad kiss, followed by several more very not-bad kisses, and they end up spending an enjoyable weekend together. It's honestly the most action that Sam has seen in months. Being in the military isn't half as hard as being a physicist, in regards to finding a decent boyfriend, and the girl is pretty and funny and so smart that Sam can actually be herself.
"Jeannie McKay," the girl says. "Remember it. You can say you knew me when."
Sam does.
(Years later, when a pushy, arrogant asshole named Rodney McKay elbows his way into her life, the big blue eyes and the sweet, wide mouth give her a flicker of recognition. But it couldn't be. There was no way.)
***
eleven;
Title: Long Walk Off a Short Ledge
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG (implied Jack!death)
Summary: Ianto really hates washing blood out of the coat.
"This is a terrible plan!" Ianto shouts as they slam through the door and start up the stairs.
"Easiest option," Jack shouts back.
"You'll very likely die," Ianto says as they clear the third landing.
"Probably," Jack says. "Might take it with me."
"And I'm not going down there to sit with you while you wake up," Ianto says at the sixth landing. "It's hard enough getting up here, I'm not turning around and coming right back down. The odds of you actually hitting it are slim, anyway."
"You know how sometimes your logic is sexy?" Jack asks. "This is not one of those times.
"Noted. Saving Jack's life--not sexy." Seventh landing.
"Don't need my life saved."
"Making Jack's life convenient--not sexy."
"Naked Fridays would be both convenient and sexy."
"Never going to happen. Stop asking."
They reach the top of the stairs and run to the edge of the roof. Ianto throws out his arm. "Stop!"
"What?"
"The coat! I don't want it to get ruined again."
Jack rolls his eyes, but he shrugs out of his greatcoat and tosses it to Ianto.
"See you around, Gorgeous," Jack says, throwing Ianto a messy salute and a saucy wink, before leaping off the roof and onto the salivating alien in the alleyway below.
Women's Health is a subject close to my heart. My flist has changed in the past four years, so it might be news to some of you that I spent my last two semesters at college interning at Planned Parenthood. I worked with the grassroots organizer doing campus and community outreach. Before I started working there, I thought I was fairly well-versed in Women's Health issues. Within a day, I realized that what I knew barely scratched the surface.
At a time when we're losing the fight for affordable health coverage in this country, there are a million things to talk about in regards to Women's Health, but this is the one that I choose to focus on at this moment:
When most people think of Planned Parenthood and other family planning organizations, they think of abortion. They think of clinics with protesters outside and bullet proof glass on the windows and teenagers sneaking away from their parents to have abortions. What they probably don't realize is that abortions count for less than 3% of the services provided by clinics like this. Planned Parenthood clinics offer free birth control. They offer sliding-scale gyno and pre-natal care. They offer adoption counselors. They offer mammograms. They offer all sorts of women's medical care that is affordable or free for those women in the country who can't afford to seek these services elsewhere.
Every time an anti-choice right-wing politician makes an amendment to cut funding to clinics that are offering abortions, for every three abortions they "prevent," they are denying 97 other women a chance for medical advice and services that could prevent the need for further abortions in the first place. They are denying the 97% of women who use PP to get pap smears and mammograms. They are cutting off pre-natal care. They are taking away a chance for adoption counseling.
Putting all other aspects of the abortion debate aside, isn't that a good enough reason to speak up?
***
There Must Be Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
eight;
Title: Right?
Fandom: In Plain Sight
Pairing: Mary/Marshall
Rating: PG
Summary: Mary's never slept with Marshall.
Mary's never slept with Marshall. She's slept with him, yeah. He's her partner and they've worked undercover and on the run and on a budget. Sometimes there's only one hotel room and sometimes they sleep in the SUV and sometimes Mary's too fucking drunk to care where she is when she passes out, even if she's sprawled across Marshall's lap. She's never had sex with him, though. That'd be... weird.
Right?
She loves Marshall. She loves him more than Jinx and Brandi, that's for sure. (It's not that she doesn't love them, it's that she has to love them, and there's something about that obligation that makes her choice a little sweeter.) She loves him more than Raph.
Which isn't--weird. No matter what anyone else thinks, it's not weird that she loves Marshall more than Raph because she loves Marshall differently. With Raph it's that thank-god-you've-done-my-laundry-awkward-date-home-cooking love. Boyfriendly love. The love that never feels like it fits right because it's always changing. Marshall's is old-sweater-with-coffee-stains-can-I-borrow-your-toothbrush-stretchy love. It's love she can wear around all the time because it's comfortable. It doesn't mean anything.
Right?
She's not betraying Marshall. She's just choosing to push her life forward. With Raph. And it's not like Marshall will care.
Right?
***
nine;
Title: Coming and Going
Fandom: The West Wing
Pairing: Sam/Will
Rating: G
Summary: Sam is used to being the one who stays, now. (Iowa!verse)
Sam left Lisa for the Beltway, he left the Beltway for a Congress dream, his dreams for Joanne, Joanne for the Beltway again, in a continuous cycle of abandonment and fear.
In Iowa, Sam is the one who stays.
At first, Sam was too deep in his bubble of apprehension to notice going and coming, leaving and staying. It wasn't until he got his head on level and opened his eyes to the wide, blue skies around him that Sam saw he was the one rooted in place as Will left in the mornings and returned in the evenings.
That's why it's hard to do this. Will is still in bed, the duvet pulled up to his neck. He's wearing slouchy sweats and an appropriated Princeton t-shirt. He doesn't even have his glasses on. Sam is in a suit and tie he hasn't worn in an age, holding a briefcase, and standing hesitantly at the bedroom door.
"Just go to your meeting," Will mumbles sleepily from the bed. "Please."
"I'll be back," Sam says.
Will lifts his head and looks Sam straight in the eye with more clarity than Sam expects for this early an hour on Will's day off. He smiles.
"I know," he says.
***
ten;
Title: Family Connection
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Sam Carter/Jeannie McKay
Rating: PG
Summary: Sam has a history with the McKay family.
It's not always advisable to hook up at these conferences, but Sam seen enough to know the ropes. She's not the wide-eyed, excited girl she was the first time she presented a paper to a room of men who spent more time staring at her tits than they did listening to her ground-breaking theory. So when the pretty strawberry-bonde says, "Please stick your tongue down my throat before these assholes' eyes burn a hole in my shirt," Sam can hardly refuse.
It's not a bad kiss, followed by several more very not-bad kisses, and they end up spending an enjoyable weekend together. It's honestly the most action that Sam has seen in months. Being in the military isn't half as hard as being a physicist, in regards to finding a decent boyfriend, and the girl is pretty and funny and so smart that Sam can actually be herself.
"Jeannie McKay," the girl says. "Remember it. You can say you knew me when."
Sam does.
(Years later, when a pushy, arrogant asshole named Rodney McKay elbows his way into her life, the big blue eyes and the sweet, wide mouth give her a flicker of recognition. But it couldn't be. There was no way.)
***
eleven;
Title: Long Walk Off a Short Ledge
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG (implied Jack!death)
Summary: Ianto really hates washing blood out of the coat.
"This is a terrible plan!" Ianto shouts as they slam through the door and start up the stairs.
"Easiest option," Jack shouts back.
"You'll very likely die," Ianto says as they clear the third landing.
"Probably," Jack says. "Might take it with me."
"And I'm not going down there to sit with you while you wake up," Ianto says at the sixth landing. "It's hard enough getting up here, I'm not turning around and coming right back down. The odds of you actually hitting it are slim, anyway."
"You know how sometimes your logic is sexy?" Jack asks. "This is not one of those times.
"Noted. Saving Jack's life--not sexy." Seventh landing.
"Don't need my life saved."
"Making Jack's life convenient--not sexy."
"Naked Fridays would be both convenient and sexy."
"Never going to happen. Stop asking."
They reach the top of the stairs and run to the edge of the roof. Ianto throws out his arm. "Stop!"
"What?"
"The coat! I don't want it to get ruined again."
Jack rolls his eyes, but he shrugs out of his greatcoat and tosses it to Ianto.
"See you around, Gorgeous," Jack says, throwing Ianto a messy salute and a saucy wink, before leaping off the roof and onto the salivating alien in the alleyway below.