I want the best for my body, but the Texas government does not. I’ll soon be moving to the Lone Star state, and I am feeling my freedom wither more and more each day. After learning about some possible negative side effects of the use of hormonal birth control, like increased risk for blood clots and cervical cancer, I decided to stop taking the pill. But then I remembered I’m moving to Texas.
As the leader of the recent waves of statewide abortion bans, Texas is where my reproductive rights go to die. There, abortion is illegal when a fetal heartbeat is detected, typically six weeks into a pregnancy. Abortion via teleheath services, or a medication abortion, is banned as well.
While living in Texas and being sexually active, I will not be able to access an abortion past the sixth week of a pregnancy.
Though I chose to move to Texas, I feel limited. My health and happiness have been halted by men who have never taken hormonal birth control and will never experience an abortion.
And I’m not alone.
Shannon, a mother of two who asked to be referred to by a pseudonym, became pregnant when she was sixteen years old. Bouncing between divorced parents in Washington state and Alaska, she was afraid to go to her father for guidance. “I contemplated suicide. I contemplated throwing myself down the stairs. I was terrified. I didn’t know who to talk to or what to do,” she says.
Her father and the biological father of her daughter did not want her to have an abortion. “The guilt that is put on you for wanting to make a decision that they don’t agree with is very powerful,” she adds. Shannon ended up having the baby.
Before and after giving birth to her children, Shannon used different forms of hormonal birth control and experienced various side effects: “Weight gain, emotional turmoil. I already have depression and anxiety issues. So with the combination of those drugs,” she says, “there were times I felt like I was going insane.”
By altering a body’s hormonal balance, hormonal birth control users suffer a plethora of pains to avoid pregnancy in a country where access to abortion is not wholeheartedly protected.
Since being prescribed the pill to help with acne when I was eighteen years old, I have continued to take it every day until now, as a twenty-five-year-old. I worry about how my body has reacted to seven years of a balance unnatural for it. And I worry about the risks I’ll face should I happen to become pregnant in Texas.
Regarding my personal experience, I cannot isolate direct side effects from taking the pill. Additionally, I have issues with anxiety, making it difficult to separate mental and hormonal health. To improve my overall well-being, I want to stop using hormonal birth control.
While living in Texas and being sexually active, I will not be able to access an abortion past the sixth week of a pregnancy. I’m scared to transition from a hormonal contraceptive to a non-hormonal option right now, and I hate the government for not supporting me and my freedom.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, the majority of people who have abortions in the United States are already parents. On this point, Shannon says, “Once you have children, you know how miserable it can be. They’re wonderful. I love my kids. But it was hell. I had to do it. I did it on my own. When we’re older and we’re going through these things, we’re not doing that again.”
Social media has become a haven for reproductive health, from sharing options for birth control to supporting abortion funds in every state.
Shannon shares her hopes for reproductive rights. “I am really afraid for all of the people who could possibly lose [the right to abortion] and will have to make decisions that you should never have to make,” Shannon says. “I hope that most of us who can get pregnant will be able to join together and hopefully get some change.”
As the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization nears, I hold tightly onto this hope. Expected to be decided by June, this case could overturn Roe v. Wade, undermine the federal freedom to abortion, and spark trigger laws in many states planning to restrict abortion access.
For so long, I have had the privilege of living in states where that right was protected, so it was never a concern or stressor for me personally. But now that I’m moving to Texas, I’m afraid of what is yet to come.