Permanent Ink

The morning after pill is offered “over the counter” here in Washington state. However, that does not mean you can buy it anywhere like Advil (which I’m not sure you should be able to do, but I wanted to clarify). You have to go through some hoops. First, you need to get it from a pharmacist. And not just any one at the pharmacy–it has to be someone who is licsensed. I learned this once the hard way. As you may know, the MaP is most effective within the first 24 hours of birth control failure. The pharmacy close to my house only has one person who is qualified to dispense the pill and when I needed it she had left for the day and wouldn’t be back for two more days. The woman there kindly called several pharmacies and sent me one that was about a 15 minute walk away. I had people coming over but I didn’t want to delay getting the pill so I decided to run over there.

At the other pharmacy there are signs that say to form a line about six feet away from the counter in order to give customers some privacy but some creepy guy stood over my shoulder the entire time I was filling out the paper work. There is a strange feeling of shame or something when i have to get this pill. It’s embarrassing. You screwed up. And that’s another thing–they don’t just hand you the pill. You have to fill out a form and sign it and then you have a “consultation” where they tell you what to do if you throw up and when you should expect your period. Then you have to hand over about $50–$30 for the pill and $20 for this consultation that takes about three minutes. They offered to run my insurance to see if anything was covered and I believe I got about 1.25 taken off the price. never mind that a pregnancy probably costs them $1000s of dollars. That’s for virtuous women and the MaP is for tramps, I guess.

all in all it took me about $50 and an hour to get the pill last time I needed it. it was stressful and slightly embarassing and I know I have it 100 times easier than a lot of other women. that’s the worst part i think.