I am a woman of color who has a pre-existing condition…more than one, if you count my high blood pressure.

I have been an adult without health care insurance and I have too many friends to count who do not have health insurance coverage right now.

Should I lose my job I would lose my coverage…and, because of my pre-existing condition, I would not be able to buy coverage on the open market.

That’s not speculation…I’ve looked into it and my black ass wasn’t able to get a nibble at multiple ponds.

So, I’m saying this from a place of vulnerability and I want all y’all who read this to know that.

There must be a line…a wall to hit…or the struggle for reproductive justice is merely a suggestion.

It’s just a request.

A thing that gets mentioned politely whenever health care is being discussed.

"Oh, would you mind not throwing women under the bus while you get your reform on?"

"Could you, pretty please, not mandate that women purchase health care insurance that fails to cover the full spectrum of reproductive health care services?"

"Would you be so kind as to not leave military women uncovered…again…to not leave women uniquely worse off after health care reform than we were before you started?"

There must be a line…and it galls me to even write that because I hate negotiating from a place of “let’s fight like mad for the status quo, y’all!”

But there must be a line…a wall…a place that is acceptable and then the place right in front of it that is unacceptable.

The Senate has crossed that line.

This health care reform bill, negotiated on the backs of women and soon to be presented for a vote with political boots placed firmly on the throat of reproductive justice, is unacceptable.

I’m saying that knowing full well what’s at stake…because women’s health is not worth less than the health of others.

And I’m saying that knowing that there but for my current benefit package go I…because I’ve had to use my insurance to pay for fibroid surgery that would have bankrupted me otherwise or that I would have not been able to have for financial reasons despite the dire consequences.

I oppose the Senate health care reform bill on the grounds that, in its current form, it violates the rights of women.

I oppose the Senate health care reform bill on the grounds that, in its current form, it singles out a legal medical procedure for unprecedented restrictions thus inviting the United States government into every doctor’s office so they can tell women and their health care providers what the Senate thinks is best for them…right for them…healthy for them…or not approved for coverage like it used to be and currently is even though it is legal in this country.

I oppose the Senate health care reform bill because,at the very least, it should not leave women worse off that we were before reform began…because women helped elect these fools to the Senate and, to vary a quote from my beloved Grandmere, “we brought your asses into office and we can vote your asses out.”

I am disgusted…disappointed…not surprised but not defeated either.

So, don’t tell me that we …women…should take one for the team.

Don’t tell me that we…women…should casually allow government to roll back the clock on legal rights people risked their lives to gain because women’s lives were, and should this legislation pass in its current form will once again, be at stake.

Don’t tell me to make a compromise that, in the same situation, you would not make and, funny enough, were not asked to make because it’s never The Man being told his vasectomy won’t be covered or his Viagra won’t be covered or his prostate surgery won’t be covered.

Is it.

No, it’s women…time after motherfucking time…who are told that our reproductive health care must be uniquely regulated, despite legality, by The Man…and that we, despite our needs and that same curiously overlooked legality, must take one for the team…again.

Fuck that.

Fuck it!

‘Cause a team without women is fucked from jump anyway.

There must be a line…

…a wall to hit…

…or all that is the movement for reproductive justice is just a silly social circle of idealistic little children tossing out suggestions to the amusement of their paternalistic rulers.

Take a step back.

And then another.

And then another followed by one more until all of the sudden the only people benefiting from health care reform are the affluent straight white men of power who were already sitting pretty when this reform shit began.

Or the affluent women who can fly elsewhere to access the reproductive health care they opposed for form but would use at the drop of a dime…make that a lot of dimes…should they find themselves in need of the services they would deny the rest of us.

Yeah, fuck that.

I didn’t just work my ass off for an entire year…longer if you count the election…to make "change" that leaves women worse off.

Hold the line, people.

Defend the wall, y’all.

This is about our rights, enforced by law, until it isn’t.

And it’ll be a cold day in Hades when I give them up without a fight…