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Sexual Health + Identity
Senators Organize Forum for Women to Share What They Want Tom Price to Know
Here's what's REALLY at stake.
Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy
Kanisha HansPhoto courtesy of Planned Parenthood Action Fund
On Wednesday, Republican Rep. Tom Price sat for confirmation hearings for his appointment to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Trump administration. Price once infamously said "there's not one woman" who doesn't have access to birth control — despite polling that has shown that one in three women voters have struggled to afford prescription birth control, including 55% of women age 18 to 34. And he has also repeatedly tried to cut off women's access to basic health services at Planned Parenthood.
Which is why Democratic Senators Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow, and Elizabeth Warren decided that the hearing on Wednesday wasn't enough to tell the full story of what a Price-led Department of Health and Human Services might really mean for Americans. These senators organized a forum for Thursday to allow a chance to speak for women who feel that their access to healthcare — and to Planned Parenthood especially — would be under serious threat should Price be confirmed.
Warren said in her opening remarks to the forum's participants: "I'm sorry that the Republicans running this place decided your stories weren't important enough to include at Congressman Price's confirmation hearing, but we are holding this event today to make sure that your voices are heard."
Kanisha Hans, 23, of Boston, Mass. is one of the women testifying at the forum. Kanisha tells Teen Vogue that though she grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, "my family moved to the U.S. from India when I was five — so I never really got the sex education that most kids get. I watch kids get the awkward talk from their parents now, but I didn't even get an acknowledgment from my own parents that I was growing up or going to go through puberty. I couldn't go to my parents and ask them questions."
Which is why when she started having "really bad problems" with her period when she was 15, she stayed silent. "I was having really bad cramps. I was passing out during classes. No one told me that's not what's normal," she recalls. Eventually, Kanisha told a friend of hers about her problems with her period. That friend told her mom — and her mom told Kanisha to go to Planned Parenthood. She says that the doctor she saw at Planned Parenthood quickly made clear to her that what she was experiencing wasn't normal — but could be easily managed with birth control.
"Planned Parenthood was the first place I went when anyone validated my concern. They said things to me that I had never been told by any other adult in my life. And so I relied on Planned Parenthood all throughout high school and college," Kanisha notes.
But that's not the only thing she wants Rep. Price to know, should he assume the leadership at HHS.
"Back in 2011, I was 18 and I was about to go off to college. I found out that I couldn't use hormonal birth control anymore and would need to get a copper IUD. This was right before the Affordable Care Act mandated contraception coverage — and the copper IUD was the only form of birth control my insurance didn't cover. But Planned Parenthood was able to get my one for $100 instead of $1000, which is what it would have cost me out of pocket. And that's the method I stuck with all through college and even now," Kanisha says.
"The reason I'm speaking is that I feel like I am so lucky to have grown up under Obama as president and to have the Affordable Care Act," she adds. "When I graduated from college, I could pay off my student loans because I didn't have to worry about paying for health insurance, paying for birth control — and because I know I could always rely on Planned Parenthood. I never imagined a situation where I would have to go without any of those things. To have those things taken away feels like a real threat to my security."
Related: What This Reproductive Rights Activist Realized When She Had an Abortion Herself
Keywordsabortionreproductive rightstom price
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