Something that makes me mad.

On Monday, the friend of one of my students came up to me to tell me that my student would be out because of cramps. “Western women, I don’t think they have these problems,” the friend said. I laughed. “Oh, yes, we do, but we have medication for it,” I said.

So on Tuesday, the student came to class and came up to me in a quiet moment. “My friend says there is medication I can take. Can you tell me about it?” Sure, I said. It’s usually a combination of birth control pills and ibuprofen. The birth control pills reduce the hormonal fluctuations, and some kinds even reduce the total number of periods you have. They have lots of benefits beyond contraception for many women.

Now, birth control pills are not widely prescribed in many countries for different cultural and economic reasons, and China seems to be a place where they are hard to get. My student attends an American university, and so she asked how to get them in the states. I asked about her U.S. health insurance. It’s through her college health center.

Well, that’s a problem. My student attends a Catholic university. I told her to go to Planned Parenthood.

And I walked away, fuming. Some ostensibly celibate men, who have never suffered from menstrual cramps, can’t get their own followers to adhere to their dictates, so they want to deny non-Catholic women access to medication that would make their lives much better.

I left the Catholic Church, and this is one reason why. It’s just plain wrong.

So that is my rant for the day. I don’t usually put my political rants on my blog, but right now, I’m too mad not to.