Friday, April 8, 2011

Plan B

Ah, emergency contraceptives. We've all been there. Not really, but I feel better lumping all of humanity into the world of poorly-planned premarital sex together. The truth is most young adults out there have probably not used the Plan B pill, but in a college town, the statistics are overwhelmingly comical.

Let me paint this picture for you.

It's Sunday, October 10th, 2010. That Saturday was a home football game in Athens against the University of Tennessee. Drinking commenced at 8 am that morning and did not cease until 2 am on the Sabbath. Oh, and Georgia won. To say you made bad decisions, well, that would be the understatement of the century. So you wake up in a fog wearing an A.J. Green jersey with no panties and ask the vaguely familiar individual in your bed what happened. The two of you attempt to piece things together, he asks if you want to talk about it over breakfast at Waffle House, you say "get out of my apartment", and he hands you forty bucks in fives and ones.

You proceed to text all of your roommates, who are all strewn about the same apartment and within twelve feet of you, until one of them drunkenly agrees to accompany you to CVS. On the drive across town, your roommate asks if he used a condom. You say no. She asks why, and you say you don't remember, but you guess it's because he didn't have one. She asks why you don't keep some extras stored in your nightstand. You glare at her, offended, and say, "What am I, a whore?" And then you go into CVS to abort your baby.

The woman behind the counter says she's sorry, but they have run out of Plan B. The drugstore has RUN OUT OF PLAN B. Supply and demand, folks, supply and demand. As much as this initially terrifies you, it simultaneously puts things in perspective. So many other college kids behaved just as shamefully, if not more, than you did on Saturday night that there are not enough contraceptives to go around. Needless to say, on game day weekends in the SEC, Plan B is Plan A. But this makes you feel better. You and your roommate leave CVS with candy bars, three bags of Cheetos and a giant slurpy, bragging that if Britney Spears can raise a child, by God so can you.

And then you go to Rite Aid in the next county over and invest the most important $50 of your life. True story.

There have been some pretty heated debates over whether the Plan B pill is actually abortion. Whether you're pro-life or pro-choice there's enough mixed opinions out there to support either side. Personally, though, I like to think emergency contraceptives are not abortion, they're just bad execution. Consider the following sports analogy:

You know those times in basketball where you deliberate too long about whether to shoot or to pass, and when you finally release the ball from your hands its a hideous combination of the two that just flies awkwardly through the air at neither the basket nor your teammates? Well, in these moments, you have a choice to make. If you simply allow nature to take its course, the ball is going to be recovered by someone on the opposing team, and they will run down the court and score. However, as long as you acknowledge your mistake immediately, and sprint to catch the ball that you just hurled into the air before it hits the ground, the game is salvaged. Sure, you're going to get called for a traveling violation and the other team will get the ball, but it's okay, because you and your teammates will be prepared and have time to set up on defense. If and when the opposing team does score again, you will be ready, and hopefully in a committed relationship.




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