Miceli: Paul Ryan needs to hear my Planned Parenthood story

Christy Miceli

I named my children when I was 10 years old. I was going to have two daughters, Juniper Dawn and Rowen Kate. Loosely named after my sisters. I would picture them in my mind and smile for I couldn’t wait to meet them.

I never will.

My cervical cancer took that away from me. I will never be called Mommy. I will never get to look down into a tiny face that looks like mine. I will never meet those daughters. But, thanks to Planned Parenthood, I am alive.

Last month, I traveled to Washington, D.C., along with other women from around the country, to tell our stories to members of Congress. The stories were so diverse, but all had the same theme. Without Planned Parenthood, my life would be so different, or, in my case, over.

These were extremely personal stories, and it is ludicrous in this day and age that we would have to do something like this — tell a complete stranger about my battle with cervical cancer — in the hopes that members of Congress will stop with their political agenda for just one minute and look at the bigger picture.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is not listening to stories from women like me, women in his home state, or he would not be trying so hard to block millions of people from going to Planned Parenthood for lifesaving preventive care.

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Although I have always wanted children, I went to Planned Parenthood to get birth control. I wanted to be financially stable when I chose to have those children, I wanted to be able to give them a wonderful life. During a routine Pap smear and physical when I was 24, Planned Parenthood detected my cervical cancer.

I was young and uninsured, and without a resource such as Planned Parenthood, I would not have been able to afford the lifesaving care I received. I would not have been able to afford the diagnostic testing, the various LEEP and cryotherapy procedures, and the extensive follow-up care. I would not be here today to speak out against people in power such as Ryan and demand that he listen. I would not be here to remind him that defunding Planned Parenthood will block millions of people in our country from access to cancer screenings and other preventive care.

I was lucky. The early detection and the surgeries and procedures that followed saved my life. I did not become just another statistic.

The American Cancer Society is predicting more than 4,000 deaths this year from cervical cancer. Every year, Planned Parenthood’s health centers across the country provide more than 270,000 Pap tests and more than 360,000 breast exams. For nearly 72,000 patients, these lifesaving screenings catch abnormalities or cancer.

If the “defunding” of Planned Parenthood goes through, how many more people will we lose to cervical cancer? 8,000? 12,000? How many wives, daughters, sisters and aunts will we unnecessarily lose because of one group’s political crusade?

More than 2.5 million Americans, women and men, use Planned Parenthood to receive affordable, expert, compassionate care. I cannot imagine what will happen to the state of reproductive health if Ryan and anti-women’s health members of Congress continue to push through their bill to deny access to Planned Parenthood.

I wasn’t a patient of Planned Parenthood to make a political statement, I was just a woman going to see her doctor, the only doctor I had — and I am alive because of it.

Christy Miceli is a small business owner living in Hartford.