If you had told me that my birth control would almost kill me, I would have laughed you off and marked you down as crazy.

Many many women do this. They don’t think twice when they pop the pill, insert the ring or inject their veins. Some ask their doctor for the IUD, they cast a side the warnings, side effects fall to the floor, as we are women and we have a right to birth control.

Women came before us, to fight for our reproductive rights, but did those women of the 60’s know just what this pill they were fighting for would do? That it would ruin lives, tare apart families, leave victims, unanswered questions, and broken hearts. Some say birth control was the greatest thing to ever happen to and for women. I say they were wrong.

OBGYN’s write thousands of scripts a year for the pill that promises to keep motherhood at bay. They do little to educate, to warn, or even deter a woman from taking the pil, the ring, the shot, or an IUD. I know I was never told that the my choice of control was the deadliest birth control on the market, that it scared, marked, and destroyed women’s lives.

When the ring and I met it was convenient love. A love that would come crashing down and leave me fighting for my life. I never thought twice, they said blood clots only occurred in women over 35. Hell, this is a ring it doesn’t know age, gender, weight, it’s a thing, an object, and not some intelligent machine. It lay quietly in a cup, this thing so small, so meek, yet it roared through my body with a dangerous thunder, and has left me forever changed.

I did not wallow or look for pity. I stand for change and I would be damned if another woman met my fate. I am the first woman ever in the state of MN to file a product liability law suit against a pharmaceutical company that manufactures a hormonal contraceptive. My case will be precedence, it will pave the way and make the path for other broken women to follow. Backing down is not an option, lobbying for stronger warning labels and stricter product testing is. Is an option, to stand up and fight for what I believe in.

This is America where anything is possible, where no woman deserves to die because of her birth control.