Planned Parenthood saved my life.

I started going to Planned Parenthood when I was 17 years old, for birth control and annual exams. Ten years after that first visit, I noticed a small indentation on my upper left breast that would later become anything but a small challenge. 

I had just completed grad school in California, and hadn’t even had a chance to start looking for a job. For the time being, I was uninsured and my entire family was thousands of miles away. 

{mosads}Although there wasn’t a history of breast cancer in my family and I was young, I knew I needed to get the suspicious mark checked out. I went to my local Planned Parenthood health center for a breast exam— the place I’d come to know and trust for a decade. 

Upon examining me, the doctors at Planned Parenthood immediately referred me to get specialized diagnostic tests. I was scared but I knew I was in good hands. Planned Parenthood’s staff was compassionate, understanding and kind. Ultimately, they were able to secure a grant to help cover the needed testing.  Without insurance or family nearby, I relied on the Planned Parenthood doctors and nurses to help me navigate the system and get the follow-up care I needed.

I soon learned I had stage 2 B breast cancer. I underwent chemotherapy, double mastectomy, radiation and hormonal therapy.  Without Planned Parenthood, it’s not clear I would be here today.

But it wasn’t just my life Planned Parenthood has helped save. 

Every year Planned Parenthood provides more than 900,000 cancer screenings — 500,000 breast exams and 400,000 Pap tests. In 2013, they detected cancer early or caught abnormalities for 88,000 women — women like me, who turned to Planned Parenthood first, because they’re a trusted provider. 

Millions of women across the country rely on Planned Parenthood for basic, preventive care — for birth control, well woman exams, and for cancer screenings. Many of those women don’t have any other place to go — either because like me they don’t have health insurance, because they’re enrolled in Medicaid and other providers won’t accept them as a new patient, or because there aren’t any other reproductive health care providers in their area. Other women turn to Planned Parenthood because, also like me, Planned Parenthood is who they trust — and who we’ve turned to for years to provide high-quality, affordable reproductive health care. 

But recently Planned Parenthood has come under attack, and those who already oppose women’s access to healthcare have tried to convince the public that Planned Parenthood isn’t necessary.  Some politicians have even made the outrageous claim that Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide women’s healthcare. 

These politicians are building on ideological attacks from extremists who are focused on outlawing safe and legal abortion at the expense of the millions of patients who rely on Planned Parenthood’s services. While they further their agenda, they willfully and irresponsibly turn a blind eye to the essential preventative care that comprises the majority of services offered at Planned Parenthood. 

To these extremists and politicians, Planned Parenthood’s patients exist in theory. But I am here to let them know that we are very real:  and we need real services from real doctors. These are real women like me who have real health care challenges. And this political rhetoric and these smear campaigns have very real consequences for individuals who already have limited access to care. 

Planned Parenthood was there for me at 17 and they were there for me again at 27, which is why I am speaking out for them today. Their doctors knew I was more than a talking point.  I will continue to lift up my voice until politicians understand that my cancer and the care I received at Planned Parenthood was not a political statement- it was a matter of life and death. That is why I, and millions across the country, will always stand with Planned Parenthood.

McWade is a Planned Parenthood patient. Originally from East Hampton, Connecticut currently lives in Marin County, California. Recently diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, she is dedicated to raising awareness about breast cancer in women under 30.