I am a 19-year-old girl, and I benefit from free birth control. I benefit from this system because I am in college, and I don't have a 529 plan or any sort of financial backing going straight to my college. I can't afford insurance, and I know a job will take away from my education, as my major is considered a "double major" even though it isn't, and a "handful" at that.

On top of my major, I'm also in honors. Because of all this, a job as an idea is nearly squandered by my anxiety. And that's just the tip of the iceberg: my nineteenth birthday present from the government was the loss of my insurance.

I'll openly admit that I was on Medicaid because I am not ashamed. I didn't abuse the system, I went to the doctor as little as possible. I would try to defeat sickness before heading to the doctor because I still had a co-pay. And while five dollars wasn't much, it was still too much to pay for when antibiotics came into the picture.

With Medicaid, I was able to get access to birth control pills. I didn't know that I wouldn't have a co-pay for them, but I didn't really care. I wanted my cramps to be eliminated, instead of dreadfully painful to the point where some days I would beg to stay home. I lived off of pamprin and Midol for the week of my period in hopes to dull the pains, and most of the time, it worked. But when I was opened up to the world of birth control pills, my cramps went away and for once in my life, my cycle was regular.

When I turned eighteen, I had to start paying for birth control. Five dollars for a month-long pack. I didn't mind, five dollars was a pretty price tag in my eyes when it came to weaker cramps. Fast forward a year later. I turned nineteen, and my healthcare was stripped away from me. The reasons for reapplying appear to be slim, as most of them require you to be pregnant or already have children; neither of which apply to me.

But what does apply to me is the fact that my income is impacted severely because I am paying just over $20,000 a year to attend college, which is something I need to do in order to teach. When I found out that my healthcare was being stripped from me, I panicked. I wondered how I was going to stay on birth control, and luckily my state has Plan First, which is a family planning program that allows for one pap smear/pelvic examination a year, and free birth control, meaning no co-pay.

I was ecstatic, but now as the Trump administration has yet again cracked down on constituents, I am worried again. While I am pretty certain that I will stay covered, I worry for the women who won't.

The Trump administration is giving employers the right to deny birth control coverage under their insurance benefits to their employees, on a religious basis. If you ask me, this is ludicrous, because birth control does so much more than prevent pregnancy.

It helps with PCOS, Endometriosis, and other painful things that can happen in a woman's uterus. Just like it helped me with cramps, it can also help others with different period symptoms. While it's nice to have a shield against unwanted pregnancy as a college student because I won't be ready to have any children anytime soon, it's not just that. It's so much more.

Many will argue that employers should have the right if they disagree based on religious or personal reasoning, but I disagree; let the people themselves make that right. It's better to be covered just in case than to not be covered at all. Let the people themselves make that decision.

Corporations and bosses should not have a place in an employee's reproductive system, whether it be because of what's going on in the bedroom, or on medical grounds. This is the one time that Republicans seem to want control in someone's private, personal dealings. But to me, this just seems like a way to get around religious discrimination.

An atheist can work at the Christian backed Chick-Fil-A, but once they get in they don't have body autonomy when it comes to birth control? The only other option than denying your hardworking employees what they may need is to only hire people that religiously agree with you, which is illegal because it is discrimination.

Another common argument is that people just need to wear condoms. And while that's fine and dandy, condoms should be used anyways since female birth control doesn't prevent against STD/STI's. However, condoms don't help with PCOS, Endometriosis, and other pesky period pains. But another thing in regards to "just wearing condoms", is that men seem to have little to no responsibility when it comes to a sex life.

Women are sluts for using birth control, but men using condoms are... what exactly? You can't be anti-birth control but pro-condom under the fallacy that sex is only for procreation, because condoms defeat the purpose of procreation, and turn sex into something recreational. Which brings me to my next point: Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy. With "stealthing" being on the rise, many women may wind up pregnant without knowing how. And many not know the stats of how safe "pulling out" is, especially since many states don't need to provide sexual education, and if they do, here's the kicker: it doesn't have to be correct.

When it comes to procreation versus recreation, there are two types of pro-life people. The people who are actually pro-life, and the people who are just anti-choice. Pro-lifers just care about abortion and want the rate lowered. Anti-choice not only want to limit access to abortions, they want to limit access to planned parenthood (and want it federally defunded, even though federal money given to them doesn't go to abortions thanks to Title X, except in very rare cases involving medicaid), but they also want to limit access to contraceptives. I will believe that people are pro-life when they start to give access to more contraceptives, planned parenthood, health care (in terms of reproductive issues), allow DACA to continue, allow refugees, make the immigration process easier, and start talking about gun control in the wake of mass shootings instead of waiting around for the conversation to fade (in terms of other issues).

When it gets down to the nitty-gritty of it, the religious opinions of others should be left out of my uterus, and many other women's as well. If you personally choose not to use birth control for whatever reason, go you for making your own medical decision. But your opinion shouldn't interfere with mine or others' periods, family planning, and medical dealings. I think if Rachel Green existed outside of the sitcom "Friends," she would have one thing to say to Trump and his administration: