When I went to the Women’s March on Washington last weekend, I was one of over half a million women with probably a total of millions of reasons to be a the march. When a journalist asked me and my friends I was with if we wanted to share why we came, I was really excited to be able to explain to their audience. Unfortunately, the magazine was not truly interested in documenting why I was there. They wanted to document what I was wearing. When the article came out, it made sense why the first question they asked was “is that Kylie Lip kit?”, the article itself was titled “Women who Dressed for the Revolution”. The information that dominated our quotes in the article were along the lines of how our parents felt about us being there, and whether or not we had a sleepover before we came.

I understand that some platforms are built to report a certain type of news, and that Elle Girl Magazine is a women’s fashion and culture magazine, not a catalyst for the revolution. I even understand that there were plenty of news articles about the women’s march that didn’t ask questions about what people were wearing, and I even understand the quotes in the article may have been significantly more accurate if they weren’t being recorded from ground level while I was perched on a column shouting at a crowd. However, I had more important things I wish I could have told the people reading Elle Girl Magazine. Since I didn’t get a chance to say it on the day of the march, I’ll say it now:

Planned Parenthood is a necessary organization. I firmly believe that an abortion is a woman’s personal choice, and that affordable reproductive health care is important. I have a medical condition that leaves me at risk for being in debilitating pain every month. Most women with this condition take hormonal birth control in order to prevent this. I’m really lucky that I can afford that now, and will be able to afford it no matter what happens to health care, but that is not the case for every woman. 4.6 million men and women rely on Planned Parenthood a year, and 79% of them are below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. The two times I experienced this amount of pain, I was again privileged enough to be able to go to the hospital and get prescription painkillers to ease the pain. If I didn’t have healthcare, or if I had been a few years older and little less fortunate, I could have been accused of faking the pain just to get drugs. I marched on Washington for women who need Planned Parenthood to prevent them from being in pain. I marched on Washington for the women who will develop this condition, and won’t be able to afford the hospital. I marched on Washington for the girls with this condition whose parents won’t pay for the treatment due to their religion. I marched on Washington for all the women who want birth control because they are making an informed decision about safe sex. I marched on Washington for women who exercised their right to chose that I believe they should have. I marched on Washington for women who don’t use Planned Parenthood, and for women who do. We should all have access to affordable reproductive care no matter how much congress thinks we need it.