Sluts Across America

There is this basic idea going around that any woman who believes in the rights to or uses birth control has to be some raging slut.  Allow me to retort.

Why hello there. I am a slut.

I am a slut, it seems, because I believe in a woman's access to birth control.
I am a slut because I believe children who are planned for have a stronger sense of being wanted.  As a child who was neither planned nor wanted, I know this first hand.
I am a slut because I believe a woman who can control her own body will make a stronger mother when she chooses to become one.
I am a slut because I believe PCOS and other hormonal issues are easier to control when you can use the pill.
I am a slut because I want women to be responsible about their own fate and the fate of any possible children they bring into this world.
I am a slut because I believe periods should be manageable.
I am a slut because I believe someone who wants to have sex shouldn't live in fear of the fact that she did.
I am a slut because I know that the leading cause of unnatural death in pregnant women is the father of the child.
I am a slut because I believe you should be sane, healthy, and financially stable before you choose to have children.
I am a slut because I believe women who have children should be able to prevent more children from showing up and taking resources away from the children already there.
I am a slut because I know sometimes the most responsible thing a mother can do is use birth control because they told her if she had another baby, she would die.
I am a slut because the last thing a homeless woman needs is a baby.
I am a slut because when I talk about unwanted pregnancies, I bring up the concept of rape. And when people ask why I always do that, I tell them that because I know if I got pregnant, given that I don't participate in sex with others, it would be because I got raped.
I am a slut because I want the world to be filled with children someone wanted.
I am a slut because I want the population to be stable.
I am a slut because I want women to be able to experience life on their own terms.
I am a slut because, yes, I believe you should be allowed to do as you wish.

Are you a slut?  Tell your story.