There are a number of wonderful things that come in a ripe, pink plastic.

Strawberry Starbursts. Artificial sugar. Those fancy soaps that smell like some generic flower, usually rose, that my grandma gets when Bath & Body Works is having a sale.

And of course, all those tampons and pads I use that eventually become a beautiful array of pastel on my bathroom floor. That is because before pink plastic, the greatest packaging is in fact the pink cardboard lined with four glorious weeks of tiny pills, all filled with ovarian salvation.

Kids, I’m talking about birth control.

Truly no other substance or drug could own my dependence or loyalty the way those 28-day packs do. I praise you, Ortho Tri Cyclen and other generic brands. I plan to sing your praises until the end of time; or at least until menopause.

My teenage enthusiasm for a pill causes a vast number of reactions in my red-state conservative community. The first is always my favorite: That I am just a horny 17-year-old who wants to have unprotected sex like there is no tomorrow. Fuck, I guess; that girl sounds way cooler than me.

Somewhere along the line someone associated the growing number of punctured foil packets with the increasing angle of my thighs opening for the world of men. This is a common misconception among the common conservative men who, in fact, have never taken said pill or even had a vagina! Moreover, none of them have had the sharp pain of angry ovaries!

Following this I receive a second reaction. “You just take it because you can’t handle pain.” I’m afraid to admit it, but this claim is horribly true. I can’t handle the week-long couch-campouts with a heating pad on my stomach; Midol as my only friend that can tolerate my complaining. I can’t handle forcing myself to sit down during important labs in my advanced science classes because my dead half-baby blood is extra pesky that day. I can’t handle bleeding for two weeks because I have no normalized cycle. I can’t handle the small army of cystic, hormonal acne that occupy my face once a month, for no reason other than I happened to not get pregnant for the millionth time.

Maybe others don’t see it this way, but an attack on birth control is quite literally an attack on a woman’s control. My reproduction wants to control my life. Birth control allows me to take control back. It is almost laughably simple. When Grandma Mary Anne’s hip is bothering her, no one is politically anger when she takes pain medication for it. No one seems to complain when Uncle Daryl has to take his “medicine” of two beers every night to go to sleep. When I want to live a happy and healthy life; without chronic pain, ruined underwear, and self-confidence-destroying acne, I am called a whining harlot amongst my peers and my Twitter feed.

When a girl friend complains about their pain I instinctively, eagerly rave about the pill that quite literally changed my life. But I often forget that not every friend has a liberal mom or an above-average insurance policy. For some the pill is a small investment. There are still plenty of women that lack the control over their body that I am so fortunate to have gained.

Planned Parenthood and ACA policies have made it their mission to allow a right that all people deserve: a right to live without dictation from anything, whether it be man or vagina. Repealing and defunding only results in more debilitating cramps for everyone when that beautiful pink cardboard become $200 a month.

We used to view women as walking reproductive systems. Now we’ve forgotten that while women carry brains and personalities and unique experiences, they still carry a delicate life force that is unlike anything in a male body.

As a sign I saw at my local Women’s March read: “Hoes Before Embryos!” Let’s take care of person that’s already breathing in front of you.

I lied earlier. My favorite reaction to my birth control fervor is the third reaction I come across; an equally-excited smile from a girl that shares the same violent ovaries and grateful attitude toward modern medicine as I do. It allows the both of us to be badass women who can march and write and fight for everyone to obtain that iconic set of 28 pills, and every other instrument that allows women to control their bodies. We fight the same fight.

—By Elizabeth K., 17, Phoenix, Arizona