https://goo.gl/VgebSv
Access to quality, accessible women’s healthcare has always been very difficult for me. That is why getting regular pap smears and gynecological exams were not something I did regularly.
I have been turned away from exams due to clinic staff telling me they could not lift me on the table because of liability reasons. I had a gynecologist that was completely condescending and talked to me like a child and other ones that spoke to the person that brought me to the exam instead of me.
After many failed attempts, I was finally “accommodated” at Planned Parenthood. By accommodation, it meant having my pelvic exam and pap smear in the basement of the clinic where they performed abortions since they have tables they could lower and they could help me there. But exams were awkward, severely painful, and I bled from being scraped up too hard because they could not easily reach my cervix because they did not know how to handle my curved spine and body. As a result, by the age of 31, I had only five or six pap smears in my life.