I took a brief hiatus from twitter/facebook over the last weekend because the rhetoric was getting my blood pressure up and well, to spare the people around me endless rants about the stupidity in our national dialogue, I had to turn it off.

The rhetoric has gotten out of control. The extreme rhetoric that says a woman should just put an aspirin between her knees to keep from getting pregnant, or that proposes a bill in the Senate allowing employers to decide not to cover medical issues they deem immoral or the fact that a group of middle aged men have returned to an era where they get to tell me what to do with my body: I’m a little pissed.

I am a 35 year old married mother of 2, an Army officer who has deployed and I use birth control to be a good soldier and a responsible parent.

I use birth control to stop having my period so that I can go to the field and not worry about it.

I use birth control while deployed with my husband to keep from getting pregnant and getting sent home and letting down all the men AND women on my team.

I use birth control to keep from having more children than we can afford.

I use birth control to enable me to be a good soldier and balance my career and my family.

I use birth control to control the relentless cramps I had as teenager that had me in so much pain I could not walk.

I use birth control to control when I have children so that I can be more than the sum of my uterus.

I use birth control provided by the government to allow me to be a good soldier and a responsible parent and a responsible citizen.

I use government provided birth control while deployed to Iraq because it was my turn to go.

Call me a slut because I was fortunate enough to be deployed with my husband and I spent the entire deployment terrified I would get pregnant and sent home.

By all means, call me a slut. Call me a whore who expects the government to pay for my birth control so that I can abdicate my responsibilities as a parent. Call me a feminazi for forsaking my duties as a mother and using birth control so that I did not get pregnant again and miss the deployment. Call me a slut for wanting something more for myself and my daughters than to be someone’s breeder. By all means, call me a whore for wanting my daughters to be able to fulfill their potential by being able to decide when they want to start a family.

Calling me and every woman who chooses when to have children a slut will not change the fact that we are responsible citizens who opt to plan their families, who opt to take responsibility for their lives as women and members of our society. And yes, call me a whore because I still expect Tricare to cover my birth control and my pap smear and my government mandated annual std exam.

There are other things I would prefer to be called. You may call me many things but that does not negate the things I call myself.

You could call me a Mom, because I have two beautiful daughters who I want to grow up knowing their full potential is between their ears, not their legs. You could call me Soldier, because I love wearing my nation’s uniform and it is an honor to serve. You could call me Author, because I managed to write a book that people read. You could call me a Wife, because I’ve been with the same man for fifteen years. You could call me a Friend because I’m there, for laughs or for tears. Any of those things define me so much better than the singular hatred of calling me a slut because I use birth control.

But go ahead. Call me a slut. It doesn’t make me one.