Two of my aunts died of cancer—one from ovarian and one from breast cancer—when I was a teenager.

From a medical perspective, this puts me in a higher-risk category.

From a personal perspective, it has meant that access to annual exams is what, I hope, will allow me to not repeat my aunts’ suffering as they both slowly and painfully lost their battles, and to not inflict the heartbreak that the family suffered in losing them so prematurely.

Reproductive health isn’t just about reproduction; it’s also about the lives of those already here.