Texas woman drives four hours to Planned Parenthood after being shamed for hickey

A Texas woman who was shamed by her doctor for having a hickey and wanting birth control says she is now forced to drive four hours to a Planned Parenthood clinic for health care due to the state's new anti-abortion laws.

Athena Mason told KUT that her first visit to the doctor as a student at Texas A&M was awkward.

“I had a hickey and the doctor was just like, you shouldn’t be doing that," she recalled. "I’m like, 'It’s a hickey, it’s nothing major.' But I got a big lecture. [He said] my boyfriend was abusive and all of these things. And then I asked for birth control. I did not hear the end of that. So I said never mind, I’ll go somewhere else."

Mason started using the Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan. But that facility is one of four women's health service providers that closed in August after the state passed new regulations restricting abortions.

So Mason now drives four hours to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin for health care.

In 1998, Cadence King was diagnosed with pre-cancerous cells on her cervix and became a patient at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan. She had returned for regular checkups in the years since, but she has missed visits in recent weeks because the clinic closed.

King is now struggling to find a new health care provider. Her only options are driving three hours to Beaumont or waiting four months for the next opening with the one Bryan clinic that's willing to take her case.

"I’m probably up against that window right now," she explained to KUT. "There are some decisions that I need to make. And sticking your head in the sand is only good for so long."

[Ed. note: The original version of this story failed to note that it is a 4 hour round-trip drive between Bryan and Austin, Texas, as stated in the broadcast report.]

Listen to the audio below from KUT, broadcast Sept. 16, 2013.

[Photo credit: Woman patient holding head with doctors via Shutterstock]

(h/t: Burnt Orange Report)