I am a woman. I live in America. I’m on birth control. I’m a medical patient, who gets my prescription through a doctor’s office, and I depend on my employer-supplied insurance for it.

So the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case shocked me. But more than anything, it scared me. Because in all the justifications I’ve heard for the decision, there’s an ugly notion resting underneath. Medically speaking, the court has implied, birth control is different from other medication.

On the SCOTUS live blog, here’s how it was phrased: “This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates, that is for blood transfusions or vaccinations, necessarily fail if they conflict with an employer's religious beliefs.”

In other words, this decision was intended to have no bearing on other, more “legitimate” medical needs. Things like transfusions and shots are safe, because it’s generally accepted that these are good medicine, and you’d be crazy to deny someone access to them. But contraceptives are a squishier subject. Because they are closely aligned with sex, they’re tainted.

It hurts me to hear this, because I remember a time when I believed it. When I was diagnosed, as a young teen, with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS, a condition with a wide range of reproductive symptoms. When I learned that, in my case, my body holds on to the endometrium instead of shedding it, leaving me at heightened risk for disease. When I was told, in no uncertain terms, that oral contraceptives were the only option to help my reproductive system function close to normally, and thus keep me healthy in the long run. When I was first put on birth control, long before I became sexually active.