“Just Changing The Optics”: The Republican Abortion Bill Shows They Still Believe Many Women Lie About Rape
In a move being credited to the wisdom of Republican women lawmakers, the House will not be voting on a sweeping 20 week abortion ban that only allowed for rape and incest exceptions if the victims reported their assaults to police. (Because Republicans know just how much women love to lie about rape and incest to get those sweet, sweet abortions!)
But before we pat all those kind, considered Republican women on the back for their reasoned withdrawal of support for a bill that would’ve made women file police reports 20 weeks after being assaulted in order to have the option of not being forced to have their rapist’s baby, let’s not forget that all of this is just political posturing. The bill – or even another, less extreme 20 week abortion ban – was unlikely to ever pass the Senate, and President Obama made clear that he would veto it if it did.
So backing off on yet another terrible anti-abortion bill – they tried this in 2011 with the “forcible rape” provisions in the Hyde Amendment renewal – is not a sign that Republicans will be more moderate with their future restrictions on reproductive rights, or that Republican women will be able to temper the radical anti-choice agenda of their party.
It’s great, sure, that Representatives Renee Ellmers and Jackie Walorski took their names off the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, and that Ellmers also reportedly lobbied her female colleagues against the legislation. But I don’t believe this was some change of her anti-choice heart: more likely, she simply realized that the bill’s extreme requirements for rape and incest exceptions to the blanket ban wouldn’t exactly go over well with American women.
During a time when sexual assault and the difficulty of reporting it is a central part of the national conversation, forcing women and girls to go to the police before they can access abortion makes Republicans seem even more out of touch with the issues women face than usual. According to RAINN, 68% of sexual assaults aren’t reported to police, and numbers are even harder to come by for incest – where so often the victims are young girls.
Still, Republicans will now get to introduce and support anti-woman legislation, but they’ll have the advantage of appearing less radical than they are because they supposedly have a few “reasonable” women in the party keeping them in check on women’s issues. And any 20-week abortion ban is a bad thing for women, even without “forcible rape” or “reported rape” provisions.
Trotting out a few female Republicans and changing some words in a bill doesn’t change the reality of how the party feels about – or legislates – abortion; it just changes the optics. Republicans still want to deny people access to sex education, they still want to deny women access to contraception, they still want to prevent us from getting abortions and they still want to eliminate the Roe v Wade decision that protects our rights – and they want to do all of this despite the irreparable harm that it will cause American women.
The Republican women who forced House leadership to withdraw this one bill aren’t “reasonable” – they’re just smart enough to know that they need to shroud just how radically anti-woman their party really is. Good luck with that.
By: Jessica Valenti, The Guardian, January 22, 2015
“Punish Them At The Polls”: Michigan’s Sweeping “Rape Insurance” Law Goes Into Effect
A new Michigan law forcing individuals or businesses to purchase costly additional insurance to cover abortion care went into effect Thursday.
The law applies to private health plans in the state, including plans secured through the state health exchange and employer plans. If a person does not purchase the additional insurance, then they will be forced to pay out of pocket for the procedure if they need to access abortion care. As it stands, very few insurance plans cover abortion care; the new law will likely further drive down the already tiny fraction of abortions covered by health insurance in the state, potentially putting the procedure financially out of reach for many people.
There were approximately 23,000 abortions performed in Michigan last year, and barely 3 percent of them were covered by insurance.
As Jessica Valenti at the Nation rightly pointed out at the time the measure first passed the Republican-controlled Legislature, eliminating insurance coverage for abortion will have devastating consequences for all people who need abortion care, which is essential and basic medical care. There is no hierarchy of “good” abortions or “bad” abortions. But pro-choice lawmakers in Michigan and much of the national coverage has focused on what many see as the most extreme feature of the law — its lack of exceptions for survivors of rape or incest.
The lack of exceptions has led many to call the law “rape insurance.”
At the time of the vote, Senate Majority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said she was raped as a college student and couldn’t imagine having to face the additional trauma of such a law had she gotten pregnant. She asked her “Republican colleagues to see the face of the women they’re hurting by their actions today.”
“Thank God I didn’t get pregnant as a result of my own attack,” she continued, “but I can’t even begin to imagine now having to think about the same thing happening to my own daughters.”
By: Katie McDonough, Assistant Editor, Salon, March 13, 2014
“Good Girls Don’t Have To Pay”: Michigan’s Shameful “Rape Insurance” Plan
No one plans to get raped, to be the victim of incest or to find herself pregnant when her birth control fails or was not used (something that is a joint responsibility, which lawmakers trying to legislate sex sometimes forget). So why would anyone buy abortion insurance? Who plans for such a thing?
Yet, this is exactly what Michigan’s legislature is requiring women to do. Using a rare procedural tactic, the state’s legislature is forcing – without the signature of the governor, conservative Republican Rick Snyder – women to obtain “abortion insurance” even before they get pregnant. The idea is so extreme that even Snyder opposes it. And it flies in the face of perhaps the most important part of the Affordable Care Act, that which prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage due to “pre-existing conditions.”
It’s similar to policies some people have had prior to the passage of the ACA, policies that, for example, demanded people buy special cancer insurance just in case they get the serious illness. Who thinks he or she will get cancer? But if you do, and you don’t have the coverage to pay for the very expensive treatment, you’re dead. Maybe literally.
What makes the Michigan law so hateful and misogynist is that it has little to do with actual cost; abortions don’t cost as much as chemotherapy and tumor-removal surgery. It’s about shaming women, insisting that they brand themselves with a big scarlet A on themselves to show they think they may be just the sort of irresponsible whores who might need abortion access at some point. Good girls, apparently, don’t have to pay, since they won’t be having sex.
And what about cases of rape or incest? It shouldn’t matter, since the decision to have an abortion ought not be based on whether the female in question is a victim or sexually active. But women and girls – some of whom might be too poor to pay for an abortion or too scared to come forward after an assault – will have to pony up for an abortion or pay in advance.
This raises some interesting issues for the defense, should a female report a rape or incest to police. So, Miss Slutsmith, you purchased abortion insurance. Should we not infer that you were planning to get pregnant – and could not possibly have been raped or abused by a male relative?
But then again, the law doesn’t address men’s sexual health. It doesn’t insist that men pay in advance, for example, for treatment for sexually transmitted diseases or for Viagra. They get to have sex without consequence, unlike the women. They don’t have to give up their privacy and undergo the humiliation of paying extra to deal with erectile dysfunction or gonorrhea. But for the women – shame! The word is appropriate here. But it ought to be directed at the Michigan legislature.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, December 13, 2013
“Practicing Without A License”: Iowa Governor Must Personally Decide Whether Each Poor Woman On Medicaid Deserves Abortion Coverage
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) has approved a measure to expand his state’s Medicaid program under Obamacare, which will extend health coverage to tens of thousands of his poor residents. But there’s a catch buried in the Medicaid expansion legislation that the governor signed last week. Now, when low-income women on Medicaid seek insurance coverage for medically-necessary abortions, they’ll have to get approval from Branstad himself.
State-level Medicaid programs often exclude abortion from the health services they will cover for low-income beneficiaries. Just like the Hyde Amendment prevents federal money from directly funding abortion care, over 35 states have decided they don’t want state dollars to pay for abortion, either. Just 17 states allow low-income women on Medicaid to receive insurance coverage for most abortion services — the others, like Iowa, will only permit those women to be reimbursed for the cost of their abortion in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment.
But now Iowa is going a step further. If a woman who gets her health care through Medicaid has an abortion that falls under one of the exceptions in the state’s abortion coverage ban — if she has been a victim of rape or incest, if her fetus has fatal abnormalities that won’t allow it to survive outside the womb, or if her life will be put in danger unless she ends the pregnancy — she’ll need to have her case approved by the governor’s office. Presumably, Branstad will choose whether to approve or deny each woman’s request for insurance coverage for her abortion. It’s the first law of its kind in any state.
“This bill — now law — is outrageous on many different levels,” Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a recent statement. “Women in Iowa already face so many barriers in trying to get safe, legal abortion care. Now their governor will be deciding personally on a case-by-case basis, whether a woman’s doctor will be paid for providing a legal, medically appropriate, and constitutionally guaranteed procedure.”
Under Iowa’s current policy, a state agency already reviews claims for Medicaid funding of abortion services to make sure the billing is adhering to the law and doesn’t fall outside of the approved exceptions. As the Des Moines Register reports, that process will likely continue under the new law. But there’s a notable difference: “instead of the final call being rendered by the Medicaid medical director, the democratically elected and politically accountable governor will decide.”
Low-income women are unlikely to be able to afford bills for abortion care, which can exceed $1,000 dollars. If the governor decides that Medicaid won’t cover the cost of an abortion procedure, the medical providers will likely be forced to absorb the cost.
Ultimately, denying low-income women access to affordable abortion services simply exacerbates the economic divides that lead some desperate women to seek out illegal abortion providers. By passing a mounting number of state laws that prevent women from using their insurance coverage to pay for reproductive care — as well as by forcing abortion clinics out of business and driving up the cost of the abortion pill — lawmakers are essentially making abortion too expensive for low-income women to access at all.
By: Tara Culp-Ressler, Think Progress, June 25, 2013
“A Citizen Filibuster”: Fed Up And Determined, Progressive Activists Just Might Secure A Victory For Reproductive Rights In Texas
Two years ago, the Texas Legislature passed a law requiring that women seeking abortions first have a sonogram. If it’s early in a pregnancy, the law would require submitting to a transvaginal sonogram, with a wand inserted into the vagina. Even though a similar measure subsequently stirred national controversy in Virginia, prompting its defeat, progressives in Texas could barely mount a fight. Passage was inevitable, everyone knew, and the cause quixotic—because, after all, this was Texas.
That era may be over. For the past several days, activists have been waging a pitched battle in Austin against Senate Bill 5, a measure that would severely restrict abortions after 20 weeks and close most of the state’s abortion clinics. Since Thursday night, hundreds of activists have been protesting, packing galleries and committee hearings and every spare nook of the capitol. The intensity of the public outcry is notable in a state known for low voter turnout and a vastly outnumbered Democratic Party. With the session ending on Tuesday night, if lawmakers and activists can keep up the pressure, they may be able to kill the bill.
Texas’s regular legislative session ended last month, but governors can call special sessions to address specific “emergency” legislation. At first, Rick Perry called this one to approve new redistricting maps. It was only halfway through the month-long gathering that he added abortion restrictions to the agenda.
A hearing on Thursday in the House State Affairs Committee set off the clock-ticking drama. More than 600 pro-choice advocates arrived to voice their opposition to the clinic regulations and the 20-week ban. The activists made up 92 percent of those who signed up to testify; they called their effort a “citizen filibuster.” The chair began to get restless with the testimony, calling it “repetitive,” and eventually cut off debate—but not until 4 a.m. The committee approved the legislation and sent it to the floor.
By Sunday, when the House convened to debate and vote, the fight had reached a fever pitch. The House had multiple bills, but because of the time crunch decided to focus on Senate Bill 5. The measure requires that all abortions, including those performed by giving a woman a pill, be performed in clinics that meet surgical standards—a requirement normally reserved for surgical procedures that require incision. That requirement would prompt the closure of more than 30 clinics across the state; only five clinics in Texas currently meet the “surgical ambulatory care” standard. The measure also has an outsized impact on rural women, since it requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges to a hospital within a 30-mile radius.
The House version of the bill adds a ban on all abortions after 20 weeks, unless the life of the mother is in danger or the fetus has birth defects so severe that it could die. The addition of the abortion ban means the bill must go back to the Senate for approval. With only two days left to complete all business, however, that gave House Democrats a chance to delay the bill and give their colleagues in the Senate a chance at a filibuster to kill it.
Activists flooded the capitol, most clad in burnt orange T-shirts, the color of the University of Texas, reading: “Stand with Texas Women.” They filled the House gallery, outnumbering pro-life advocates who were wearing blue. Allies from other states sent pizzas to keep them fed, and local shops began sending supplies of food and coffee.
Using parliamentary tactics, Democrats successfully delayed consideration of the bill for hours. They submitted more than two dozen amendments designed to showcase the absurdity of the bill. (One would have required a preponderance of peer-reviewed scientific evidence to justify the ban.) When questioned about the lack of support in the medical community for the bill, the sponsor, Republican Representative Jodie Laubenberg, explained that she knew a gynecologist who supported the bill. The Texas Medical Association and Texas Hospital Association, as well as the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, all oppose the measure.
Points of order followed amendments as the hours ticked by. In perhaps the most notable exchange, Democratic Representative Senfronia Thompson offered an amendment to exempt rape and incest victims from the ban. She stood with a coat hanger in her hand, and asked her colleagues, “Do you want to return to the coat hanger? Or do you want to give them an option to terminate their pregnancy because they have been raped?”
Laubenberg responded with the latest in a Republican pantheon of spectacular misstatements on abortion: She implied that rape kits prevent pregnancy because “a woman can get cleaned out.” Her remark prompted widespread criticism and mockery from social media. After that, Laubenberg stopped directly responding to amendments. But her lack of knowledge about rape and pregnancy put her in company with a number of U.S. congressmen. During the 2012 election, Missouri’s Congressman Todd Akin argued that women’s bodies had ways of “shutting down” the possibility of pregnancy after a “legitimate rape”; more recently, Arizona’s Trent Franks noted that the odds of pregnancy after rape were “very low.”
The Texas bills are part of a larger national fight. Just last week, the U.S. Congress passed a similar 20-week abortion ban; though the measure has no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, it helped showcase the chasm between Democrats and Republicans on the issue. Earlier this year, North Dakota passed the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, outlawing all abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which usually occurs around six weeks into pregnancy. That law is currently making its way through litigation. Generally, such measures aren’t faring well in court. Idaho’s 20-week ban was found unconstitutional in March by the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, and in May, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Arizona’s 20-week ban.
The battle in Texas raged on until Republicans cut off debate around 4 a.m. Monday morning, finally passing the bill on the floor for the first time. They returned fewer than three hours later to vote it through again, as required by procedural rules. Later Monday morning, they passed a required “third reading,” which sends the bill to the Senate. However, there’s a 24-hour waiting period before the Senate can take up the bill and pass it in its turn.
That means the bill will reach the Texas Senate on Tuesday morning. Democrats have vowed a filibuster, which would block the bill’s passage. They will only have to hold out until midnight on Tuesday to give reproductive rights supporters a surprising victory in Texas.
By: Abby Rapoport, The American Prospect, June 24, 2013
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