Welcome to Well, That Sucked, our weekly compendium of exactly what it sounds like. Thrown in this week’s garbage: those unlucky rapists.
Let’s be charitable to Michigan: maybe this is all a part of the state’s attempt to change its state motto from “Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice” to “Sweet Black Jesus, We Need To Get Out Of Here.”
The state recently passed a measure that bans insurance providers from covering abortion in private health plans—unless the woman’s life is at risk—even if the woman has been raped. Women would have to purchase a separate rider, a kind of “rape insurance” to have an abortion covered if a pregnancy occurred from rape.
First of all, this is completely unnecessary, since everybody knows you can’t get pregnant from an actual, legitimate rape: the female body has a way of shutting that whole thing down.
But the legislation also fails to make an exception for pregnancies that come with fetal abnormalities, forcing women to carry fetuses to term that won’t survive. That’s unless they can pay the $500 for a first-trimester abortion, out of pocket.
Amazingly, the bill passed even after it was vetoed twice, including once by Gov. Rick Snyder who is himself vocally pro-life, and even he thought the bill was one bridge too far. Michigan did, however, just recently outlaw forcing a woman to marry against her will, so let’s not set our expectations too high.
Spectacularly, this legislation asks women to do the math on how likely it is that they’ll be raped and become pregnant. Imagine having this talk with your insurance provider, explaining very calmly that you think there’s a preeeetty good chance you’re going to be raped this calendar year, so, you know, better safe than sorry.
Think about it in the ways you think about whether you’ll need flood insurance for your house. Do you live in a rainy city? Do you know if the basement has flooded before? Is there anything particularly secure in the basement? If it did flood, would it devalue the home?
Now transfer that kind of logic to your body. Your body is a house. You have medical insurance, life insurance, vision, dental. But do you need to protect your basement from flooding?
Do you like your basement? Has the basement been damaged before? Do you often worry about having something happen to your basement? Would you be humiliated in every way conceivable if something happened in your basement? Do police have a history of not believing women when they say something happened to their basements? Is there a great deal of shame in reporting a basement intrusion? If something were to tragically happen to your basement, would you be furious if you had to pay for the damages straight out-of-pocket? Could you afford it? What if you have daughters? Do you have to buy flood insurance for your daughters? Do you actually need to save money just in case something happens to your daughter’s house?
But, look, it’s not even that likely. No one actually buys flood insurance, you just hope to high hell nothing happens to your house when it rains—even if it does happen to one woman every 17 minutes in Canada, give or take. So, maybe just don’t leave the house and you should be fine. Your house-house, not your vagina-house.
At least this is good for all those insurance companies—those poor, beleaguered insurance companies. Do you have any idea how many times they’ve been duped into paying for abortions when the woman hasn’t even been raped? It’s rude, is what it is.
As always, though, we’ve forgotten about the rapists more than anyone else. The underrepresented rapists. Isn’t anyone going to think about the rights of the rapists?
When a man rapes a woman, there’s a tacit agreement that she isn’t going to be forced to have her rapist’s baby. I mean, what kind of backwards, torturous state wouldn’t provide services for women after they face the worst kind of emotional and physical trespass? But by forcing women to pay for their own abortions, either through a separate insurance provider or directly to the clinic, there aren’t a lot of choices. Quite simply, some women won’t be able to afford that cost without assistance. What other choice do they have?
These rapists should have a say in family planning. I mean, the whole reason the woman is pregnant is because of him. What if he doesn’t even want the kid?
This never would have happened if Mitt Romney were president.
Well, That Sucked appears every Friday.
Image via Dogjing beause what other image could we use for a story like this?
