This week Michigan became the 9th state where a woman would need private and separate health insurance to have an abortion. It is known as “Abortion Insurance Rider.”
A Rider is an extra expense weighing on women and women only. But even though a woman pays an additional premium for this coverage, if she is not ready to have a family or if the fetus has no chance of surviving outside the womb, she still is not allowed to have an abortion unless the State gives her the thumbs up.
These laws are being forced on women by the religious right who cares not for the rights of anyone, who doesn’t believe in the democratic system of voting – mostly because they know that if these bills are placed on the ballot, they will be rejected by the minority - so they sneak their opinion and believes into other bills, sometimes not even related to health or reproduction.
In most red states, only if the mother’s life is at risk can a woman have an abortion. This means, that even when she pays more for her insurance plan than her partner and more than a woman from another, she still doesn’t have the right to end a pregnancy… it is not her choice, it is the choice of the State, the religious right and the doctor, but never the woman.
In Idaho [R] women must get a Rider to cover the possibility of an elective abortion. The only acceptable reasons to have an abortion in Idaho is if the woman’s life is at risk and if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. No other reason is accepted, even with a Rider.
In Kansas [R], Kentucky [D], Michigan [R], Missouri [D], Nebraska [R], North Dakota [R] and Oklahoma [R] a woman can have an abortion only to “preserve the life of the female.” Rape, incest, a deformed fetus or intrauterine death (fetus dead in the womb) any of these possibilities are not good enough reasons to have an abortion, not even with a Rider.
Oddly enough, out of the nine states that have passed legislation to control a woman’s womb, Utah legislation on Riders is not as strict. Utah’s legislation is the only one that allows an abortion for fetal impairment.
Every one of these nine States prohibits health insurance plans in the Healthcare Exchanges to provide elective abortion coverage in their plans.
According to The Guttmacher Institute, the percentage of abortions in each of these states (latest data collected is from 2008) is very low and the study doesn’t specify the reason for these abortions, only the number of abortions that occurred that year. Given the figures, I truly cannot understand the obsession by the Right to interfere with a woman’s right to choose.
FIGURES ARE BASED ON THE GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE AND 2008 DATA
Most of the Red States, if not all, have been very busy passing legislature to prohibit women control over their own genitalia and reproductive system. These are the same governors and legislators that claim they want smaller government, but they do not mind to expand that government as much as they can if by doing so they can keep women under their control.
It’s worth mentioning that many of the States prohibiting abortions even in the case of incest or rape, gives parental and visitation rights to rapists. If this is not absurd and an openly war on women, then nothing is!
We are slowly going back to the times where women were sub-citizens, at the mercy of the men in her family, church, neighborhood and the state. When a country needs to create laws to subjugate and control one section of its citizens, then that government cannot call itself a Democracy.
I am yet to see any legislation regulating men’s genitalia... the only one was to have Viagra deemed a necessary drug covered by all insurance plans… You see, most legislators at State and Federal levels are old enough for their penises not to work properly; it is in their interest to have that blue pill covered by insurance.
If we can’t reverse these horrific laws, then I think it’s way overdue that we start getting into men’s prostate, testicles and penises. If we want to preserve our Democracy, the government should get into every citizen’s genitalia. We might have to consider mandatory vasectomies and Riders for men between the ages of 14 to 90 that will cover supporting a child until adulthood, in case they impregnate a woman by mistake... After all, when it comes to sex, it needs two to tango.
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