Worse than a soundbite

Kansas recently approved legislation banning their health insurance providers from covering abortion under general health care plans. Women in Kansas now have to take out separate health care policies in addition to their regular ones if they don't want to pay for terminating an unwanted pregnancy out-of-pocket. This is about as sensible as making people take out separate health care policies for dealing with broken bones or genital warts¹.

I've seen a few pro-choice websites harping on the fact that, when asked if it was reasonable to expect women to take out these abortion-specific policies before they were impregnated through rape or incest, Kansas Rep. Pete DeGraaf said "I have a spare tire on my car." While I understand that this inflammatory statement is a perfect summary of the attitude that avoiding rape is the woman's responsibility², I feel like some of these blogs are focusing so much on this soundbite that they're missing the bigger issues here.

First, Kansas has passed legislature which guarantees that the abortion rate won't change, but that the rate of women who die from back-alley medical procedures will. I know this is obvious to any pro-choice advocate, but, considering how many states are adopting similar policies, I think it's important to remember how horrifying the reality of illegal abortion is.

Second, most women take responsibility for not being raped every day. We never walk home alone at night, we meet blind dates in public, we don't get shit-faced at parties where we don't know anyone. How effective these choices are is debatable, but the point is that many women's lives are shaped by thoughts of how to avoid being assaulted, sexually or otherwise.

While I would never argue that people shouldn't take reasonable precautions to protect themselves, it's important to remember that most men do not spend large portions of their lives worrying about what they can do to not be attacked. Most men also don't spend large portions of time thinking about how important getting consent from their partners is. When you consider these things along with the fact that rape survivors almost always blame themselves for their attacks, it seems like most of America agrees that women should prepare themselves for being raped, as DeGraaf suggests. In my opinion, that idea is much more horrific than any soundbite.


¹ Oh wait, those are her fault too.
² Because men and boys and trans folk don't get raped. Nope.