Wordsmoker

I am a very busy lady. I have appointments to keep, shift exchanges at work to track, and even the occasional date. I have to use a calendar because of my awful memory, and it looks like I’m going to have put one more item on my To Do List: Get raped.

We ladies plan for everything else, so it only makes sense for us to also plan for the little inconvenience of having our bodies violated, and be double extra certain we have insurance in the event we get pregnant from the rape and decide to terminate it. At least, that’s the level of planning expected by Kansas Representative Pete DeGraaf ( R )—who also happens to be a man.

In what is rapidly becoming an (unsurprising) trend among Xtian right-wingers, the Kansas State Legislature passed a law to ban insurance companies from offering abortion coverage in their general health plans, except when a woman’s life is at risk. This is clearly a challenge aimed at poor and single-income women. Millions of women in the United States can’t afford health insurance as it is, or are barely able to afford it. How many of them do you think are going to be able to cough up the extra dough to add on the abortion insurance rider? This is yet another attack on all women by a group of people who have determined that their belief in fairy tales somehow makes them morally superior to those around them, giving them the right to force liberty-reducing laws on others.

One section in particular (there are so many) made my blood boil. It made me want to reach for a rusty, nail-laden 2×4 and camp outside DeGraaf’s home for an opportunity to bury it in his big fat melon face.

During the House debate, Rep. Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Republican who supports abortion rights, questioned whether women would buy abortion-only policies before they have crises or unwanted pregnancies or are rape victims.

Rep. Pete DeGraaf, a Mulvane Republican who supports the bill, told her: “We do need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life?”

Bollier asked him, “And so women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with a pregnancy?”

DeGraaf drew groans of protest from some House members when he responded, “I have [a] spare tire on my car.”

“I also have life insurance,” he added. “I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”

[SOURCE: McPherson Sentinel]

There are so many things wrong with what came out of his mouth, but I will do my best to address them in an organized manner:

• A spare tire – A SPARE FUCKING TIRE?! Are you out of your ever lovin’ mind? People expect to eventually damage a tire: hit a nail in a construction zone, wear it out, blow it in an accident. That’s why we carry spares: because all three of those things frequently happen, and they are an expected setback of owning a vehicle. Why is an abortion-only policy NOT like a spare tire? Because rape is not an expected or acceptable setback associated with being a woman. “Oh, you’re a woman? Yeah, at some point, you’re going to be raped.” What the fuck?
• DeGraaf contradicts himself. In one instance he’s saying that women need to prepare for the unexpected. Yet, women who have sought out health insurance, whether through an employer or independently, did exactly that. They acquired MEDICAL insurance, and pregnancy termination is a MEDICAL procedure. So his issues is obviously not that he’s worried about them being prepared; his concern is about whose money is going towards it. “We’d much rather your body be submitted to further violation for an additional nine months while you deal with the physical and emotional trauma of carrying the byproduct of violence. We’d like you to have to make the gut-wrenching decision of whether to care for the infant, while we scoff at any requests for assistance in doing that, or give it up for it to be adopted (hopefully), at which time we will then bitch and moan about our money going to the state to raise the little bastard.”
• I’m guessing this law also applies to children then? Families will have to buy rape abortion insurance not only just for the adult female in the relationship, but also for any female children they have? I’m sure that’s going to be affordable.

I personally believe women should be prepared to fight, with fists and firearms and any other means necessary, to protect themselves from sexual attacks and other physical harm. However, in the event that someone overpowers and disarms them and violates them in a manner as cruel and iniquitous as rape, I also believe that these women and girls—these daughters, mothers, best friends, sluts, teachers, and pastors wives (and everyone in between)—should not be forced to relive that rape; seeing it over and over again every time they stare at their growing bellies in the mirror or feel the seed of violence kick against their womb. They should not be shamed for wanting to vindicate a wrong, to want to erase the result of a most heinous evil done against them; nor should their sense of self and the right to their bodies be held for ransom at the will of men who live without ever having to worry about their very same freedoms being taken away.

Would you like to give Rep. DeGraaf a piece of your mind? Here’s his contact information, courtesy of his Legislature homepage:

Capitol Office
Phone: 785-296-7693
Email:pete.degraaf@house.ks.gov

Home Information

1545 East 119th
Mulvane, Kansas 67110
Phone: 316-777-0715
Email:petedegraaf@att.net