On the AHCA

The saddest thing about this current presidency is the number of friends I feel that I am losing. It’s only gotten worse with the AHCA. How can anyone with a shred of decency be happy about a bill that allows rape to be classified as a pre-existing condition?

Think abou it.

 Rape. Pre-existing. Condition.

A rape victim could be paying a higher premium (or be priced out altogether) while his/her attacker can still have no problem gaining and keeping insurance. Let’s not forget – rape victims are not just women. Rape is underreported, but men vastly underreport it.

I know a few people who call themselves Christian and yet support the AHCA. They aren’t even in Congress. For them, it comes down to the whole abortion is bad belief. Yet, what they are also saying is that a woman’s life is worth far less than anything else, even that bundle of cells in her body. Even worth less than a possibility of that bundle of cells in her body.

Combining this bill with the defunding of Planned Parenthood means women will lack basic and needed medical care. Pap smears and mammograms are not covered. Because why? Because the people who wanted this don’t have vaginas. Or, as one twitter post commented, haven’t touched one in years.

With Planned Parenthood underfunded and in some cases having to close centers, women will lack access to pap smears, mammograms, and pre-natal screening.

Rape. A pre-existing condition.

I’m going to keep repeating that because it is important.

According to RAINN, every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted. 60,000 children are victims each year.

Rape. A pre-existing condition.

60,000 children becoming/joining higher cost/risk pools under AHCA each year.

Being in those pools for the rest of their lives.

While women (and girls) make up 90% of victims and men 10% (according to RAINN), it should be noted that men unreported far more than a woman. If women face questions about being able to fend off an attacker, think of the questions a man faces.

According to the work of Debra Rowland, insurance companies have long denied covering contraceptives because women chose to have sex (see Boundaries of Her Body 271). Viagra and other male aids are covered because they have other uses.

The thing is that for women contraceptive devices have other uses as well and the obstacles that women have to overcome to get it covered are ridiculous. I had to have a IUD installed because of continuous heavy bleeding.   Incidentally the packages of Always I went through on a weekly basis weren’t covered either.

Imagine always bleeding, therefore always exhausted, and always worried about an accident because of heavy clots. And your job is standing in front of people and talking.

Then add the hoops.

My insurance doesn’t cover contraceptives and that is what an IUD is. First, I had to call my insurance. Then my doctor had to send them the medical history. Then the insurance says yes, only to say no on the day the device is installed. Then yes, again. Then no, again. I get sent a bill. A month of phone calls later, it finally gets straightened out. If it wasn’t for the last woman I talked to, I would have had to pay $1500 dollars.

Do men have to go thought that shit to get a blue pill?

Rape. A pre-existing condition.

It took years for marital rape to be a crime. Today, studies have discovered that partner violence includes a forced pregnancy (such as a husband raping a wife). Kate Harding cites that 64% of rapes are not reported, 12% of rape cases feature an arrest, and 2/3 of cases are dismissed (Asking for It 106).

If a woman who is already struggling to pay for standard and needed exams or birth control is raped, under AHCA why the hell would she report it? Those numbers are only going to get higher.

Now tell me we don’t live in a rape culture.

I dare you.

I cannot help but reach the conclusion that if you support AHCA, you support the punishment of women for being raped. It is honor killing but in another form, isn’t it?

AHCA endorses the rape myths, even if only passively – she asked for it, it wasn’t rape, she wanted it – and so on. After all, she must be punished somehow for wanting the morning after pill – a form of an abortion for some people. That is, if she can get access to the pill at all. We have cases of women who have reported being raped being prosecuted under their school’s honor codes for getting drunk (see: “At Bingham Young, a Cost in Reporting Rape” by Jack Healy writing for the NY Times).

And if you support the punishment of women for being raped, I do not want to know you.

Rape. A pre-existing condition.