This week Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill repealing Michigan’s ban on insurance coverage for abortion without purchasing a separate rider.
The rider requirement was passed 10 years ago this week. Imagine that, because someone has certain genitalia, they were required to buy a special rider to ensure insurance coverage of a pregnancy, regardless of whether the result of a wanted pregnancy, a sexual assault, a genetic anomaly, or some other health factor that made proceeding untenable.
No similar requirement existed for men. No similar requirement existed for those who speed or drink too much or eat junk food or who smoke. How could anything be more patently unfair, discriminatory, and misogynistic?
Whitmer’s repeal of the rider requirement is welcome and stands in sharp contrast to Texas where a young mother of two, Kate Cox recently fled the state, seeking a termination of a wanted pregnancy because of a diagnosis of Trisomy-18 which, combined with her specific medical history (two prior C-sections, leaking amniotic fluid, four ER visits). Carrying the pregnancy to term could result in her death or loss of her fertility.
It's hard not to write about this without screaming in all caps. Prior to her leaving the state, she appeared in court PLEADING FOR HER LIFE.
She asked that her children be ALLOWED TO GROW UP WITH THEIR MOTHER.
After the court rule in her favor, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (credibly accused of bribery and an extramarital affair) appealed the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court which overturned the lower court ruling as the days ticked by, each one threatening the health of a young mother.
If the particulars of this case do not meet the definition of a medically necessary termination (loss of life, fertility, fetus), nothing will.
Paxton et al in Texas are degrading women, wives, sisters, daughters, and friends with this extremism. Paxton and Texas Republicans let it be known that they’d come after any doctor willing to perform a termination. This will have the same chilling impact on doctors specializing in women’s health care leaving states that criminalize health care – as has happened in Idaho, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida.
It's so hard not to scream in all caps.
