What Would Martin Luther King Jr. Say?
Posted by Michelle Moquin on January 20th, 2014
Good morning!
It wasn’t enough for the republicans to push legislation requiring women to purchase “Rape Insurance.” Well, it doesn’t end there. The misogynistic, I-will-control-your-body repubs are now pushing for a bill that would force the IRS to audit rape victims.
This is really getting to be ridiculous. Our rights over our bodies are getting trampled on. Women…ladies…girls…sisters…we have got to ban together and get these men out of our panties. What is it going to take for the sisters of the world who support these sick men to get over it and think for themselves and for their sisters? Really. I am just beside myself with the abuse that we are putting up with. And we really don’t have anyone to blame but ourselves.
What is wrong LADIES?! When are we going to get pissed off enough to DO SOMETHING?! Because it is getting bad.
House Republicans Are Pushing A Bill That Would Force The IRSTo Audit Rape Victims
House Republicans are currently advancing the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act,” or HR 7, a measure that would impose sweeping restrictions on abortion coverage that could make the procedure less affordable for Americans across the country. In addition to preventing low-income women from using their Medicaid coverage to access abortion, HR 7 could also have dramatic implicationsfor the tax code and the private insurance market. One of its most controversial provisions could actually require the Internal Revenue Service to conduct audits of rape victims.
Why? Because HR 7 eliminates medical-expense deductions for abortion care, essentially raising taxes on the women who opt to have an abortion. Like many abortion restrictions, this provision includes an exemption for victims of rape and incest, as well as women who encounter life-threatening complications from their pregnancies. But in order to enforce those exceptions, the IRS would have to verify that the women who are claiming a medical-expense deduction for an abortion fall into one of those three categories, to ensure they’re not committing tax fraud.
Essentially, that would empower the government agency to have the final say over what “counts” as a sexual assault or a life-threatening situation. And that, in turn, would force victims to prove their case.
“Imagine having to recount a sexual assault — a horrifyingly painful, personal experience — to a tax collector,” NARAL Pro-Choice America says in an action alert to its members to encourage them to mobilize against HR 7. “An anti-choice bill in Congress would do just that. It could force sexual assault survivors who access abortion care to prove the assault occurred.”
That certainly sounds horrific. However, it’s important to remember that HR 7 is hardly the only piece of anti-choice legislation that sets up this dynamic.
The biggest political controversies over abortion policies throughout the past year have centered on rape victims, highlighting the anti-abortion laws that don’t extend any exceptions to them. It’s easy to see why the pro-choice community focuses on leveraging the outrage surrounding rape and abortion. Voters overwhelmingly favor legal abortion access for individuals who have become pregnant from rape, and policies that don’t fall in line with that seem especially callous.
But even when abortion restrictions do include some kind rape exception, as HR 7 does, the issues don’t end there. Exceptions for rape victims have some unintended consequences. They require some kind of system to separate the women who have become pregnant from sexual assault from the other women who want to end a pregnancy for a different reason. They essentially necessitate “rape audits.”
And in states across the country, that’s exactly what’s already occurring. The audits aren’t being conducted by the IRS, but they are being conducted by state officials.
Medicaid coverage for abortion services provides the best example of this. The Hyde Amendment, the policy that currently forbids low-income women from using their Medicaid coverage to help pay for abortion services, includes the same exceptions as HR 7 does. Thirty two states and the District of Columbia follow that federal standard for their local Medicaid funds — so, if the women who live there want to claim one of those exemptions, they already need to sufficiently prove why they deserve it. Some states require more proof than others. In 22 states, low-income rape victims who want to use their Medicaid coverage to pay for their abortion need to present a doctor’s note. Eleven other states require them to file a report with law enforcement or a social services agency. Last year, Iowa approved a law that requires the governor to personally approve each woman who’s seeking an exception to the Medicaid coverage ban.
Studies have found that these exceptions don’t operate as intended. Most rape victims who rely on Medicaid don’t actually end up getting reimbursed for the procedure, largely because of all the red tape. “Basically these exceptions don’t work. It’s really a myth that there is coverage that is still provided,” Stephanie Poggi, the executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, told the Washington Post.
Nonetheless, that hasn’t stopped state legislatures from moving forward with similar restrictions in other areas of the insurance industry. Outside of Medicaid, several states have already imposed abortion restrictions on the private insurance market that are similar to HR 7. And the health reform law has given states an opportunity to impose coverage bans on the procedure in their new insurance marketplaces.
We already live in a world in which navigating insurance coverage for abortion is so complicated that many women simply assume their insurer won’t pay for it, and end up financing the entire cost out-of-pocket. And we already live in a world in which victims of sexual assault are forced to prove the validity of their experiences to a skeptical society that doubts they’re telling the truth. We certainly live in a world that’s enacted nearly as many barriers to abortion accessas humanly possible. Abortion restrictions that assume that some women’s reasons for terminating a pregnancy are somehow more valid than others exploits all of these dynamics. HR 7 fits neatly into this worldview — but it’s a continuation of a trend, rather than a brand-new outrage.
*****
Ladies: If come November you don’t take your lives on and vote in your own best interest, you will be bending over and kissing your rights goodbye, because the repub men are going to go at it even stronger if they have the opportunity.
Additional side note: In the above statement, I say “you” and not “we,” because there are many women who do vote their own minds, including myself. I am mostly speaking to those who don’t. Time to step up, and woman-up ladies. You know who you are.
Readers: I wonder what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would say about all of this? Well, in honor of his day, I am about to tell you that he was an advocate of contraception and the basic human right of women and couples to decide for themselves the number of children they wanted and were able to care for.
Family planning, in other words. And yes, we are still discussing this same topic almost 50 years later. I found this excerpt that I wanted to share with you.
In 1954, King began his ministry career at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. The post-war baby boom was picking up speed. Oral contraceptives weren’t yet available. Griswold v. Connecticut — the Supreme Court case that ruled people have a right to privacy and a state can’t ban contraception — was more than a decade away. The average American woman had nearly twice as many kids as she does today, and it wasn’t always easy to get by, especially for women and families of color. As one mother wrote to King in his December 1957 “Advice for Living” column, published in Ebony magazine:
Mother: We have seven children and another one is on the way. Our four-room apartment is bursting at the seams and living space in Harlem is at a premium. I have suggested to my husband that we practice birth control, but he says that when God thinks we have enough children, He will put a stop to it. I’ve tried to reason with him, but he says that birth control is sinful. Is he right?
Dr. Kings Answer: I do not think it is correct to argue that birth control is sinful. It is a serious mistake to suppose that it is a religious act to allow nature to have its way in the sex life. The truth is that the natural order is given us, not as an absolute finality, but as something to be guided and controlled. In the case of birth control the real question at issue is that between rational control and resort to chance. Another thing that must be said is that changes in social and economic conditions make smallerfamiliesdesirable, if not necessary. As you suggest, the limited quarters available in our large cities and the high cost of living preclude such large families as were common a century or so ago. A final consideration is that women must be considered as more than “breeding machines.” It is true that the primary obligation of the woman is that of motherhood, but an intelligent mother wants it to be a responsible motherhood-a motherhood to which she has given her consent, not a motherhood due to impulse and to chance. And this means birth control in some form. All of these factors, seem to me, to make birth control rationally and morally justifiable.
*****
Readers: “…when God thinks we have enough children, he will put a stop to it.” Dream on – that is such a line of crap. Men haven’t changed much have they?
Dr. King pretty much said that her husband was wrong. Thankfully he had his head on straight when it came to women. “…women must be considered as more than “breeding machines.” Amen Dr. King.
I’m not sure how Dr. King would respond to all of the sick stuff that our politicians are pushing to get passed, but I sure wish he were alive today so that I could hear his thoughts. I suspect it would be wise words like the above.
What do you think he would say? Blog me.
Mike, TM: How are you doing?
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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January 20th, 2014 at 10:08 am
These sick republicans won’t stop as long as dumb as dirt white women continue to elect them.
January 20th, 2014 at 10:31 am
Thanks for asking Michelle, I’m doing fine. It has been interesting reading you blog. The alien material has been riveting.
January 20th, 2014 at 12:29 pm
Hmmm I don’t recall saying I don’t wait 90 says or suggest that you do either.
I’m with the discovery theory Michelle wrote about.
I date until I decide, it could be shorter /not by much mind you/ or longer (had one man say I can’t wait till date 15 inferring he’d wait 90 days but then lets do it, I dropped that bc I decide when it’s right for me, no one tells me how many dates or weeks they’ll ‘wait’ – and no one dictates the exact timing but me.
I prefer to know someone bc it makes the connect all that much better, perhaps bc I said I wasn’t looking for marriage/living together you read into it? I don’t drink much so I go in sober also, highly suggest laying your careers in partying aside also if you want a real man. If your clear you want a casual friends with benefits and often people opt fr this after long affairs/marriages then go for it but not many women can handle the lack of emotional connect fr long. I just believe in ‘live and let live’ and I don’t believe that anyone should be shamed for whatever they do as long as they decided it, not woke up next to it in a blur of bad decision making.
Hope that makes sense?
Luv, Zen Lill
January 20th, 2014 at 2:13 pm
I feel you Zen Lill. But I don’t think
10. Kelly Says: January 20th, 2014 at 9:57 am
“Sometimes I think I should try the Zen Lill approach. She doesn’t seem to be a fan of the 90 days, but then how long should I wait?”
was saying she HAD to give it up on the 90th day, rather that she would make the man wait AT LEAST 90 days. Your points are well taken but as Michelle said if he get the pussy before 90 days, the ONLY one who benefits from that decision is the man.
There is NO up side for the woman. She gets to tell herself whatever she wishes to justify not believing she could hold on the man without fucking him earlier, but in the end that is all it is an excuse to give in. And only the man benefits. She just gets fucked early.
It may turn out to be okay, but it will be just luck. She will have had nothing to do with it. Whatever she tells herself to compensate for spreading her legs early is fine if it works to soothe how she feels about it.
January 20th, 2014 at 2:18 pm
Zen Lill, I’m 27 and a serious party girl. But I don’t fuck before the 90 days. If I found myself in bed with a man I didn’t remember agreeing to fuck, I’m going to be polite until he leaves and then I’m calling the cops.
I really don’t see what being a serious party girl has to do with wanting or finding “a real man.” When men are sowing their “wild oats” I don’t think they are told they have to stop to find a “real woman.” As I see it. If “a real man” comes along after at least 90 days, I will know it. Before that it is probably just the usual bullshit to get into my panty.
January 20th, 2014 at 2:42 pm
Zen Lill, I have been using the 90 day cut off for two years now. It has been great for me. I still get the occasional creep who lasted the 90 days but overall it saves you a lot of emotion baggage. Men can be incredible deceptive when it comes to gaining access to a woman’s pleasures.
I never tell a man he is on a 90 day schedule. What would be the point? He would only wait fuck you and leave grinning. I had a guy who lasted 193 days before I fucked him. Afterwards I didn’t hear from him again until a friend told me she saw him at a party all hugged up with a woman he has started shacking with.
He called inquiring about starting up with me again(really just wanting to get laid). When I inquired about the lady he was supposed to be shacking with, he informed me that it only lasted 4 months and she left him.
I am humoring the creep. But hell will freeze over before he gets between these legs again. He will spend way more money on me than he did the first time and that was considerable. I know he can afford it. I saw the apartment he put that woman in.
Yes Michelle, dating can be fun, if you can keep your head, when he is losing his little one to you.
January 20th, 2014 at 3:16 pm
It Is Martin Luther King Day Today in America. It is a day to remember the genious of a great man who happened to be Black. Martin Luther King was an Educated Speaker about Civil Rights for Blacks and OTWs in America during a tumultuous time in America. The White Man wanted to keep Blacks as an inferior class who lived in poverty — sort of a new version of slavery which barely kept food on the table for Blacks and no opportunity to better themselves.
They were just given permission by the White Man to Vote. Then Dr. King was assassinated.
I hope his words of his “Dream” will come true in my lifetime although I lived and was raised in the North where there was no blatant segregation, I was aware of the unfairness that was happening around me. “Whay were all the Janitors I saw Black Men working hard for little pay?
May Doctor Kings “Dream” come true and more power to the Black Man and OTWs. They should have every opportunity anyone else has. What did white people do to deserve special treatment? Why do they keep the poor and middle class stuck in that class forever? What gives them the right? Are they any better . . . NO!
May Doctor Kings words live on and catch on to everyone. We are all created equally and we should all acknowledge this fact.
Why can’t we live together in Peace? “Love thy Neighbor as Thyself” — This is universal saying in the Judeo-Christian religions.
HOWIE
January 20th, 2014 at 7:44 pm
I hear you, Howie, cheers to that.
I’m down with 90+ days but as an example above showed you could use other measures to see if he’s a real man and not just shacking around waiting fr 90-120 ‘days’ to pass, there are several
Indicators that he’s honorable though starting with 90 days is cool with me.
I didn’t say don’t party I just said that if you end up in bed while partying/dating (Katy Perry’s song) and not feeling so cool about it perhaps putting partying in hold is best, just a thought, much easier and less emotional trauma than calling in the cops (who over react to everything remember?) after the fact, but I could be wrong, carry on : )
…and I’m not sure comparing yourself with how a man operates is something to get into. It isn’t equal territory that’s the point, when was the last time you heard a man say he was saving his pretty precious penis for 90 days plus to see if she cares about me/values me (answer: never) why, bc (most) men operate differently.
-ZL
January 20th, 2014 at 10:44 pm
Exactly, Howie, why can’t we.
January 20th, 2014 at 10:46 pm
Zen lill, I agree with you. If the idiot keeps waking up in bed with men she didn’t agree to sleep with then she is (be honest) drinking way too much.
January 20th, 2014 at 10:50 pm
Zen Lill on the contraire my sweet. I once held back from fucking a slut that wanted this dick so bad she let me use her daughter for a month. When I brought that slut back it was well used. I refused to screw the bag of bones and she had me arrested for child molestation.
I am serving 24 to life for rape and kidnapping. The baby slut was 13 at the time and has since she turned 18 confessed that her mother gave her to me. Did they let me out or cut me some slack on my sentence. Hell NO!
You bitches can kiss my ass.
January 20th, 2014 at 10:52 pm
Howie if more people felt that way maybe we could start something good.
January 20th, 2014 at 11:18 pm
Guess this slut forgot to wait 90 days or 9 months. “A Salvadorean nun who said she had no idea she was pregnant gave birth in Italy this week after she felt stomach cramps in her convent and was rushed to hospital, Italian media reported on Friday.
The 31-year-old mother and her baby boy, who weighs 3.5 kilograms (7.7 pounds), are doing well and other new mothers in Rieti hospital have begun collecting clothes and donations for her, the reports said.
“I did not know I was pregnant. I only felt a stomach pain,” the nun was quoted as saying at the hospital, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
La Repubblica said she gave birth on Wednesday.
ANSA said the nun had named her baby Francesco (Francis) — also the pope’s chosen title and one of the most popular names in Italy, where St Francis of Assisi is the much-loved national patron saint.
The hospital could not be reached for comment.
The nun belongs to the “Little Disciples of Jesus” convent in Campomoro near Rieti, which manages an old people’s home and reports said she would keep the baby.
Her fellow nuns were quoted saying they were “very surprised”.
———————————
I bet them sluts were. Until their condoms ran out who knew how much good fucking was in a convent.
January 20th, 2014 at 11:55 pm
Michelle, you have a great blog. I love most of your regulars. Zen Lill, Howie, Social Butterfly, Anonz, Anonz. Anonz, and Prism Princess comes to mind. But on occasion you have some real weirdos that come creeping out of the woodwork to shock the shit out of us.
January 20th, 2014 at 11:57 pm
Zen lill, men only want to get a piece of us. They can be defined by how they go about it.
January 21st, 2014 at 7:12 am
Gloria, I agree!
Kristy, you can feel that way if it serves you. I just try to use my observational skills to discern what’s what…for some (*not all) men, who likely know the gist of Steve Harvey’s vetting process it may be part of their game, date several fr 90 days and have a friends w benefits situation until a ‘good one’ enters the crosshairs, who knows? I’m just saying there are other vetting methods (observing other behaviors) that have to be taken into account if your looking fr a nice/good/keeper man for the next few or many years (who knows how long even a properly vetted relationship will last) and life is lived in shades of grey it’s not a black and white and people (women included) are not always looking for the ‘one’ and dating and possibly choosing (at her own emotional risk, must take responsibility for your own actions) for a time, a less than permanent type of arrangement with a man, beneficially, if you will, to both parties.
If you insist that women gain nothing ever from a laiason unless it’s searching 90+ days first and he spends x amount if dollars first then you have created false criteria by which a relationship is created (90 + is fine just shouldn’t be on a list of stuff) – I’ve dated enough to know how to be watchful of certain types of ‘player’ behavior and that’s the stuff that’ll tip you off faster, it also helps to have a list of ‘non-negotiables’ ex and this is a fairly benign one, I don’t and won’t date men with young children, though I’m
Totally cool with older kids (12+) it’s always been that way for me, bc I know the work involved with younger ones (way back when I had a 3 yr luv w 2 young ones, very difficult to break up, the little one and I were in love, thus I choose not to repeat that) so those things are important to know about yourself so you’re not vetting someone who won’t even with even if they’re awesome for 90+ days….
That’s my drift and I hope you catch it?
That’s it from me, gotta roll…!
Luv, Zen Lill
PS Howie, if and when you’re up for it a debriefing would be great.
January 21st, 2014 at 7:14 am
Won’t with out with* (dang smartphone and predictive text) and apologies about run on paragraph there…
January 21st, 2014 at 10:39 am
I’m 22 and I have decided to try the 90 day period for the rest of the year. I will get back to the blog on my results. Frankly Zen Lill I can’t see the down side of making a man wait at least 90 days before I sleep with him.
Actually I see no legitimate or logical argument against it because if a woman does ONLY the man benefits. Zen Lill, if you can tell we what benefit a woman gains by sleeping with the man before that I will consider your argument.
So far all you have suggested is “other vetting methods (observing other behaviors) that have to be taken into account if your looking fr a nice/good/keeper man for the next few or many years…”
I fell to see how employing those “other vetting methods” during the 90 day period can’t be done. For me and I’m sure a lot of others, it is not about looking for “the one..” It is about making certain that the guy shows enough promise to get between these legs.
If he can do that in 90 days to my satisfaction, I will consider sleeping with him. But if he doesn’t, I will either cut him loose or extend him more time depending on what I discover during those 90 days.
The logic and principle behind the 90 days is to prevent me from sharing by body with an outright loser or cad or Slam-Bam-thank-you-maam. The 90 days doesn’t promise that at the guy that last 90 days will be a winner, but it does say he was a LOT better than those that cut and ran because they couldn’t bed me before the 90 days.