I Just Don't Even Have Words

[Trigger warning for contempt for women's bodily autonomy and hostility to survivors of sexual assault.]

Proposed state legislation in Pennsylvania, introduced by a Republican dude named Don White, who is at very low risk for sexual assault and will never need an abortion, would "prohibit private health insurance plans sold in Pennsylvania's state 'exchange'—created under the new federal health care law—from offering abortions and require rape victims to report the crime within 72 hours in order to receive an abortion."

The insurance exchanges, which don't go into effect until 2014, will serve those who do not have access to employer-based health plans, including the unemployed and small business employees.

Under the law, any health insurance plan that contracts with the exchange must create a system to ensure no federal funds are used for abortion coverage -- including the collection of two separate payments from the beneficiary, one for abortion coverage and one for all other health care coverage.

The proposed bill would deny insurance plans participating in the exchange from covering abortions except in cases where the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, or where the life of the woman is in danger.

So basically what we have here is the intersection of exceptioneering and craven Democratic capitulation, and exactly what wasn't supposed to happen when feminists/womanists asserted that women had been sold out for insurance reform is now happening. With an added twist of hostility toward rape survivors.

I just don't even have words. This shit had better fail.