Gary Peters
Gary Peters, the Democratic candidate hoping to replace retiring Sen. Carl Levin in Michigan next year,
quickly made known his views about the state's new law that bars all public and most private insurance companies from covering abortions as part of their health plans. Women must instead buy a separate rider in order to be covered for abortion. "Rape insurance" is the acid name critics have quite rightly applied to this extremist law, the Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act, which was enacted by the state legislature without the governor's signature after he vetoed two previous attempts:
"Our state is now one of only eight in the nation that will require women to pay more for their health care coverage and will ban insurance coverage for abortions even in the case of sexual assault," Peters said in a statement. "Not only does this law unfairly discriminate against women, it makes health care coverage more expensive so Michigan women and their families are going to find it a little harder to make ends meet to cover their insurance." [...]
"This law does not represent Michigan. It is not right. It is not just. And I promise to my daughters and to families across Michigan, your voice will be heard," Peters continued in an email to supporters. "We will fight back."
The Republican candidate for Senate, on the other hand, former Secretary of State Terri Lynn, has said nothing about the law. She failed to return repeated phone calls from TPM seeking her comments. Perhaps she's been schooled by the consultants for the Republican National Committee who have warned GOP incumbents and challengers to keep their lips zipped so as not to get themselves pummeled over remarks like Todd Akins's "legitimate rape" or Richard Mourdock's assertion that a pregnancy from rape is something "God's intended."
Gretchen Whitmer
After noting in debate that the law tells "women who were raped that they should have thought ahead and planned for it," Michigan Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer
told a personal story that shows just how morally criminal the requirement for "rape insurance" is:
But over 20 years ago I was a victim of rape. And thank god it didn’t result in a pregnancy. Because I can’t imagine going through what I went through and then having to consider what to do about an unwanted pregnancy from an attacker.
If this were law then and I had become pregnant, I would not be able to have coverage because of this. How extreme does this measure need to be? I’m not the only woman in our state that has faced that horrible circumstance …. I think you need to see the face of the women you are impacting by this vote today.
Candidate Lynn doesn't seem to be listening.