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I was skeptical of the charge that Sarah Palin was forcing rape victims to pay for their own rape kits, thinking a) she could always brush it off by pleading ignorance and b) that even Republicans aren’t really ready to sign onto legislation that functionally legalizes rape, because it sets aside rape victims as victims of crime that don’t, unlike all other crime victims, deserve the protection of the police. Surely, I thought, we won’t be able to hang the charge that McCain/Palin have a history of denying rape victims the right to have crimes against them investigated, a right all other citizens share, right?
I was wrong.
In 1994, Joe Biden introduced anti-violence legislation that, in part, put the costs of rape kits, a critical part of investigating rape, on the state and not on the victims. This strikes me, once again, as no-duh legislation. If someone breaks into your house, the state pays for the fingerprinting and DNA sample collecting. So why not pay for the collection of evidence in rape? It’s this sort of small detail that adds to the bigger picture of why rape is so common in our country. Yet another research study has shown that 1 in 5 young women have experienced forced intercourse. (PDF.) The chances of getting convicted if you rape someone is pretty low, in no small part because so much law enforcement doesn’t take it seriously. To make it worse, the younger a woman is, the more likely she is to be raped. Your young adulthood is exactly the time when you don’t have the money to pay $500 for a rape kit, on top of the $40 for the emergency contraception and the no doubt hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars in E.R. treatment for injuries incurred during the rape. And if you get pregnant, tack another $500 on that for the abortion. If you have health insurance, that helps, but again, we’re talking an age group that’s likely not covered.
So we know that Palin didn’t bother to learn or didn’t bother to care that her town was charging rape victims for the investigations of crimes against their persons, but of course prosecuted, mind you, as crimes against the state. Yes, this is a confusing point, but a rape victim is, like any other crime victim, a witness to a crime that’s charged as a state matter. (It’ll go down as the people/the state against the defendant.) Alaska has the nation’s highest rape rate in the country, by the way, with 76 incidents per 100,000 people. This is wildly high---the next highest is New Mexico, with 56 per 100,000, but most states hover in the 20-40 range.
The smoking gun, though, is McCain’s lack of support for victims of rape at the point when they need the most help, which is when they’re putting their dignity and sanity on the line in order to aid an investigation of the crime committed against them. One incident is an anomaly, but we have a pattern of the McCain/Palin ticket not really caring if the state prosecutes rapists. And all this comes on the heels of McCain’s campaign crowing about how they aren’t the kind of people who want to help law enforcement prevent and prosecute child molestation. Someone’s got to ask them why they buck the vast majority of Americans on this issue, since most Americans are eager to keep sexual predators off the streets.
Posted by
Amanda Marcotte on 04:21 PM •
Permalink
Why the hell does a rape kit cost $500? Is this time for a medical professional or what?
Someone’s got to ask them why they buck the vast majority of Americans on this issue, since most Americans are eager to keep sexual predators off the streets.
Short answer: because they don’t really care.
Longer Answer: Regarding rape, because Palin probably believes on some (if not all levels) that rape is what happens to good girls who don’t do what jesus tells them, that it’s god’s punishment for looking slutty. Or, if they didn’t look slutty, it’s god’s punishment for “putting themselves” into a situation in which they could be assulted. As for McCain, I wouldn’t be surprised if, like most an unfortunately large number of conservative men, he really doesn’t believe in rape, or believes it’s actually very very rare and that the majority of rape claims are made by attention seeking women who want to believe they weren’t slutty for putting out on a first date.
That is, except in the instance that it happens to a very close relative, in both Palin and McCain would probably support vigilante justice. And just like in every instance in which Republicans come into contact with the law, they’d demand all sorts of assistance/privileges that they want to see denied to everyone else.
As for child molestors, I think it’s because too many of their friends would go to jail.
The collection of evidence is so degrading & uncomfortable (actually, painful). Cold metal table, etc.. You submit your body as a piece of evidence, it’s not yours for the time being (after you already lost it to force you have to submit to losing it). My wife is a prosecutor and I said something dumb ass about a case and she broke it down for me. To submit to that is one thing, to pay for it is sick.
Fortunately McCain/Palin would spare rape victims the cost of an abortion by making it illegal.
Jesus, these people are fucked.
After once again being subjected to that piece of musical shitass proslytizing that is the “God Bless the USA”, my son asked me what would happen if Senator Krusty and Side Show Sarah were elected.
I told him that Uncle Ecckie’s immigration lawyer would get four new clients.
To my surprise, there were no objections - just conjecture about when Canadian schools start classes as they don’t have labor day.
Regarding rape, because Palin probably believes on some (if not all levels) that rape is what happens to good girls who don’t do what jesus tells them
I always figured that’s what most fundamentalist whackos believe. “She dressed like that, she was asking for it!” and so on.
Why the hell does a rape kit cost $500?
A month ago a dog bit me. I went to the ER for a shot. BAM--$1000. Thank goodness for insurance.
Expensive health care is the American way. It’s a for-profit industry, after all. Might as well ask why a Cadillac costs so much.
And, Amanda, don’t forget: Palin’s town was the only one in all of Alaska that forced rape victims to pay that cost. It was so shameful that Alaska’s state legislature wrote a law banning that practice, specifically to stop what Sarah Barracuda’s city was doing.
No, we have Labour Day, first Monday in September, same as you. The vast majority of our schools start the year on the next day rather than some steamy day in August.
On topic: Palin may be able to paint this as less bad than it really is. From what I can see in Palin’s regional newspaper from that time, the women bringing rape charges weren’t made to pay directly for the kit, but their insurance companies were billed “when possible”. It remains to be seen, of course, whether this is strictly true. And even if it is, it’s my understanding that an insurance company could raise premiums or even cancel policies if they think a customer is too expensive for them. And given how reluctant many women are to report that they’ve been raped, worry about what would happen to their insurance or, in the case of the uninsured, worry that they couldn’t file charges without having insurance, would lead Wasilla rapes to be even more under-reported than the state average.
So apart from the core issue that it is stupid, deeply immoral and sexist to charge a woman or her insurance company to collect the damned evidence, Palin either thought this was a great idea and actively supported it, or she failed to speak out against it. All her public statements now about not supporting “rape victims” paying are bullshit, founded upon the technicality that the bill had the insurance company’s name on it.
Remember, this was the town that didn’t have a proper sewer system, despite huge amounts of pork coming into the town, but Palin still decided to build a sports centre and made an utter hash of it, turning what could have been a simple deal into a $1 million plus debt due to unnecessary legal costs after she failed to buy the needed land and tried to seize it via eminent domain. If Wasilla couldn’t afford to cover rape kit costs like every other town in Alaska, then Palin either had lousy financial skills or the town had a grotesque rape problem.
Isn’t part of Palin’s much-touted experience that she was on the Wasilla city council for 5 or 6 years before she ran for mayor? So I’m not quite sure what plausible deniability she has on this.
OK, I’ve read the newer article now, not just the old Frontiersman article I linked to, and yeah, it does look as if uninsured women were made to pay the costs directly. Oh, she should be nailed hard for this, and wouldn’t it be ironically appropriate for Biden to do it?
Alaska has the nation’s highest rape rate in the country, by the way, with 76 incidents per 100,000 people
Is this per both genders, or just women? Because doesn’t Alaska also have the highest male:female ratio, making this number even scarier?
I think Obama should take Palin’s “front line” asshattery here, add in McCain’s votes, and go in hard for a “what if you or a woman you love was raped? (show a battered and bruised woman talking to a police officer) Violated. Assaulted. Defiled. Would you be angry? Your daughter ... your mother ... your sister ... And then, what if the police demanded a thousand dollars before they would gather evidence - the kind of evidence that puts rapists behind bars? (then cue Obama and Biden - Joe Biden fought hard in congress ... Mc Cain voted against it ... and Palin? Wasilla was the only town in Alaska that charged rape victims for gathering evidence.”
Do it do it do it do it!
Tell us again, concern trolls, how Palin is just working from a different definition of feminism.
Tell us again.
Alaska’s male-female ratio is high, but it’s nothing like the 7:1 you’ll sometimes hear people throw around (although the less populous areas are definitely around 2:1). The state overall is 52% male, 48% female.
Fox News is no doubt feverishly working up a story about freeloading rape-kit “queens” as we speak…
Wasilla is not really a city. It’s population is less than half that of a fairly small Utility District in suburban Houston. These districts are crooked beyond belief even though they are heavily regulated by State covernment and are now even more closely monitered now that most have decided to charge a sales tax as part of the Houston cooperative water plan. Imagine a UD sit more power and no checks and you have Wisalla.
Ditto Bacopa—Wasilla would be considered too small to have its own mayor in my home state, which is far from urbanized or overpopulated.
I hate to stick up for John McCain, but it’s likely he opposed Biden’s bill primarily because of its gun control provisions. See here for example. I have no objection to using this as a tactic, but we ought to keep in mind that it’s roughly analogous to the Republicans claiming Obama supported sex education for kindergarteners.
Palin doesn’t seem to have an e: die for extorting the victim, though.
Sarah Palin: Just like Harry Truman. <a href="http://novalight.org/TheBuckStopsHere.jpg">But NOT</i>.
She needs to OWN it.
Yeah, Roxanne, and if it was a 5 point buck ... BLAMMO.
Tell us again, concern trolls, how Palin is just working from a different definition of feminism.
Well, she is. It seems she’s working from the “submission will free you” corner of feminism. Granted, it’s not the most popular flavor out there, but neither is garlic ice cream. Yet they both exist.
So, Palin’s feminism encompasses the following positions:
Women should have no reproductive choice.
Women who cry rape should pay the cost of the rape kit they demand.
Women need to stop whining in the face of sexism and be tough. Like a man.
Hey, she says she’s a feminist. Who are we to doubt her word. I wonder what she calls her version of feminism. My guess would be FemSub Feminism.
Palin doesn’t seem to have an e: die for extorting the victim, though.
How in hell did that happen?
Palin doesn’t seem to have an excuse for extorting the victim, though.
Palin: millions for hockey, not one cent for rape victims. Follow the money.
Well, she is. It seems she’s working from the “submission will free you” corner of feminism.
Though I think most people here would point to this as one of the oldest strains of antifeminism out there. Old as in “I just read an essay arguing against giving women the vote from 1852 that used this exact line of reasoning.”
Funnily enough, my professor opened the class discussion of it by referring to Sarah Palin.
Old as in “I just read an essay arguing against giving women the vote from 1852 that used this exact line of reasoning.”
1852? Heck, you should read Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile. That’s the main thesis of his section on the proper education (and thus, proper ‘place’) of women. Written 1762, baby!
I can never get my writing to obviously show dripping sarcasm, but I keep trying.
The rape kit costs what it costs not just because of the materials involved, but because of the extremely tight certification process it must go through (and the training those using them must apply) in order for the evidence collected to stand up in a court of law.
The incidence of rape in Alaska is over twice what it is in the rest of the country. Any governor of any competence would have made addressing that the centerpiece of their law enforcement strategy. What exactly did Governor Palin do to address rape in Alaska? Did she set up hotlines? Did she fight for programs to promote awareness? Did she work for full funding of medical and behavioral treatment for victims? Actively seek out grants for specialized investigators and prosecutors, and training for other parts of law enforcement?
Yes.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait!
No.
I can never get my writing to obviously show dripping sarcasm, but I keep trying.
You seem to be misusing the </sarcasm> tag. Probably just a typo in your HTML, keep working on it. 
This just makes it more ironic that McCain’s latest attack ad against Obama mocks him for supporting funding for programs that teach young children that 1) no one has the right to touch them in a way that makes them uncomfortable and 2) no one has the right to exploit anyone else.
What exactly did Governor Palin do to address rape in Alaska?
She built a $16 million sports complex and raised Wasilla’s sales tax to do it.
What, that’s not enough for you?
The rape kit costs what it costs not just because of the materials involved, but because of the extremely tight certification process it must go through (and the training those using them must apply) in order for the evidence collected to stand up in a court of law.
Actually the kits just require following simple instructions and, at hospitals lacking a SANE/SART program, are collected by personnel with no particular training (even at that they can do an adequate job if they’ll just follow the damn instructions, which most nurses are pretty good at and MD’s generally aren’t, surprise surprise.)
Nope, this is just plain old health care gouging American-style, like the $10 aspirins on your hospital bill.
Related to the issue of payment for rape forensic kits, you might want to check out this link, go to page 10 of the document hard copy (testimony of Karen Vosburgh), to read testimony at a 2002 congressional hearing detailing how a nonsectarian Alaska “Valley” (includes Wasilla) hospital board decided that they were a “God fearing” neighborhood and so would not allow abortions at their hospital. Sarah Palin was active in Wasilla politics from 1992 to 2002, so might she have been aware of this?
http://energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/107/action/107-126.pdf
Hey, reality-based community folks, this entire line of attack is Fox News style.
Go read the bloody bill for yourselves, for crying out loud.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=103_cong_bills&docid=f:h3355enr.txt.pdf
It’s a 356 page omnibus bill.
Do you all really think that McCain sorted through 356 pages, decided that 355 of them were fine and dandy, but decided to ax the entire thing because of the rape kit provision?
If a right wing blog made a similar attack against Obama, it would be carefully dissected and mocked here. Let’s not be *complete* hypocrites.
Mods, if you’re not going to let this comment through, at least post a link to the bill itself in the OP.
Of course, when I said “read,” I meant “glance-at-just-to-see-how-ridiculously-long-it-is.”
Of course not, Mike - let’s certainly not fight fire with fire. That would be too unseemly! [/clutchpearls]
Mike, he voted against it, he owns it.
Mike, Does the respected senator not employ a staff of people whose job is to vet things for him and keep him informed so that while he does not have to read the entire 356 pages, he can focus on the important sections? So I guess a good question would be whether he had his staff go through this particular bill and whether this item was pointed out. If it was not, then he owns bad judgement in the people he surrounds himself with, if it was then he owns bad judgement full stop.
Also, I’m not comfortable with “he didn’t read it all” being used to excuse the actions of a man who wants to lead America (complete with army, navy and nuclear weapons). Will it be ok for him to not fully read (or be briefed) on foreign affairs with complicated history (a la Georgia/Russia)? Will it be ok for him not to read his daily breifings on the state of the economy or the war in Iraq?
Will it be ok for him to not fully read (or be briefed) on foreign affairs with complicated history (a la Georgia/Russia)? Will it be ok for him not to read his daily breifings on the state of the economy or the war in Iraq?
It’s worked so well for W, so why mess with tradition?
Ms. Kate wrote:
I think Obama should take Palin’s “front line” asshattery here, add in McCain’s votes, and go in hard for a “what if you or a woman you love was raped? (show a battered and bruised woman talking to a police officer) Violated. Assaulted. Defiled. Would you be angry? Your daughter ... your mother ... your sister ... And then, what if the police demanded a thousand dollars before they would gather evidence - the kind of evidence that puts rapists behind bars? (then cue Obama and Biden - Joe Biden fought hard in congress ... Mc Cain voted against it ... and Palin? Wasilla was the only town in Alaska that charged rape victims for gathering evidence.”
Fuckin A, Ms. Kate. Way to throw the hay down where the goats can get it! I agree completely.
Do you all really think that McCain sorted through 356 pages, decided that 355 of them were fine and dandy, but decided to ax the entire thing because of the rape kit provision?
No, I think McCain saw from the title that it was aimed at reducing violence against women and voted against it. Because McCain doesn’t give a shit about women.
Mike, he voted against it, he owns it.
Actually, Mike’s got a point. There’s a lot of stupid shit shovelled into American bills, and politicians have a choice between accepting some bullshit to get *something* accomplished or getting nothing done.
Thank god my country has a drafting process that rules out this sort of crap.
Of course not, Mike - let’s certainly not fight fire with fire. That would be too unseemly! [/clutchpearls]
Scoring stupid rhetoric points is not “fire,” it is… well, scoring stupid rhetorical points.
Also, I’m not comfortable with “he didn’t read it all” being used to excuse the actions of a man who wants to lead America (complete with army, navy and nuclear weapons).
Yeah, I didn’t use this argument. My post pretty clearly assumed he *did* read it all,
No, I think McCain saw from the title that it was aimed at reducing violence against women and voted against it. Because McCain doesn’t give a shit about women.
Right, see my response to Spencer.
Scoring stupid rhetoric points is not “fire,” it is… well, scoring stupid rhetorical points.
Please show one area where John McCain has demonstrated any interest at all in women’s issues. He skipped the vote on the Ledbetter bill and said he would have voted against it because it just would have been too haaaard for companies to not discriminate against women. He’s strongly pro-life. He’s voted against the Violence Against Women Act multiple times.
Tell me, where is your evidence that McCain gives a damn about women at all? All of the evidence we have points the opposite direction.
I’ll make you a deal, Mnemosyne. If you can offer the slightest reason or actual evidence to suggest that McCain voted against a 356 page bill because of a single page, specifically because he thinks that women should have to pay for rape kits, then I’ll do all the research you want me to do and more.
‘Till then, can we please remove ourselves from the Ann Coulter sandbox?
I’ll make you a deal, Mnemosyne. If you can offer the slightest reason or actual evidence to suggest that McCain voted against a 356 page bill because of a single page, specifically because he thinks that women should have to pay for rape kits, then I’ll do all the research you want me to do and more.
Please point to where I said that McCain voted against the VAWA based on a single page. Only his defenders have tried to argue that.
My contention is that McCain voted against the entire bill because he doesn’t think that violence against women is an important enough issue to require legislative action. I don’t think he thought, “Well, I agree with all of this except paying for rape kits/gun control, so I guess I’ll have to vote against a bill I otherwise agree with.” I think he thought, “Why are we trying to pass this frivolous legislation?”
Right--if McCain thought it was an important issue he would have drafted his own legislation as an alternative. He did not, he simply voted against the bill. Just as if Sarah Palin was concerned about rape victims she could have changed her city’s policy but she either thought it was a good policy or not important enough for her to be bothered.
Mnemo—what does VAWA contain any more? I thought US v. Morrison shot most of it down. Does it still try to federalize crimes against women, contrary to the Morrison ruling?
My last post on this issue.
“Well, I agree with all of this except paying for rape kits/gun control, so I guess I’ll have to vote against a bill I otherwise agree with.” I think he thought, “Why are we trying to pass this frivolous legislation?”
Make your claims clear, for crying out loud. The portion of the bill that deals with violence against women is p. 107 to p. 160. 57 pages of the bill deal with women’s issues. Are you claiming that McCain thought the entire bill was frivolous, or that only those 57 pages were frivolous? If you’re claiming only the 57 pages in question were seen as frivolous, then you’re still using the same logic as I’ve already accused you of. Even worse, in fact.
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Why the hell does a rape kit cost $500? Is this time for a medical professional or what?