As a follow state legislator, there is nothing more that I can add to Robin Marty’s article for Cosmopolitan Magazine. This is a MUST READ for all women.
Thank you Rep. Victoria Steele for your courage.
=============================
Why This State Representative Revealed Her Sexual Assault While Testifying on an Abortion Bill
“We should not have to bare that part of our lives in such a public way to be able to access legal medical care.”
by Robin Marty for Cosmopolitan Magazine – March 13, 2015
When the Arizona House’s committee on Federalism and States’ Rights met for a hearing on SB 1318, no one expected that bill opponent and licensed professional counselor Rep. Victoria Steele (D – Tucson) would reveal her own highly personal and heartbreaking story about sexual assault.
However, after an incendiary hearing on the bill’s effect of banning elective abortion coverage in the state’s insurance exchange – which critics say would force rape victims to inform their insurance company if they were pregnant and need an abortion after a sexual assault – and its mandate to make the personal information of doctors who perform abortions available to the public, Rep. Steele suddenly found herself answering the question of whether she considers abortion a medical procedure with an answer far more impactful than a simple yes or no. Now, Steele is sharing with Cosmopolitan.com why she chose to reveal such a traumatic piece of her past, and how she hopes it will affect the abortion debate in the future.
I had not intended to reveal one of my most traumatic experiences in public in such a way, and not being prepared to say it, of course the tears came, and the shaking started, and it was very, very difficult to talk about what had happened.
I was testifying on a bill, an abortion bill, and I was testifying against it, and I was standing in front of my peers. I was going to be the calm, cool, collected one speaking very rationally about a bill that was bad for people, and bad for women in particular, and bad for doctors. I was going to be the one who was calm.
I said my piece, and then the committee chair asked me if I think that abortion is a medical service. I could have just said yes, but that wouldn’t have told the story, and nobody would have understood why I feel that way. I knew that if they could feel what I experienced in any way that it might reach them so that they could have an idea how this bill could potentially impact other women.
I was sexually abused by an adult over a period of years when I was a young girl. My immediate family didn’t know about this until long after I had grown up and left home. When I was a child, I thought I was the only one. Then I found out that this person had many victims.
What I want, what I’m really hoping will come of all of this is that people will realize that this bill will cause women who have been raped recently, who are now pregnant as a result of their rape, to have to tell their insurance panel, or even their insurance agent, about one of the most horrific things that can happen to a person in order to get the exception that this bill will allow.
I personally resent that women have to tell their deepest, darkest traumas in public, their most private moments in public in order to get people to understand that these bills, these attempts to take away women’s rights, how devastating they are.
This bill will harm women. It will force them to be re-traumatized by having to tell this to their insurance companies. It is wrong on so many levels.
I have talked about abortion before, and I have argued this issue in public places before. But this is the first time as a state representative that I have said this in a committee. It was not my intention to talk about this. I had no plan to talk about this at all. Had I had a chance to plan it, I would have prepared. I would have been emotionally ready. But I wasn’t, so it ended up being rather difficult. It was rough. It was very rough.
I did not decide to say this until [the chair] asked me the question. I knew that if I said yes, they would just move on. Or they would try to turn my words against me. They would use the same old rhetoric. I needed to get people to see that their actions have real human consequences, and I knew in an instant that I needed to share what happened to me so that people understood the consequences.
The person who did this to me – repeatedly, over many years – he was a minister. He had many victims. Later, when I became an adult and talked to other victims, I found out that he told one of them, when she asked what would happen if she got pregnant, “Don’t worry about that, we’ll just stick a pencil up there. We’ll take care of it.”
People get pregnant from incest. People get pregnant from rape. They should not be further traumatized. And this bill would require people to tell their stories to an insurance agent, or maybe a panel, to prove that they were raped. How do you prove that? How does one prove that? What if the woman didn’t go to the police department to file a report? What if she didn’t tell her family? How does she prove this? What if she didn’t got to the hospital after the rape? What if the rapist was someone related to her? Do you see how this would re-traumatize her?
Telling my story was incredibly difficult. I tense up and shiver whenever I talk about this. But for someone for whom the trauma is so fresh, having to turn around and prove that she is eligible for an exemption to a health insurance company – that’s abuse. Our state legislature should not be in the position to do harm. This harms people. This bill will harm people.
This is not something that is rare. This happens a lot. Rape and incest happens a lot. I can tell you that as a counselor. When I got off the floor and returned to my office, there was an unsigned note with a cupcake on my desk. It said, “Representative Steele, thank you for sharing your very personal story in committee. It meant a lot to me.”
I have been hugged and congratulated by just about everyone in the building, regardless of their party. Even the chairwoman of the committee came to me and she said she felt sick to her stomach because had she known my story, she would not have asked me that question. My phone is still going off. I am getting texts from people saying, “Thank you for standing up for women” and “Thank you for telling your story.”
And frankly, we shouldn’t have to. We should not have to bare that part of our lives in such a public way to be able to access legal medical care. The fact that there are those who want to take that away, and then traumatize women in the process, to me that is just unconscionable.
This topic is incredibly difficult. People don’t like to even talk about their medical conditions at all. If somebody has diabetes, they may not like talking about it in public. If somebody has hemorrhoids, they may not want to be talking about that in public. If someone has cancer, or heart disease, they may not really be wanting to talk about their medical decisions and their medical history in public. So these laws keep getting passed – more and more laws that take away our health care – and we are losing access to women’s health care day by day. We are now in a position where we are forced to be public about these deepest most private discussions so that we can fight for women to be able to hold onto our rights. That’s not fair. That’s not right.
This bill, I predict, will pass. This bill will traumatize people, and it will put doctors in danger, because one of the provisions of the bill will make it so that doctors’ personal information, like their address, will be made public. We already know that doctors get killed for performing abortions, so this will put a target on doctors’ backs and it will traumatize women if it passes. And it will likely get passed.
Somebody said to me, “Why do you even fight? When you are a Democrat, and you are in the minority, why do you even bother?” It’s because you have to make sure that the people we represent have a voice. I am the voice for those who cannot speak up for themselves. I am the voice for those people who can’t talk about abortion.
So, yes, it was hard. It was hard as hell to do what I did in that hearing. I wasn’t prepared for it, but I do not regret it.
Follow Robin on Twitter.