An Engagement Ring Is a Deposit on a Wife

This piece was written in response to a recent New York case in which a woman whose fiance cheated on her wanted to keep the $19k diamond engagement ring. The court ruled that the ring is not just any gift, but a gift given “in contemplation of marriage” and that — regardless of fault — it must be given back if the marriage does not take place.

The author concludes that valuable diamond engagement rings are, therefore, deposits on wives. Furthermore, even if they were given freely (i.e., not in contemplation in marriage), they would still be unacceptable, because “treating a gendered ritual as if it were a freely given gift doesn’t change underlying creepiness.”

Feminists usually really like paying attention to social norms, cultural contexts, power relations, scripts, etc. But this argument is guilty of total context dropping. The behavior of men is shaped by cultural forces at least as much as women in this situation — how many of them would even *think* of proposing without a ring? Like it or not, this is simply a sociocultural fact. The law is, and should be, somewhat sensitive to sociocultural facts. To treat the engagement ring as any old gift is to disregard the sociocultural pressure that men face in purchasing it, expressly for the purpose of fulfilling their parts in the marriage proposal script. In legalese, the ring ends up sounding kind of like a deposit. But who cares? Everyone who’s not a moral monster now knows that women aren’t objects.

Would things really be better for women if the jilted female plaintiff in New York had been awarded the ring? Not at all. Then, enshrined in the law, would be a wildly objectionable way for women to make tens of thousands of dollars fairly quickly and easily: just get a guy to fall in love with you and propose, and then walk away. After all, when you actually marry, you keep the ring to wear and enjoy (barring difficult financial circumstances which require its sale). But I would guess that those who don’t actually marry typically sell the ring. Diamonds are valuable, durable, and in constant demand, making them unlike ordinary gifts you might receive from a boyfriend: clothing, books, DVDs, small electronics. This is a legally and morally relevant difference from ordinary gifts — diamond rings represent a cash windfall available to the owner at almost any time. Furthermore, getting to keep the ring would also add to the sickening stereotype of women as engagement– and marriage-crazed, more concerned with the trappings of love than love itself.

I suppose that you might worry that a man could then just offer diamond engagement ring to a woman in order to extract sex from her, and then break up with her and take it back whenever he wants. But it’s not like men don’t use women (and vice versa!) already. It’s not the rightful purpose of the law to order social arrangements in any particular way, even if it could effectively do so (which I doubt).

The important thing is that, even having received a valuable diamond ring, a woman can still change her mind and back out of the engagement. She merely has to give the ring back. Provided there are no extremely extenuating circumstances (e.g., she is literally starving), this should not be a particularly difficult thing to do. The diamond ring itself does not constrain a woman’s life choices in any appreciable way. If a woman were to marry because she really likes the ring and has chosen to see it as a deposit placed upon her life, then she has only succeeded in enslaving herself.

A new study from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services reports that “the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange.”

Brian at TPMDC writes:

In other words, though the immediate impact of the Stupak amendment will be limited to the millions of women initially insured through a new insurance exchange, over time, as the exchanges grow, the insurance industry will scale down their abortion coverage options until they offer none at all.

Do people not understand that abortions will remain legal and available even if this change occurs in the insurance industry? And that third-party payments for abortions have probably driven the prices up? And that if everyone who wanted an abortion were choosing her own provider and paying out of pocket, then the price of the procedure would probably drop? And maybe even it would be cheaper to just pay for an abortion than to buy a policy that covers abortions?

Just sayin’.

Will the Stupak Amendment Affect Insurance Coverage for Miscarriages? I Think So

Sadly, the author experienced a miscarriage recently. In her case, as sometimes happens, the fetus had yet to be expelled. She was put in the difficult position of either waiting for that to occur naturally, or choosing either a chemical abortion or D&C. Each had different risks and costs. The author, like many women who miscarry, chose to undergo the procedure.

Although the fetus is this sort of case is deceased, there is some question (and dispute) as to how the procedure to remove it is typically described medically, or how it is supposed to be documented. It may be described as an abortion. If so, then the Stupak Amendment (which I wrote about earlier this week) would forbid public funding of these procedures even in the case of miscarriage.

It is doubtful that even the most ardent of pro-lifers intended to limit access to post-miscarriage medical care. The mainstream feminists who claim that generous reproductive care, including abortion, is a non-negotiable when it comes to health care reform are using this unintended consequence as evidence that the government should generously fund care but stay the heck out of decisions between a woman and her doctor.

However, that position is not politically viable right now. And, I was taken aback at the naïveté of one commenter who wrote to the OP: “Your eloquent post points out the problems when legislators do not adequately consider complex issues.” The legislators are trying to consider complex issues, but no result will ever be satisfactory to everyone, and there will always be unintended consequences. If they try to write in miscarriage exceptions to Stupak, the pro-life contingency will object that such measures will be used to cover up actual abortions with miscarriage paperwork. Or, women will start trying to induce miscarriages themselves at home, so that the care afterward will be covered by their publicly funded health plans.

There will not be any no strings attached public funding of reproductive health care anytime soon. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, take a look at how legislative bodies have always functioned in the past, and take a guess as to whether you will be happy with how they handle bungle this one.

The National Organization for Women is very upset because the Stupak Amendment passed and is part of the health care bill that passed the house the other day. According to the NYT, the Amendment “would impose tight restrictions on abortions that could be offered through a new government-run insurance plan and through private insurance that is bought using government subsidies.” According to the LA Times,

The compromise amendment, offered Saturday by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), in effect bans abortion coverage by all plans that are purchased using taxpayer dollars. Abortions could still be obtained by policyholders who pay their entire premiums without government assistance or by individuals receiving federal subsidies in the event of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life.

Since the Amendment was included in the bill that was passed last night, NOW sees this as a “bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.” More from NOW:

NOW calls on the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women’s constitutionally protected right to abortion and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women’s access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.

NOW is so into universal health care, but then they act all surprised and indignant when the political processes which govern the birth of any such scheme return a result which — surprise! — reflects the preferences of the sizable pro-life constituency in this country. Just imagine: If you (or your constituents) thought that abortion was murder and therefore the very antithesis of health care, you would vote to minimize directly or indirectly state-funded abortions, too.

Furthermore, it’s unwise for NOW to keep pressing the point that the Amendment keeps women from using “their own money” to access abortion care. It’s not clear whether NOW is counting federal assistance as “their own money” (I think they are). But, even if they’re not, it’s important to remember that this hugely expensive (don’t even try to deny it) plan does lots and lots of things with money that belongs to other people. So while women seeking abortions may be prevented from spending their money in that way, there are tons and tons of taxpayers who are also prevented from spending their money in ways of their choosing. The “their own money” point does not support opposition to this particular bill, it supports opposition to expanding the government’s role in health care in the first place.

Finally, obviously this Bill is not itself an amendment to the constitution and it does not abridge the right to have an abortion. True, it would not in theory respect a right to have an abortion on the government’s tab, and thereby on the tab of pro-choicers, but no such right exists. The Stupak Amendment seems to be the logical extension of the Hyde Amendment, which has long prohibited the funding of abortion using federal Health & Human Services monies. Since now a more expansive health care program is on the table, a more expansive abortion funding policy is needed.

(Of course, I am still ardently pro-choice, and always will be. But nothing regarding positions on the state funding of abortions follows merely from that).

Editing to add: Megan McArdle has some cogents thoughts on this matter in this post: The Health of the Nation

The author offers two pieces of information that she seems to believe are contradictory.

1. A quote by Michele Bachmann:

“That’s why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress, and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions.“

2. A video of Michele Bachmann speaking. Basically, she calls for the government to quit funding Planned Parenthood, which provides alot of abortions.

Now, I understand how this is a weird picture if you add a further piece of information:

3. Michele Bachmann is quite radically pro-choice (and that is why she wants Planned Parenthood defunded)

But in the absence of 3, there is no contradiction, and so I don’t really understand the shock value of the original post as presented.

I guess it comes down to this:

If you oppose state control of health care (and thereby abortion), and you think that “control” consists in, or is promoted by, many-strings-attached state funding, then definitely retracting federal funding from Planned Parenthood is the right thing to do.

But I can only assume from the post that the Feministe author thinks that state control of health care amounts to the state refusing to help provide those services promoting reproductive choice for women — i.e., abortion. (Remember, the Bachmann speech wasn’t about outlawing abortion, even if she actually wants to, but merely about defunding it).

Which seems like a better way of understanding “state control of health care/abortion” to you? Or am I totally missing something here?

Edited to add: A very similar story also appeared over at Feministing.  Someone, please explain this to me? I don’t get it.

Just as background, let me say that I am both pro-choice and a feminist (in some sense, but that is a topic for another time). But, I am against universal health care, for complicated reasons including, but not limited to, that health care is a need and not a right, that it would stifle medical innovation, that it would violate doctors’ right to contract freely, that it would not be able to control costs, and that it is morally worse for the government to engage in care rationing than for a private insurance company one has voluntarily hired to do so (but, this too is a topic for another time).

On to the Feministe article. It’s on the topic of some other work by Chris Korzen about abortion and health care reform. To be honest, I haven’t been following the news on health care reform in the legislature too well, because my gag reflex is a little weak. Even so, it is apparent that the position taken in the Feministe article is philosophically shallow. It is a great example of why I can’t get on board with many mainstream feminists regarding reproductive issues, even though I am pro-choice. Here are the highlights:

“That last part [of the Capps Amendment] strikes me as particularly stupid — what’s the point of requiring that one plan in each region not cover a specific procedure?”

Here, the author fails to take seriously the fact that many of those with serious moral objections to most or all abortions have a very strong desire not to be associated with any abortion-promoting or permitting group in any way, shape, or form. It is not true that under universal health care no one will be forced away from their current plan. In fact, many employers would have a financial incentive to dump their employees into the so-called public option. If you are one of these employees, and your current plan doesn’t cover abortion but the public option will, this may be very upsetting to you. Hence the need for one plan in each region that will not cover abortion, which is not just a “procedure” to pro-lifers, but a moral abomination. Furthermore, even if your current employer-based plan does cover abortion and you are ok with accepting the coverage, you might think that there is something especially bad about the government footing the bill for abortions, as opposed to your private employer. At least you are working for your employer voluntarily, and could quit at any time. But you can’t quit the government, if they start to encourage abortions or whatever.

At the end of the day, many pro-life people simply don’t want their tax dollars to pay for coverage for themselves or anyone else to have an abortion. If you think that abortion violates human rights, it will not be satisfactory for a pro-choice person to note that Obama/democrats/the general population is pro-choice and they make the rules, because human rights are not the sort of thing that a majority can vote away. And since being pro-life is about not having abortions, the best you can do within your own private life to be actively pro-life is to not have abortions, organize to combat abortion, and clean your hands, so to speak, of affiliation with or support of pro-choice people and groups. That will obviously include your health care. Pointing out that lots of people object to things that their tax dollars fund (biological weapons research, public school, etc) is not fruitful, because a person can just agree that the whole class of expenditures is indeed unjust. So, I basically can’t believe that any reasonably well-informed person interested in abortion debate could fail to realize why there might be a push for public option health care plans that do not fund what many consider to be murder.

“I happen to think that the common ground message is a good one, but that’s mostly because it sheds light on the fact that anti-choice groups are doing absolutely nothing to try to decrease the abortion rate. “Common ground” on abortion, to most people, means making abortion less necessary, or finding ways for pro-choice and “pro-life” groups to work together to make abortions less common.”

The alleged “common ground” of making abortion less necessary or common is a common ground only to pro-choice people and those pro-lifers who do not also believe that contraceptives are morally on a par with abortion. Since I personally don’t think there is anything independently morally unacceptable about contraceptives, I share many feminists’ frustration that some or even many pro-lifers oppose contraceptives as well as abortion. That kind of pro-life position usually amounts to abstinence only until marriage, at which point women should begin turning out babies as the lord sees fit. But if feminists are really interested in finding common ground on the abortion debate, and some of the parties at the bargaining table have moral qualms with contraceptives, then they’ll have to keep looking for that common ground in places other than pushing the Pill. I should mention here that I do not think any common ground exists between these groups, as their members often have diametrically opposed worldviews, and that the divisiveness and hopelessness for moral compromise when it comes to state-provided goods and services such as health care or education is a strong reason against their provision in the first place.

“I understand that some Americans — even many Americans — don’t want their tax dollars subsidizing abortion. But at the end of the day, abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures in the country. It’s a procedure that one in three women will have in their lives. The fact that such a common surgical procedure is already not covered by Medicaid in most states is abhorrent. The fact that we’re arguing about whether a universal health care program should cover basic reproductive care is embarassing [sic].”

Ok, this is just silly. Pro-lifers do not accept the prevalence of abortions as evidence that it a legitimate medical procedure. On the contrary, they think it’s evidence of moral decay/that judgment is coming/that people have become desensitized to the sanctity of life/that women who have abortions are coerced into doing so/etc. By the same token, they also do not accept that abortions are “basic reproductive care.” Indeed, when pro-life groups provide their version of reproductive care, it is often in the form of clinics (“crisis pregnancy centers”) which provide counseling or prenatal care but no abortions. They think that it is the provision, and not the denial, of abortions that is abhorrent. So the author’s point here is unconvincing to those who stand in need of convincing, the pro-lifers.

Altogether, it was just another dissatisfying feminist article on reproductive issues. Sometime in the future, I’ll try to find a similar example with which to illustrate my problems with the party line on health care conscience clauses.