This is actually a thing they are doing:
Rape is only really rape if it involves force. So says the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law.
For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. (Another exemption covers pregnancies that could endanger the life of the woman.) But the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.
With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to “forcible rape.” This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion.
So… some rapes don’t count?
Hey, if you don’t have bruises and a black eye then you didn’t say no hard enough.
Seriously, this is a political party people actually vote for?
Moved On 
“Other types of rapes that would no longer be covered by the exemption include rapes in which the woman was drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes.”
These people are just … I can’t even find the words.
Ross, I think the word you’re looking for is theocratic.
Cheers
It’ll be interseting to see how Rand Paul votes on this.
I wonder if the RINO ends up being a LINO.
Cheers
Brick by brick, the new and extra-crazy Republicans will dismantle Roe vs Wade until their true goal is achieved and abortion is made illegal once again. And their media arm, Fox News, will run interference for them the whole way.
The saddest part is that the castrated Democrats will stand by and watch it happen, all while the Diplomat in Chief tut-tuts and prevents his party from mounting anything so gauche as a media fightback.
This should be a gimme for the Democrats – I refuse to believe that the American centre would reward the Repugs for this sort of policy if they were properly motivated to oppose it by way of passionate and sustained argument, but I fear that the Democrats under Obama have lost all will to fight.
And so America will fall to lunacy.
I’m sorry, “forcible rape”? As opposed to all the fluffy-bunny consensual rape going on?
So a barely adolescent child can be raped by their father and would have to pay for her abortion as well if he doesn’t bruise her?
A mentally ill person who doesn’t know what the hell is going on should carry be forced a child to term because of lack of means?
Yes, I can see the logic in that. Women, if you don’t fight back and then get beaten up as well as raped, well, who the hell do you think you are, asking us for funding? If you’re too traumatised to get your teeth knocked out, why the hell should we have to pay?
Let’s be clear here: this is woman-blaming writ large. Once again a woman will be forced to pay – literally – for the crimes of a man. Some of those will be children and the mentally ill. Once again the most vulnerable members of society will pay – some with their lives due to dodgy backyard abortions procured by their carers (Which they will have no choice in and may not even understand) – for the crimes of others. And they will dress it up as the moral thing to do.
This kind of thing makes me sick. Absolutely fucking sick.
These people are just … I can’t even find the words.
Let me help you out. Pricks, arseholes, uncaring shitbags whose lives, politics and thoughts are shaped by a ficticious deity.
I hate the whole artificial distinction of ‘abortion is evil except in the case of rape or incest’. It reeks of sophists trying to say ‘you naughty, naughty women. You will be punished for having sex by being forced to bear a child unless the sex wasn’t your fault!’.
I mean seriously, if people really and truly thought abortion was murder, then whether the pregnancy came about because of rape or incest wouldn’t make a difference – it would still be murder.
By the way, if you think this is bad, just wait until the mad Christian right manages to ban abortion and then starts up on contraception. Have you seen those loopy stories about ‘Christian’ pharmacists declining to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception because it breaches their ‘moral code’??
We are dealing with the antediluvian red right here in a country where 20% of the population – and rising – believe Obama is a Muslim. Nothing surprises anymore.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/18/AR2010081806913.html
Off topic Jeremy, but where am I going to get my nightly fix of The Daily Show if – as you said – it is no longer to be on ABC digital. His website says full versions are not available outside the U.S ? 😦
Sorry for the minor diversion.
Wow. A seriously vomitous law.
I’d have more respect for them if they were trying to outlaw abortion in toto. I agree with Keri. It’s the Pro-Fluffy-Bunny-Rape law. The scary thing is that this appears to be a mainstream Republican bill.
This is the new centre.
“Off topic Jeremy, but where am I going to get my nightly fix of The Daily Show if – as you said – it is no longer to be on ABC digital. His website says full versions are not available outside the U.S ?”
Yes, but you can watch it segment-by-segment still on their website.
The anti-abortion crowd is pressuring Republican legislators into eliminating any reason for abortion whether Federal funds are used or not. A case of date-rape where a woman or girl is drugged and unconscious and raped is not considered rape because there was no force used; because they were incapacitated. The men who are making these laws apparently don’t think a woman can say no to sex, and want them physically assaulted before it is called rape. The language of the bill also doesn’t consider a case to be rape if the woman has limited mental capacity.
It’s an affront to woman.
Source: Politicususa.com
Aussiesmurf – The issue isn’t about abortion. It is about what it means for the concept of rape.
Rape was once a property offence (because a woman was a man’s chattel – elements of this continued until only very recently in the form of rape within marriage not being recognised). Rape was broadened to being essentially a chastity offence where the woman had to vigorously fight to defend her chastity for it to be considered rape. This meant that anyone not married and not a virgin would tend to lose a rape case (although try proving a rape victim was a virgin pre-rape – all the prosecution had to do was suggest she’d looked at a man in a certain way, clearly she is then a slut and deserves gang rape). This was then broadened again as not being a virgin was found to be a foolish measure, but if you had more than one partner (ever) or were even mildly promiscuous (not comparable to even an average male) then you’d lose a rape case – why? Because it was all about chastity.
It was then broadened to a situation where one could refuse sex (note the diffence between open and freewill consent compared to refusal – one requires you to actively object, the other requires you to actively consent.)
We have finally moved to a time where the right to choose model, which is by far the most appropriate as it says, to quote the Victorian Crimes Act, the objective of criminalising rape is “to uphold the fundamental right of every person to make decisions about his or her sexual behaviour and to choose not to engage in sexual activity” (s37A if you are curious). The other objective is of course to protect people who can’t consent (ie underaged, mentally ill, disabled, etc).
If this bill passes, it will not just redefine the criteria for abortion. It will have a huge impact on the way the American courts interpret their rape legislation and how they manage the case law. It will return us to a chastity era, where suddenly wearing a short skirt means you deserve to be raped.
autonomy1 – this isn’t an affront to woman, it is an affront to ALL people’s right to choose to engage in sex or not. It will undermine ALL rape laws in the US.
I take your point narcoticmusing. However the proposal has way more impact, and is far more meaningful, to women. Particularly the adverse affect the proposal will have on the capacity of poor women to access termination.
As an image at the head of the Politicususa article read:
“77% of anti-abortion leaders are men.
100% of them will never be pregnant”
“If this bill passes, it will not just redefine the criteria for abortion. It will have a huge impact on the way the American courts interpret their rape legislation and how they manage the case law. It will return us to a chastity era, where suddenly wearing a short skirt means you deserve to be raped.”
Yep it will. Its fucking appalling.
Fair point autonomy1 – but the redefinition of rape will impact men who are grossly undersupported as victims. As a woman, I am of course aware and agree that this is abhorent and offensive to women, but it is so much broader than that because the abortion part is just the mechanism for the redefinition of possibly the worst of crimes.
Woah. How fucked up is this? So basically if you’re a child and molested by an adult then tough shit, you’re going to have that baby at 13. And all this is part of some religious “morals” crusade.
The Religious Right truly has taken over the agenda of the right in America. Let’s do our darnedest to stop the fuckers here.
I wonder what this guy would think of these laws?
Narcoticmusing, bad as this law is, I don’t think it sets the kind of general rape-permissive precedent you are ascribing to it, except in the broadest cultural sense.
Legally, a federal restriction on government funding for abortions after certain “types” of rape has few if any implications for the criminal laws that define what rape is. For sure, some republicans would quite possibly like to legislate changes to those, too; but it’s a separate battle for them to fight in this war.
jordanrastrick – if it was only up to judges, I’d agree, because our rape laws are in legislation.
However, the conviction rates are incredibly low due to the very issues of public perception and cultural sense – each of these trials occurs before a judge and jury. The judge cannot determine if something is sufficient to be rape – that is up to the jury. Facts, guilt – these are issues for a jury to decide. Juries still, even now, bring with them cultural bias of rape within marriage being ok and chastity based concepts. So while the judge, in Victoria at least, issues directions to the jury that they aren’t to consider these sorts of things, they still do.
It is all up to the jury to decide, so if their perception of rape is influenced by the ‘broad cultural sense’ that without force it is a ‘lesser’ rape, then the conviction rapes will drop further.
What is worse, is that the US hasn’t as as well codified rape in legislation as we have, too much of it is dependent on the precedent that must be reinterpreted when new legislation is made to reflect the intention of the legislature. This will impact the roll of the judge also.
Add to the mix the extremism seen in many right wing judges in the US, particularly in the superior courts, and we have a problem.
I once saw an article mentioning the numbers of Rebublicans busted for some sort of sexual dodginess with underage people. There were heaps of them.
It seems the democrats are into adulterous type sex scandals, usually with straight adults, and the repubs are into all sorts of dodginess, cept for the gay ones who won’t come out – they are just hypocrites.