GOP wants to "redefine" rape to deny abortions

I'm not sure where they got the notion living in a Democracy means only ever having to fund the things they find 100% morally agreeable. Abortion is legal, it's women's healthcare, if government is going to be in the business of providing for women's healthcare than it ought to be funding procedures regardless of whether some people find them disagreeable or not.

So if they got their way, there's going to be "Rape" and "Rape rape"? Fucking retarded.

Well, you have to remember that this book written by a bunch of random people millenia ago is both perfectly literally accurate and sets out the exact parameters for successfully approaching this far flung future time, from which we cannot possibly deviate except when convenient or we feel like it.

Woah! I don't even know what to say about this.

I need out of this fucking state.

These fucking asshole Republicans don't want people to have unwanted children, then don't want to provide social services for the kids that people didn't want to have in the first place. Fuck I hate this country.

The key here isn't that they don't "want" the unwanted children, but that every policy they try to push makes unwanted children more and more likely (by denying birth control, abortion, emergency contraception, and even education about contraceptives. Concurrently, they're trying to defang education and social systems so that people are less educated and less capable of working for themselves. They've got a lovely self-fulfilling prophecy going on.

Well, I guess it's a good way to make sure you have plenty of future soldiers and obedient mules to work in sweatshops and factories.

Well said!!

This is rather disturbing. People have campaigned against the "when a girl means yes, she says no" mentality for years, campaigned to try to wipe away the kinds of 'blind spots' that some individuals seem to have when it comes to recognising that rape has actually taken place and that no, it wasn't the victim's fault, campaigned to try to educate the police as regards how to better deal with rape victims. After years of slow progress, here we are with legislation which, as you say, seems set to create a hierarchy of types of rape, seems to imply that certain types of rape aren't so serious or that they aren't really rape at all, something which could reinforce the old prejudices and set the pace of progress back by decades.

I'm trying to imagine the rationales for this redefinition. Not the cynical explanation (pandering to anti-choicers), but the theoretical justification. The best I can figure, it's an attempt to close a loophole whereby a woman coming to term could claim rape three months later and get an abortion. Dollars to donuts, however, there was no effort to determine exactly how many people actually do this (my guess: 0).

Non-forcible rape victims: the anchor babies of the abortion wars.

Aren't there stupid laws in place that prevent the government from funding abortion already?

Yes, though they vary in their extent and stupidity from state-to-state.

Ahh. I thought it was an all-encompassing federal thing.

Well put.

And honestly, it seems like this is motivated by the same rationale behind all rape/incest exemptions from anti-abortion laws; it's just taken a step further here. The whole idea of banning abortion except in cases of rape and incest is predicated upon the idea that, unless you were the victim of a sexual assault inflicted upon you against your will that resulted in pregnancy, you're just a slut who opened her legs and you don't deserve to take the easy way out by getting an abortion; you should have to suck it up and deal with the consequences of your own sluttery, and maybe that'll teach you and every other woman who sees you running around all pregnant and miserable and then raising a kid you didn't intend/prepare/have the resources to have not to be such a slut next time, won't it?

In a lot of ways, this guy's just taking that a step further: "Well, if some strong, sociopathic stranger jumps out from a dark alley while you're just walking your modestly-dressed, sober self down the street and forcibly rapes you, then the resulting sex and impregnation isn't your fault. But if you just get too drunk at some party and don't remember having whored it up when you awake the next morning--well, then, maybe you shouldn't have gotten so drunk, hmm?"

Just disgusting all around.

Well, there are federal things, too, so you thought right. Some states just take it further.

This is really damn close to putting the blame on the victim of sexual assault for what happened to them if they just happen to get pregnant.

why the hell are all these conservatives so afraid of vaginas? And why do they spend so much time worrying about what women do with them? And then spending the rest of their time legislating how woman can use their own vaginas?

I wouldn't classify legislation purposed by one individual as party wide. The way you make it sound is as if the entire GOP is for this craptastic law to be passed.

This does bring up an interesting point. A case like this gives the GOP a chance to show that they are willing to put the good of the people ahead of party unity.

Also, after reading the link provided to HR 3 you aren't making much of a point. It clearly says abortion is legal only under very strict circumstances such as rape, incest etc.

It has 173 co-sponsors. It's not one guy.

Er, not quite. It says that the Federal government can't provide abortion except under the circumstances of the mother's life being endangered by the pregnancy; forcible rape; and, in the case of a minor, incest.

Which is the problem. The US Code defines several types of aggravated sexual assault. Rape by force or threat is the first. Then there's "by other means", which basically means roofies; and children 12 and under. So if a guy crosses a state line, slips a roofie to a 13 year old girl, and gets her pregnant, the Federal government tells her to suck it up and have the baby.

Or, you should't have been 13 and allowed yourself to get knocked up by the adult who illegally knocked you up because you were too young and too scared to be able to avoid getting knocked up by said adult.