House Republicans want to redefine rape and incest:

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…. Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old’s parents wouldn’t be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure.

65 replies on “House Republicans: You Can’t Rape The Willing… 13-Year-Old Girl?”

  1. I’d like to think most people are reasonable enough to know that a young person (ie, early teen or younger), BY DEFINITION, can’t consent to sex with a person that much older than them. And by further extension a person can’t consent to incest with a parent, uncle, older sibling, etc. The level of authority alone makes it impossible.

    Like I say, I’d LIKE to believe that was true. Clearly it’s not.

  4. Totally appalling. I suppose they’ll start saying women drugged in bars who are taken home and raped were “asking for it” by accepting drinks from strange men and dressing in a provocative, non-Christian way, and deny them rights to emergency care too.

  6. “that 13-year-old’s parents wouldn’t be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure.”

    Aren’t these the same hypocrites that keep shouting the mantra “The American people can make better decisions with their money than the government.” from the rooftops.

    Just pointing that out.

  7. @6: sure, but the sheer joy of slut-shaming and controlling women’s bodies will always trump their self-proclaimed love of small government and less taxes. The government just has to be small enough to fit into all American uteri.

  8. So women who are drugged and raped would have to pay out of pocket for their own abortions? I can’t even begin to unpack how horrible that is. Filthy misogynists, every last one of them.

  9. Many forcible rapes of minors are treated as statutory rapes because it’s so impossible to prosecute forcible rape.

    And what about all the 13-year-old girls who didn’t struggle or even say no because they were too scared or confused? There’s a reason why an adult fucking a minor is ALWAYS illegal. It’s not just a matter of kids’ not being able to consent. In some cases, they don’t even know that they have the right to say no.

    Fuck Republicans. Each and every last one of them.

  10. You know, I think it would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where no one ever needed an abortion. That would be just lovely. But that ain’t our world, and making it harder for women to get the medical care they need doesn’t make it a better one.

    Assholes.

  11. I often think Tim Minchin needs a whole medley of variations on “Fuck The Motherfucker.”

    These bastards deserve a verse or two!

    I think it’s time to start making it socially unacceptable to vote Republican. No more “respectful differences” with your friends or family members–if they vote Republican, ask them if they support withdrawing aid to 13-year-old rape victims (or the mentally I’ll, disabled, threatened, or just plain terrified). If they’re like “Well, no…I don’t focus on that stuff. I just want a tax cut,” it behoooves us all to tell them, “You’re willing to tolerate financial coercion of rape victims for your pathetic little tax cut? Fuck you!”

  14. I’m not sure what’s worse, Republicans hating women enough to do this, or that many are just tolerating it for votes. I can imagine the rationalization now, “Oh, it’ll never pass the Senate & Obama would never sign it, but it does help my reelection chances with evil scum, so it’s a win-win!”

  15. You know how Sarah Palin creates word salads of dog-whistle phrases, buzzwords, and emotional triggers to seduce her lemming-like audiences? Well, it seems to me the whole GOP does the same thing on a larger scale, only more subtly.

    “Social conservatism” is inconsistent and incompatible with governmental conservatism, yet the GOP munges together all the phrases, concepts and talking points of both, along with (un)healthy doses of jingoism, unfounded accusations, and paranoia to manipulate the emotional non-analytic brains of their target audience.

    And you know what it means? It means this country has a sizable bunch of brainwashed muffinheads worse than George Orwell’s worst dream. Worse even then that, though, it means the GOP is purposely inciting divisions in the electorate for cynical, crass purposes.

  18. What’s really fucked about this is that, if I had to force a rape victim to bring her rape child to term and it had to either be an adult victim of forcible rape or a 13 year old girl pregnant with her mother’s boyfriends child, I wouldn’t even have to think about it.

    If *I* were forcibly raped, I would rather the 13 year old girl get the abortion. I would hate to have to do it and it would feel like a 9 month long rape but…,.

    I mean, if we had a limited number of rape abortions to hand out, the females who get to go to the front of the line should be the children, not the women……am I alone in this?

  19. I keep seeing people suggesting that we should “Fuck the Right” or “Fuck the Republicans”…

    My advice would be just the opposite.

    It just makes more of them.

  20. @16,

    I’ve been calling him “Boner” for years. Americans mangle every other foreign name, why not his?

    @19,

    I was thinking of something non-procreative. Like pegging. Without lube.

  22. This may be obvious information to everyone else, but the cost of an abortion (at least an abortion using the abortion pill) is $600 without insurance. I think we throw the language around a lot that women deciding to get abortions would have to ‘pay for it’. To add the weight of that financial decision on top of an already traumatic experience is awful.

  23. The best part is, this isn’t even a cost-saving measure. If Medicaid doesn’t pay for the abortion, then they’re paying for the birth which is ALWAYS more expensive. They’re also paying benefits for the child for the next 18 years.

    Don’t worry, someone will point this out and the Repubs will go back in the corner.

  24. What do you expect? They’re being run by fanatics who just keep getting more fanatical. Dems should attach provisions that make it a death penalty offense for a religious leader to rape anyone under eithteen. That would give them pause.

  30. @18, I think you are very alone. No woman should be forced to bring to term a baby she did not want or asked for regardless of age. Rape is not about sex it is about power and violence.

    I’m sure you’re thinking “but the baby didn’t ask for this either.” and you are right, but who has to pay to keep the baby alive? Who will have to change their entire life for something they didn’t want or had a choice in?

    Any women (especially a rape victim) has the right to an abortion, regardless of her age.

    And why would there be a limit? Is there a limit on rape? Are rapist given and quota for the year? What a stupid comment.

  31. I was horrified when I first saw this, and then I went and looked up the legal definition of “forcible rape”: In South Carolina, it’s described as “the carnal knowledge of a person forcibly or against that person’s will, or when a victim is mentally or physically incapable of giving consent.” A second legal definition (from a legal dictionary) describes it as a sexual act “accomplished against a persons will by means of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury to the victim.”

    There are different laws/definitions in each state (is there a federal definition?), but both of these, from my perspective, make it sound like there doesn’t have to have been actual physical force for a rape to qualify as “forcible.”

    And I’m pretty sure statutory rape is already considered a type of “forcible rape.” Even if it weren’t, I think you could successfully argue that it would fall under “mentally or physically incapable of giving consent.”

    This may not be as horrific as that blogger made it sound, in other words. I’d love to get some clarification from an actual lawyer from this.

  32. Oh wait, I see there isn’t a federal definition (mentioned in the article). But still, the state definitions seem to cover all the stuff this writer is concerned they aren’t covering. At least — they ARGUABLY do. <– the real problem.

  36. @31,

    Statutory rape is not considered “forcible” rape, and in virtually every state in this country (there may be a few exceptions) a rape that is committed “merely” by holding down a victim is not considered forcible, especially not for the purposes of deciding whether to prosecute.

    In any event, what the statutes say is pretty irrelevant when prosecutors will not prosecute and juries will not convict unless the victim was beaten within an inch of her (or his) life.

  37. Does anyone else think it would a good response to have a tawdry affair with Mrs. Boehner/Sarah Palin/so on, knock her up and then make a press announcement about the affair and the pregnancy so that she can’t have a hush-hush abortion and it ruins her political standing?

  38. So holding a knife to a 13-YO girl’s throat, and threatening to kill her entire family if she makes a sound, wouldn’t hold up in court as “forcible” because she wasn’t tied up &/or beaten senseless. Good to know.

    Jeezus.

  40. @18

    You’re not alone. As a 30-something lady, I have more coping skills than a 13-year-old. It would be less worse for me.

    Neither situation is good, though.

  41. @ 5 – Let’s hope that’s the case. I wanna see a big ol’ schism in the Gee Oh Pee, the ‘baggers on one side and the moderates on the other. Forevah.

    Assholes.

  42. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, abortions should be available to anyone who wants one, at government expense, not just because it’s a basic right, but because it saves money and reduces crime.

    On the other hand, statutory rape IS NOT RAPE. People under the legal age of consent are very able to consent to sex and to distinguish between sex they personally want and sex they don’t want, despite the consent not being legally recognized. It is extremely problematic to treat any sex that someone under 14 has as if it were all rape: people under 14 are sexual beings and do have sexual feelings.

    We as a society make it all illegal — that is, consent is not a defense to statutory rape — but that does NOT mean the consent wasn’t there. There is a big difference between a 13 year old having sex with someone she wants to have sex with, and her being forcibly raped, and our laws recognize this by making rape a much more serious crime.

    I’m aware the Repubs are only doing this to deny girls abortions, and so I disapprove, but I do agree in principle that we should distinguish between statutory rape and actual rape. I do not think it makes sense to destroy people’s lives by criminalizing consensual sex, even if one of the people involved was very young and the sex was probably not a good idea.

    @30: You misunderstood 18, who was just saying that if only one of the two women could get an abortion, she would prefer giving it to the teenager.

  43. @42: I’m very comfortable saying that a 13-year-old cannot give true informed consent to sex with an adult. The power differential is so great, the lack of knowledge is so profound, and the physiological differences between the frontal lobe and grey matter of a child vs an adult all combine to create a huge imbalance for a child “choosing” a sexual relationship with an adult.

  44. Atumornamedmarla @ 17, your comment broke my heart. You nailed it – that is exactly what they’re saying.

    And OuterCow, you are right as well.

    Atrocious. Just atrocious.

  45. @36 — Sorry — you’re right and I read the definition wrong. Statutory rape is NOT considered “forcible rape” in the state statutes that use that term (including the UCR).

    @42 — I agree with @43 that a 13 year old cannot give true informed consent to sex with an adult. Even if they think they can. It gets fuzzier for me when we’re talking about 16 year olds having sex with 19 year olds, but 13 and someone in their 20’s or older? No way. There’s too much potentially at play there. Coercion, trickery, fear of retribution — some minors claim they “consented” to statutory rape sex because they’re afraid to say anything else. Or they’ve been sold a line of bullshit from those adults. Adults hold a lot of power over kids, and kids know it. Not just physical power, either.

  46. @31 — actually that’s one of the problems — “forcible rape” isn’t defined in this bill, and different jurisdictions have *different* definitions — including some that have *no* definition for it. Ouch.

    I also think it’s weird they’d put restrictions on HSA accounts — that’s your OWN money — and conservatives are traditionally adamant your money is your money. so if i have saved MY MONEY for health care, I should be able to use it as I SEE FIT.
    (Not that I think much of these stupid accounts, but still…principle of the thing and all). Hypocrites, those bastards.

    If this all sounds familiar, it should — five years ago we had a so called fringe lunatic callign only for sodomized virgins to be able to cry rape: http://tinyurl.com/46vhyky

    How quickly things devolve 🙁

    Bay-ner, huh? Sheesh. Boner’s better 🙂

  48. @42, you’re living in a naive fantasy world if you think an adult male who has intercourse with a 13-year-old girl wants a relationship between equals. There is one primary reason why adults have sex with children: because they have a power advantage. Otherwise, they’d have sex with other adults.

    All a 13-year-old needs to satisfy her libido is a vibrator and a few boy band posters on her wall. Some porn and a bottle of lube for the boys. They have every right to their sexuality; adults have no right to it at all.

  49. “Bay-ner” may be the pronounciation Herr Speaker insists on, but I’m pretty sure he or his ancestors just dreamed that up to avoid the obvious “Boner” flak.

    Boehner is a German last name – in Germany it would more likely be spelled Böhner – and the German pronounciation is far closer to “Boner” than to “Bay-ner”. The ö or oe is the same vowel you find in Goethe, something between “oh” and “erh.” To an American ear, not easily distinguishable from “boner.”

    Here’s an Economist article dissecting the matter:
    http://econ.st/bmqAun

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