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.
Since these rightie-tighties are so hell bent on eliminating abortion and adding all these extra unwanted kids to the planet, they should have to start adopting all the resulting children.
If they aren’t willing to support taxes that support social services, welfare, women’s assistance groups, and education, then they have no right to force women to bring these children into the world. They take away sex ed and programs to help people, and then women in poverty are trapped in poverty when they get pregnant. It’s racism and classism at it’s worst.
Somebody needs to slap the shit out of Boner and every one of his Republicunts that co-sponsored. Wake them up to reality.
@51
Good start, but I’d go one further. As they are SO devoted to their right-to-life views, then let ALL the women so inclined line up to be implanted with the fetuses and ALL the men to pay for each child’s life until the kid is a minimum of 18. Because it galls me how they can shrill (yes, I’m verbifying it) about right to life, but completely ignore the reality (usually poverty) for the newborn and its parents. Arrgghh.
If you don’t want to pronounce Herr Speaker’s name as Boner, just do as I do, and pronounce it Shithead.
And a 13-year-old cannot give consent. They do not understand the ramifications. That is why they cannot sign legal contracts. I don’t care whether the 13-year-old THINKS they can. We protect children for a reason. They don’t have the life experience to make informed decisions.
I guess I can understand the mindset they’re coming from (no taxpayer funds for a procedure they disagree with resulting from an incident that the girl “willingly” took part in), but I’m not so heartless as to be able to agree with ’em.
Let’s also not forget that this is the same party where every single man (though not a single woman), voted against Sen. Franken’s bill to not let the US do business with companies that don’t allow rape victims to sue their rapists. GOP + rape = ♥
@23 makes an excellent point about the fiscal drain of the alternative. You speak in terms the GOP can understand, sir: money.
The GOP’ s new motto ” Welcome to the Middle ages and women should be barefoot and pregnant.’ Man they really want to lose the next election don’t they?
@ 54 Do you remember the name of that bill?
@56: Oh, my mistake. Looks like it was an amendment to a defense spending bill, not its own bill. Link
And there were a total of six male Republican senators that voted for it. So only 20 of the 30 Senate Republicans are soulless monsters. My mistake. Excerpt:
The measure passed the Senate by a vote of 68 to 30, with all 30 ‘no’ votes being cast by Republicans. Notably, 10 Senate Republicans voted for the measure, including all four female Republican senators.
We don’t need another loophole between rapists and prosecution, all right? It’s practically fucking impossible for rapists to be convicted now – the odds of getting away with it vs. being successfully prosecuted are already stacked so against the survivors of that crime that no one with any experience in the matter would encourage the survivor to prosecute. Unless they thought rape survivors really enjoy being raked over the coals, because the original trauma just wasn’t painful enough.
Vicious, women-hating Republican asshats: Stop. Just, stop. Why do *any* women vote Republican? It could not be more obvious to me that they hate women as a group and make this shit up purely to rob us of identity as human beings and our own agents. My contempt knows no bounds.
Women needs to be told what to do with their vagina. If you don’t tell them what to do socialism wins.
WOW! This is so stink on the part of Republican Americans who support childhood prostitution as well. If a young teenage girl is forced into prostitution then statutory rape also does not apply. Leave it to the Republicans to support violence in every form and call themselves conservatives. Leave it to the Republicans to have no respect for our laws that protect children. It’s interesting also as a matter of law that a woman or 13 year old American girl can’t say no and mean it. If feeling threatened for her life
an American girl does not resist then she agreed and changed her mind. God Bless the hateful men sponsoring forced sexual consents. Rosemarie Quintal
well its bad enough in some states, if a woman is raped, she’s charged for the rape kit to collect evidence. And then this?? The message lawmakers are sending 1/2 the population with policies like this just smacks of misogyny.
Why don’t you all try taking a look at the actual issue and learning the actual facts before making comments like “Republicans hate women” &c., &c., &c?
Isn’t the left supposed to be the smart side? The side that can see the nuance?
There are about three comments (of the 61 I’m looking at) that point out that the situation isn’t quite so Manicheanly GOOD (left) VS. EVIL (right) as people seem to be sticking their fingers in their ears, screaming I CAN’T HEAR YOU I CAN’T HEAR YOU, and wishing it were.
@62 Yeah, you’re right. The Republicans totally have some good points in there. Those 13-year-olds were asking for it. They shouldn’t be getting any money from hard-working taxpayers just because they went out and got themselves raped and pregnant, amirite?
@63, oh man, my bad. You’re right. “THE REPUBLICANS,” that monolithic block, are responsible for all the bad in the world.
Brooklyn reader hit the nail on the head in post 15. I wish I’d said it. There is a Fascist element in this country that scares the crap out of me and they are playing to the mindless minions of the right to gain more and more power. It started with Reagan in 1980 and ain’t over yet. They want smaller government and a brow beaten population so that they will stay out of their way while they rape the whole world. This bill is part of the brow beating. It’s Germany in the 1930s all over again. They play on the emotions of the shallow and the uneducated with slogans and double speak while ever increasing their power. The only solution is for the American people to wake up and “just say NO” in mass. We can take the country back, Obama’s election was a start, but we need more. The center and the left have to work together to get the word out and educate people and dispel the lies and half-truths of the extreme right.