What is the difference between rape and forcible rape? That’s a question Bart Stupak wants you to know the answer to before you go trying to abort a pregnancy that has resulted from rape. He also wants your insurance company to ask you and your doctor whether your rape was really, truly forcible. If it wasn’t, Stupak wants it to be illegal for your insurance company to pay for the procedure. This distinction is not in the Stupak-Pitts Amendment that recently passed in the House, but it was in a Pitts Amendment that passed the Energy & Commerce Committee last summer. Chairman Waxman managed to reintroduce it and kill it off.
However, all the Republicans voted for it, and so did Bart Stupak and a handful of other Democrats. So, I ask you, what is the difference between rape and forcible rape? Is this language an indelicate way of banning coverage of abortions for pregnancies resulting from ‘consensual’ statutory rape? Or, are we supposed to decide when a rape is non-forcible? If the woman is passed out and doesn’t struggle or verbally object, is that non-forcible rape? How would an insurance company go about making sure that your rape was forcible? Who’s word is good enough? Do you need photographs of lacerations or something?
Why do we have to put up with these morons?
Why do we have to put up with these morons?
Ask their constituents. They keep electing them.
And might I add, you should also blame whoever recruited them to run in the first place, backed them with money and campaign resources, etc.
Because we haven’t yet held a constitutional convention to fill in all of the holes in the Bill of Rights that have been patched up by case law over the last couple of centuries, that’s why.
And perhaps because we let any political front organization that disguises itself as a church operate as a giant tax-free cash laundering operation for astroturfing and lobbying activities.
Man, I hate these people. However, Tarheel is right. We keep electing these morons. I sit in the bluest of Virginia and have to put up with Perriello voting with these assholes.
As a result, I will continue to raise hell with the DPVA about why we keep giving money to, supporting, having rallies for DINOs.
I am sick of this shit.
maybe he sees the diff as between a woman hospitalized from the attack, and from the (now un-PC) somewhat humorous view shown in cop-comedies of the ’70s…of the little old lady showing up at the precinct to file a rape complaint/false report.
IMO, Stupak’s amendment and those who supported it need to be stopped….both in the elimination of the amendment and at the voting booths next year. Women deserve better than these knuckle-draggers representing them in Congress…..
I have to assume he wants to force women who were date-raped after being given the drugs of that name, the mentally/communication impaired who can’t say no, and children who just let their daddies do it without struggling, among others, to “pay the price for their sin”. I guess the Catholic Bishops have no worry, since their favorite game doesn’t involve anyone old enough to need an abortion.
The only difference that I know is that “rape” includes statutory rape whether it was consensual or not; the victim being below the age of legal consent. I guess he’s saying, “Make the little sluts have the kid.”
Because really, who can resist the charms of a willing 12-year old (/snark). I guess “Christian” Republicans can’t.
P.S. For the language police, is the semicolon right in the first sentence? I always had trouble with that in High School.
use a semi-colon only if both sides of it are complete sentences.
agreed…I might have suggested placing the following clause in parentheses.
English is quite the complicated language, no?
Yes, even when it is your birth language. Part of the problem is that English is a polyglot amalgamation of at least a dozen languages. I remember the excellent PBS series “The Story of English” in the 1980’s. Who could foretell the the English word for “horse” would come, not from Latin equus, not from French cheval, not from German pferd, but from Norwegian hros. Or was it Old Norse? Somewhere I have some VHS tapes turning into sludge. The series doesn’t seem available from Netflix.
I attended a progressive school, (Summerlane School in North Branch NY, and later expanded to include Green Valley School in Orange City FL), where the guy running the place, (a self-proclaimed Baptist preacher masquerading as a revolutionary educator and behavioral scientist), raped and brutalized literally scores of teenage girls placed in his care over a 10 year period. He also raped numerous young idealistic women who’d come to the school as staff on Summer breaks from college.
Many of these girls were beaten and raped repeatedly, and some learned the horrific “Sophie’s Choice” kind of lesson whereby when the assaults started they quickly assented to the sex simply to avoid the terrible beatings. Many other girls were coerced into sex with him. For some the coercion took the form of the threat of violence if they did not submit, and George was well known for having a very violent streak. For others the coercion was more subtle, often the kind of emotional manipulation where the perpetrator instills in the vulnerable child the idea that she should be grateful to him for caring about her and in some cases rescuing her from a nasty home life, etc. Others were coerced in the same way much workplace abuse plays out; if you don’t obey what the person in authority wants you to do, he will make sure you have a hard time of it.
There is no question that all these instances are rape. And for me, any rape that occurs that has a quid pro quo component to it such that the person being raped feels s/he has to submit in order to prevent retaliation in any form, (or to increase the liklihood of receiving favorable treatment), is forcible rape. Ergo, all rape is forcible rape.
IMO
He also wants your insurance company to ask you and your doctor whether your rape was really, truly forcible.
Obviously, he disrespects women to such a degree that his assumption is that at least some will lie about it. Medical confirmation is required much like that in a criminal proceeding.
Co-sponsor, Rep. Joe Pitts,R-PA, and his connection to the family is what interests me.
http://airamerica.com/therachelmaddowshow/blog/11-10-2009/watch-tba/
http://wwww.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/11/803303/-Maddow-OUTS-Family-Democrats-Botching-Health-C
are-Reform
Jeffrey Sharlet has covered the “family” extensively. He’s worth checking out if you haven’t already.
http://jeffsharlet.com/content/articles/
Yup. Stupak = useful idiot.
Are they really discussing this? Rape…it’s rape. It doesn’t matter if the girl didn’t struggle. It’s rape. Oh shit…excuse me while I throw up.