And as the second item of business in Congress, instead of working on legislation relating to jobs or other economic issues, Republicans are addressing rape and abortion in their continuing culture wars, inserting provisions to make rape laws less stringent in the context of abortion funding.
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.
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. They also wouldn't be able to deduct the cost of the abortion or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense.
"This bill takes us back to a time when just saying 'no' wasn't enough to qualify as rape," says Steph Sterling, a lawyer and senior adviser to the National Women's Law Center. 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. "There are a lot of aspects of rape that are not included," Levenson says.Forcible rape is not a legal term with a clear definition; in some states the way the rape laws are written could potentially make all rape victims ineligible for an abortion. An aspect of the issue is resistance 'to the utmost', many speakers who advise women on how to survive rape situations note that a woman must use her own judgement at the time to minimize injury or even to avoid death that could result if she struggles too strenuously with an attacker.
"A few states have modified the strict rule that force must involve physical violence. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that force includes "[any] superior force—physical, moral, psychological, or intellectual—[used] to compel a person to do a thing against that person's volition" (Commonwealth v. Rhodes, 510 A.2d 1217, 1225 (Pa. 1986))." Read more: Rape: Legal Aspects - Forcible Rape: Elements Of The Offense - Consent, Force, Sexual, Requirement, Resistance, and Woman http://law.jrank.org/pages/1927/Rape-Legal-Aspects-Forcible-rape-elements-offense.html#ixzz1CPyDtMsQAs for the incest exception, the bill would only allow federally funded abortions if the woman is under 18. Color me cynical. I have to wonder how this reflects the much-touted right wing family values of Republicans and Tea Partiers:
the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress.
"Somebody needs to look closely at this," Levenson says. "This is a bill that could have a dramatic effect on women, and language is important. It sure sounds like somebody didn't want [the exception to cover] all the different types of rape that are recognized under the law."Truth be told, a number of our right wing political candidates don't believed there should be ANY exemptions, ever, for abortion - not rape (forcible or otherwise), not the life or health of the mother, not age or incest. I would argue that this is the first step in removing all of those exemptions, not only from abortion funding, but from all abortions under law. Because they feel passionately about this issue, and are willing to enforce their beliefs and their opinions on the bodies and minds of others. They justify this by the sanctimonious, self-righteous, holier-than-thou conviction that they know best and that their religious views are right, are better, than the religious beliefs of other people who differ with them, who hold views consistent with the 20th and 21st century, not the worst excesses of the 19th century Victorian era.
This is the real tyranny operating under the name of patriotism, strict-constitutionalism, family values to try to disguise what it is, to try to make what is unconscionable appear more palatable. This is the real face of right wing authoritarianism and misogyny behind the public mask and image of 'family values'.
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. (Smith's spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.)Republicans and Tea Partiers in Minnesota, having gained majorities in the Minnesota House and Senate, but not the Governor's office, are moving on similar culture war tracks. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, for example, was elected in her federal congressional district in part by a substantial and militantly single-issue, anti-abortion base, as were others on the Right. The anti-GLBT / anti-sodomy culture wars are closely parallel, similarly reflecting the narrow sexual bigotry of the Right.
Despite giving lip service to the word 'Freedoms' ad nausea, it is Republicans and Tea Partiers who are attempting to enlarge the role of government, intruding its reach further into the lives of Americans in a restrictive way, and attempting to impose their views on others, seeking to compel them to obey their theocratic and puritanical views against sex. It is the Republicans, and the Tea Partiers who are attempting despite court rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States, to intrude into the bedroom behavior of Americans where it does not belong while mistakenly labelling themselves patriots and strict constitutionalists. Labels don't make it so. They don't want to follow the Constitution; they want to gut the Constitution. They want to institute an extreme and right wing Christian theocratic equivalent of the worst of Sharia law embraced by muslim fundamentalists.
We need to end the culture wars before they go any further. We need to follow the role model of those who promote sanity, like John Stewart, and some balance, some moderation between the extremes. Family values are not consistent with these culture wars of prudery and puritanism. Human values are not consistent with the right wing culture wars. Even the right doesn't live by these standards, they are routinely hypocrites in their own personal sexual conduct in private. They have no business making their narrow-minded and bigoted culture wars the subject of government. Rather they need to be attending to the real business of government for which they were actually elected.
The right should be ashamed of themselves for this 'priority', the 'Right' couldn't be more wrong. Everyone else needs to become aware, and to begin NOW, right now, to push back against these narrow- minded, bigoted, anti-freedom, anti-American culture wars. There is nothing moral about them, there is nothing ethical about them, whatever labels they try to give themselves.
Rape laws are another of those that are a pain in the ass about where to draw the line. No is No and any real man would agree with that, but saying no the next day does not cut it. A guy intentionally getting a girl drunk and having sex when she is too drunk to understand what she is saying is rape, a girl getting drunk on her own, never saying no and waking up the next day thinking "omg what did I do" is just a poor decision. Personally I never understood what would be fun about the first case since it seems it would be a bit like sex with a warm corpse, I kinda like having some response from my partner.
ReplyDeleteTuck wrote: "A guy intentionally getting a girl drunk and having sex when she is too drunk to understand what she is saying is rape, a girl getting drunk on her own, never saying no and waking up the next day thinking "omg what did I do" is just a poor decision."
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the appeal of a 9 year old or a 13 year old girl to an adult man either. A child cannot by definition give informed consent, and is in an inferior and vulnerable relation to any adult man. This move by Republicans removes that very important barrier, and I would hope that our readers will contact their members of Congress to protest it.
As to the scenario you describe, I don't think it really matters who is responsible for supplying the alcohol, having sex with someone who is drunk to the point they have lost functioning inhibitions and their judgement is impaired is a bad thing. I think a good rule of thumb is if someone is too drunk to drive, someone is probably too drunk to make a responsible decision to consent to sex. At that point, taking advantage is taking advantage.
I think the PA courts got it perfectly right with :"The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that force includes "[any] superior force—physical, moral, psychological, or intellectual—[used] to compel a person to do a thing against that person's volition" (Commonwealth v. Rhodes, 510 A.2d 1217, 1225 (Pa. 1986))."
I think what disturbed me the most about this is that apparently if there is not a sufficiently injurious resistance, if a woman is coerced by a threat of death or violence, it isn't 'forcible rape'.
Well I agree that having sex with someone too drunk to make a decision is wrong but it would be really hard to make it a crime. I know when I was in college plenty of times I was drunk enough not to remember what happened the next day but had coherent conversations with people who did not think I was as drunk as I was. So you get a drunk couple together having what they think is a coherent conversation and who is taking advantage of who?
ReplyDeleteI think Tuck, we come back to this:
ReplyDelete"The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that force includes "[any] superior force—physical, moral, psychological, or intellectual—[used] to compel a person to do a thing against that person's volition" (Commonwealth v. Rhodes, 510 A.2d 1217, 1225 (Pa. 1986))."
In the case you describe, where both parties are drunk, the operative question to comply with the above guidelines is....would either or both parties have had sex if they weren't drunk? If not, then alcohol was the difference in consent that would not have taken place otherwise, if one or both were able to use their full mental capacities.
Does that make either party a rapist in the samesenseof violent rape - no. But it is also not really FULLY consensual sex either.
That is why some states have done away with the whole concept of violence or force in their definitions, and why many have categories of non-consensual sex that are not treated the same as other kinds of non-consensual no-ambivalence about it rape.
Similarly, isn't it fair to posit that a child cannot give genuine consent to sex either for example? But actual violence may not be involved, only some combination of positive inducement and threats.
I didn't get drunk in college, never have found the attraction. I formed the opinion while a child that people who had gone to great lengths to appear attractive were anything but when under the influence - even just tipsy. And that women under the influence were even more unattractive than men, generally. As a result my parents were sufficiently convinced that I was adamant about it that they never minded if I attended parties where there wass drinking, never hesitated to hand me the car keys, because I always came home sober as a judge. I'm not anti-alcohol, I enjoy wine, some beer, and I'm a minor connosieur of single malt Scotch. But only in stringent moderation.
If I had any question about that policy the night one of my freshman dorm roomates got drunk on sangria and projectile vomited all over our dorm room would have convinced me that alcohol to excess was to be avoided. I sincerely don't understand the appeal to men of sex with drunken women - if only because of the risk of THAT. Ewwwwwwwwww.