Well, this happened. In what can only be described as pandering to the Old White Man lobby, the GOP has decided that rape is, well, too broad a term. But apparently women didn’t like that and fought back. And so the “forcible rape” wording of the Hyde Amendment disappeared.
Mother Jones describes what made Chris Smith, the representative who decided that date rape and incest and statutory rape aren’t rape-y enough to be called rape, retract his wording.
The GOP effort to rewrite the meaning of rape incited a Twitter campaign of protest (using the hashtag #dearjohn). Editorial pages and columnists protested. Progressive groups initiated a crusade to kill the bill. And The Daily Show, of course, got in the act (around 9:15) too. MoveOn.org launched a petition against the bill, saying Smith’s legislation would “set women’s rights back by decades…As far too many women know, bruises and broken bones do not define rape—a lack of consent does.” EMILY’s List, issued its own petition, declaring war on the bill and one of its most prominent proponents: Speaker of the House John Boehner. Its website, BoehnersAmerica.org, urged “Boehner and his cronies to stop using rape victims as political pawns.” The group said, “it was known from the beginning that Boehner and his boys would fight to take away women’s freedoms whenever possible.”
Smith’s bill did unsettle some GOPers. Differentiating between types of rape, Politico reports, befuddled Republican aides. “Such a removal would be a good idea, since last I checked, rape by definition is non-consensual,” one GOP aide says.
Well, I’m glad they’re on the same page as us when it comes to the definition of rape.
Maybe when a man slips a drug into a woman’s drink, and she can’t control her body when they have sex, that doesn’t seem violent. But you tell that to a woman who has been impregnated by a man who took advantage of her. You tell her that what she experienced was not rape but rather “rape-ish,” to quote the Daily Sho
And the thing is, this legislation will still disenfranchise women if it goes through, even if the word “forcible” isn’t attached to it. It will still make it even harder for lower-income women and women of minorities to get safe abortions. Maybe Chris Smith doesn’t have to worry about affording an abortion, but that doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist.
Also, just an administrative note: I’ll be blogging for Alan Colme’s website, Liberaland. If you want to support this awkward little kid, you can read my first article here.
Snarkadelia 