I’m curious if Conor F. will call me shrill or over the top or accuse me of using vile rhetoric if I point out that this makes the GOP objectively pro-rape, to borrow some warblogger terminology from years gone by. That’s right, ladies- the only way you are allowed any say in a pregnancy resulting from rape is if the rapist roughed you up a bit. Otherwise, the fetus rules.
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[…] Benen calls this “odious.” John Cole goes further: ”[T]his makes the GOP objectively pro-rape, to borrow some warblogger […]
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[…] I’m coming late to to discussion, to be sure, and it’s all been well covered already by John, Dennis G. and Kay (and Kay,) not to mention all the comment […]
Zifnab
It’s not so much “pro-rape” as it is “pro-forced-birth-by-12-year-olds”. Because we have to think of the children.
Violet
Good girls wouldn’t be having sex in the first place. They need to learn to keep their legs closed.
zuzu (not that one, the other one)
It’s not rape if you don’t get roughed up, after all!
Breezeblock
I don’t see how this news will keep me from drinking tonight. And tomorrow. And Sunday…
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
That’s pretty much the entire thing, right there. The pregnancy and childbirth is a punishment imposed by the invisible sky buddy on sluts.
I’ll be blunt, as I am over at Atrios’ place; the anti-choice movement isn’t about childbirth. It’s about sex.
Hunter Gathers
I guess they’ll get around to doing something about the jobs situation later. After all, forced birthing by 12 year olds and ending birthright citizenship for those dirty mexicans takes precedent over jobs and economic growth.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
Close, but not quite. The pregnancy and childbirth is a punishment imposed on sluts by the self-proclaimed representatives of the invisible sky buddy.
Rosalita
Will they ever stay our of our pants?
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
As the father of two young daughters I don’t have any snark for this. What I do have is contempt for these ratbastards and their continual intrusion into the private lives of every female in this country.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
I’ll accept your friendly amendment gladly, as I know, for a fact, that FSM doesn’t care one way or the other about it.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s actually about controlling women. Specifically in regards to who they can have sex with and when they can have it. If it was about the sex, they’d come up with a lot harsher punishments for men too. But it’s not. It’s about controlling women so they only have sex with approved people at approved times and places and in approved ways.
FlipYrWhig
One of the commenters at Benen’s says that the law still carries a provision that minors wouldn’t have to carry to term, force or no force. But, nonetheless, this “forcible” idea sounds like it means no federal money for abortion in cases of “non-forcible” rape–e.g. date rape or impaired consent, just for starters–and making that kind of distinction is just repulsive.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
God bless the FSM. Oh, wait…
Stillwater
Conor will say that policy matters really ought to be decided by the strength of the supporting argument, which conservatives have done in this case. The burden, therefore, clearly shifts to liberals to refute this non-ideologically motivated, prima facie true GOP position with clear and decisive non-ideological arguments devoid of self-righteous bile.
Alternatively, ED Kain will tell us that there are honest people offering arguments in good faith on both sides of every issue, and that if liberals don’t like this GOP proposal, they merely need to organize more.
slag
Nothing like a little medieval-style gender politics to convey the impression that America is moving apace toward a promising tomorrow.
Maybe it’s a good thing that nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Ija
I’m sure William Saletan and Ross Douthat are busy thinking up the reasons why this is actually not so bad, and how the real problem is pro-abortion feminists who are NOT SERIOUS ENOUGH about reducing the number of abortions.
c u n d gulag
The GOP thinks that those tramps and tarts deserve it for tempting their manly essence by doing something as sexy and provacative as, well, breathing.
And if you don’t follow up on that temptation, YOU’RE A HOMO!
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
Given their deep, deep concern over gay marriage, it goes beyond just controlling women. They’re vitally concerned with where dicks go, too.
daveNYC
Obviously if there wasn’t ‘force’ (whatever they mean by that) involved, then she actually wanted it and is a slut.
People suck.
Zifnab
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s a wall of paperwork either way.
As it stands, in order to get money for a medical procedure you have to admit you’ve been raped. Now, on top of that, you’ve got to show you’ve been forceably raped or submit a birth certificate to prove age. Then fill that out in triplicate, stand in line for two hours, get your papers stamped, submit a note to your priest, your mother, and your Congressman, and we’ll see about getting you that money.
It’s bureaucratic slut shaming.
David Brooks (not that one)
@FlipYrWhig: That commenter at Benen’s is wrong. If you look at the grammar, the exemption is for incest on a minor. Statutory rape by non-family, or family outside the definition of incest, is not excluded:
jrg
Vile rhetoric is NOT OK if you are Republican. Unless it happened more than five minutes ago, then it’s time to let bygones be bygones.
Of course, if you’ve found yourself in agreement over the color of the sky with one of those alleged dirty hippies who allegedly spat on a soldier once in the 1960s… Then, well, you must hate America so fuck you.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Ah, the American Taliban, oops, lemme rephrase that, the ‘Murkin Taliban, in action.
As usual, all of this is nothing more than a smokescreen to cover the broader wingnut assault on women’s reproductive rights. We all know that safe, reliable and easily available birth control meant that the wimmenfolk were no longer barefoot, pregnant and chained to the bed with just enough slack to get to the kitchen.
As Amanda Marcotte always points out, the anti-abortion yahoos aren’t really about saving zygotes, they’re really all about putting women back in their place. Right back there with the neeegros and such.
Elvis Elvisberg
@Violet:
Of course that’s true. If the pro-life movement cared about abortion, they’d be getting accurate info about contraception, and contraception, out to everyone. They’d have insisted on a much broader health insurance reform than we got, because the experience of other developed nations suggests that there would be a great decline in our abortion rate if we did.
But there is no party in this country dedicated to minimizing abortion. Just one dedicated to government control of women.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is true. They are very concerned with controlling people in general.
Pro-choice people need to work on rebranding the “pro life” movement as the “forced birth” movement. It’s a lot more accurate description of what they’re all about.
If forced-birthers really cared about stopping the number of unwanted pregnancies then they’d spend money on making birth control and sex education (outside of abstinence) available to everyone. They don’t, therefore their movement is about sex and control and not about pregnancies.
asiangrrlMN
So, my takeaway message is that if I’m about to be raped, I should kill the motherfucker before he can rape me. Got it. Duly noted.
Villago Delenda Est
Douchehat touched on another aspect of this entire issue, when he talked about adoption. Roe v. Wade cut into the supply of “wanted” babies, as all those white women could now get safe, legal abortions, instead of being forced to bring their love babies to term.
That’s another aspect of this that doesn’t get a great deal of attention, but it’s there.
FlipYrWhig
@Zifnab: Agreed, but it does mean that “12-year-olds” aren’t the principal group being shamed. It’s adult women who were raped but not “forcibly” enough.
martha
@asiangrrlMN: Exactly. But Conor will swoon at that too. So messy.
David Brooks (not that one)
Meta: I have a comment “awaiting moderation”. Is it because I used the word in*e*t three times, or because I called another commenter “wrong” in a thread about a blogger ethics panel?
Ked
Conor has occasionally come across as a voice of relative moderation on the right, but this last turn stunt-blogging for Sully he seems to have gone off his meds.
Check out the puff piece on the Times’ masturbatory explanatory editorial on Wikileaks. Or his rant in which he notes that the county sheriff “behaved badly in the aftermath of the shooting, and is utterly wrong about what caused it” re: the Tuscon assassination/rampage. Or, yes, the rape thing. Or his whinging about health care. Or his whinging about how KO is (was) so much worse than FOX.
Some of this has been bumped off the front page by the Egypt stuff (at least it’s not all in green…) but the last week’s worth of output there has been really outrageous. This is not the Conor I remember from six weeks ago, much less the last three years of almost-reasonableness. Did I just misread him all this time?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@asiangrrlMN:
Conceal and carry laws. Of all people, Joe Bageant in “Deer Hunting with Jesus” indicates that rapes and assaults on women track downwards if they have access to handguns. I can’t remember his exact words on it but Joe’s a DFH’s DFH so I tend to respect his opinion.
Violet
@David Brooks (not that one):
Moderation is triggered by specific words and also more than a certain number of links. I think it’s three links, including the “reply” link. Soshulist or Soshulism and that generalist word for footwear (sounds like shoo) will send you into mod. I think some “four letter words” might too, but not sure about that.
suzanne
This makes me want to get knocked up and get an abortion just so I can go NYAH NYAH.
Not really. But I’m almost sick of trying to make reasoned arguments with these people. Because they’re fundamentally unreasonable, and they have no respect for me and my life, or that of my daughters.
If they cared about children, we’d have high-quality subsidized childcare, prenatal care, and children’s healthcare. If they cared about women, we’d have birth control handed out on the street corner and the societal judgment of rapists would be so harsh that even those who would never face legal punishment would never want to leave their homes.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@suzanne:
The late Steve Gilliard once said:
“I’m not writing to make conservatives happy. I want them to hate my opinions. I’m not interested in debating them. I want to stop them.”
Too bad the vast majority of our Democratic Overlords don’t ascribe to that world view.
David Brooks (not that one)
@Violet: SO I’ll repeat myself :-(
To #12: Some blogger over at Benen’s place is reading the law in a sub-optimal way. The grammar says that the exemption is only for a minor who is impregnated by a family member who is close enough to meet the definition of a certain banned word. A minor who is the subject of statutory thingummy by an unrelated or distant family member (probably including cousin) is not exempted.
Better?
ppcli
@slag:
I’m not sure that some of these groups aren’t the Spanish Inquisition. They have all the
weaponsweaponry: Surprise, Fear, Ruthless Efficiency, Fanatical Devotion to the Pope…Ramiah Ariya
I am trying to understand the moral argument for withholding federal funding for abortion.
The argument, at least in people’s minds, seems to be this:
“You got pregnant and have a human life inside you because you could not keep your desires in check. Therefore, it cannot be the state’s responsibility to pay for abortions”
This is the only argument that makes sense, if you accept that “pro-life” is not the ONLY criteria – if you are really pro-life, then you should also vote against federal funding for ANY abortions – including results of rape.
Now, the logical extension of this argument is:
“You got lung cancer because you chose to smoke. Therefore you cannot be funded for treating lung cancer”
“You got diabetes because you had an unhealthy lifestyle. Therefore you cannot be funded for treating diabetes”
and so on, right?
Am I missing something here?
If you can accept abortion by rape victims, then you should accept any abortions – unless your argument is that getting pregnant was a wilful act; and therefore should not require federal funding to abort, right?
Violet
@Ramiah Ariya:
I completely agreed with you. But what you’re missing is that abortions involve women having sex. If it were men who got pregnant, there would be abortion clinics on ever corner. It’s not about the logic. It’s about gender and control.
liberal
@Villago Delenda Est:
You actually comment over there? I’ve done so on occasion, but I find the signal-to-noise ratio to be so low in the comments section that I don’t even bother clicking on it, usually.
cleek
@Ramiah Ariya:
1. abortion is immoral
2. federal funds come from your taxes
3. you are paying for an immoral act
swap “bombing Iraqis and Afghanis” for “abortion” in #1 and you get my position.
they do. even Dems. there was a big multi-week freakout during the HCR debates about this.
El Cid
Another big government liberal blogger trying to crush the small business informal abortion providers who offer a lower priced alternative to all these mainstream ‘licensed’ boondoggles.
Ramiah Ariya
@cleek
Yes, but the new Republican bill does not say that, right? So my point is, if they are hedging around that, then their arguments do not make sense for a lot more problems than abortion.
jacy
@Ked:
Yes.
Or, like a mental Benjamin Button, young Conor is just getting more dumb and facile as he ages.
FlipYrWhig
@David Brooks (not that one): Oh, I see… thanks for the correction.
And Another Thing...
@Violet: They’re NOT the “forced birth” movement, they’re the “no sex unless you’re making a baby” movement. You have to spell it out for the low information types, ie. the masses.
kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I just read it, and I didn’t find that. There’s an exception for minors with incest, but no general exception for minors.
Which is just bizarre, if you think about it.
I have to say, it’s chilling to read if you’re female. Three quarters of the text is on enforcement provisions: who has standing to report, the sanctions, etc.
The section on actual women (or girls) is two paragraphs.
The people who are going to be subject to this law were not given much consideration.
“Place the pregnant female in danger of death…”
It’s really alarming to read about Congressional allowance for the “pregnant female”. She’s little more than an afterthought in this legislation. I think it’s really, really generous of them to make an exception to avoid her DEATH.
asiangrrlMN
@David Brooks (not that one): insects (but the other way) triggers the mod as well.
@martha: Yes. The gentlewriter from The Atlantic can kiss my flat ass.
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I am rabidly (but very silently) anti-gun, but this is one situation that might persuade me to change my mind. So, if the Republicans truly want more people armed, then kudos to them.
Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)
This needs to get lots and lots of discussion. So that people understand just what’s being proposed in this. As I said in response to Dennis G’s post, I’ll paraphrase from The Bloody Shirt: to conservatives, the outrage is never the acts they committed, but only the effrontery of having those acts held against them. Wait until this gets noticed and called the nasty piece of misogynistic victim punishment that it really is. Anguished cries of butthurt from those who care about a fetus only prior to its crossing of the cervical rubicon.
cleek
@Ramiah Ariya:
the GOP knows it’s a political impossibility to force women to carry a pregnancy caused by rape. but, since those cases are a small fraction of abortions, it doesn’t matter much. this would get them very close to their goal. close enough to make their base very happy, i’m sure.
suzanne
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Word to that. Fuck consensus. I’m either a free, self-determining citizen, or I’m not.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@asiangrrlMN:
Everybody who’s never spent any time living in rurl ‘Murka should read Joe’s book. He grew up down the interstate from me so I know the area really well.
He does make a compelling case for conceal-carry laws as they pertain to women. As he puts it in the book, a woman being threatened yelling “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE” doesn’t have nearly the impact against an assailant than she would be pulling out a gun and shooting once into the air, then saying “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE”. Apparently there’s also a few studies that Joe trusts (thus aren’t rigged NRA pieces) that support his thesis.
I’m agnostic on guns and gun control.
Where were we? Oh yeah, it’s all about keeping the womenfolk down. Believe me, if every female in this country carried a pistol and used them with regularity, you’d see the wingnuts change their tune on gun control as well.
shortstop
@Violet:
4jkb4ia
Cannot quit–Jennifer Rubin on Rand Paul–is “outside the mainstream of the American public” Was looking for Egypt commentary.
Yes, this is very bad and targeted at very vulnerable young people. On Dennis G’s I commented more.
Brian
Just goes to show that both parties are the same. Why isn’t there a “sarcasm” font?
asiangrrlMN
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I especially agree with you on the last paragraph (oh, how the wingnuts would change their tune). I will check out his book.
Phyllis
The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel, not a procedural manual.
Sighsob*headdesk*
kabiddle
I know what rape is. You’ve got it correct. Don’t back down.
John Doe
What a stupid post. The bill doesn’t reduce any penalties for rape. In fact, it increases an effective penalty for rape: the possibility that the child will be born. (Abortion is rapists’ best friend — cover up the evidence.)
SaminMpls
I dropped the “Republicans are objectively pro-rape” line in a political science class. Jaws fell, the Professor got pissed, all of which was fine, I just didn’t expect that strong a reaction. That, I think, is telling of just how differently liberals view the GOP than everyone else.