"You've got a purty mouth..."
I really shouldn't need to write about something as obscene and ridiculous as this. It goes, I think, without saying that there are many in the Legislative Branch of our government who are completely insane. For awhile, I was under the impression that they were the epitome of crazy. When people said to me, "Those representatives in the Legislative branch are insane!" I would reply, "Yeah, well, at least they can't possibly get any crazier!"
Thank you, Republicans in the House of Representatives, for proving me wrong. Thank you for breaking the barrier of insanity, and pushing the very limits of my "uh, what the fuck?" reflex.
According to an article in "The Daily Beast", Republican/Conservative representatives in the House are trying to pass a bill called "The No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act" (known as H.R. 3). I'll post the link to the article at the bottom, but for those of you that would rather not read another page (poor babies), I'll sum it up as best as I can without, I hope, plagiarizing the author.
In 1976, a little thing called the "Hyde Amendment" banned federal funding for abortion. For example, Medicaid would not cover a woman wishing to have one. 17 years later, Congress passed an exemption to the Hyde Amendment, saying that "pregnancies resulting from rape or incest" could still be funded by federal money. My issue isn't with the Hyde Amendment.
It's with, obviously, H.R. 3. Here's an excerpt from the news article...
H.R. 3 would prevent many of these women from using their health insurance to pay for abortions, whether their plan is public or private.
Under H.R. 3, only victims of “forcible rape" would qualify for federally funded abortions. Victims of statutory rape—say, a 13-year-old girl impregnated by a 30-year-old man—would be on their own. So would victims of incest if they’re over 18. And while “forcible rape” isn’t defined in the criminal code, the addition of the adjective seems certain to exclude acts of rape that don’t involve overt violence—say, cases where a woman is drugged or has a limited mental capacity.
So, in other words, if you are going to have an abortion, you're going to be paying for it out of pocket, even if you were raped. To use the article's example, how in the flying fuck is a 13-year old supposed to pay for an abortion out of her own pocket? A girl under the age of 18 would be subject to whatever her parents thought was best for her. Let's face it, if your husband raped own his daughter with or without your knowledge, there's a good chance you shouldn't be making decisions for anybody. The main point here is that abortions are (or at least should be) the mother's choice, and if the mother is under 18, it no longer becomes her choice- it becomes the choice of her parents.
"Cuz they gently rapin' e'r'body out there."
But that's not all that H.R. 3 will do. It would impose a new tax on most health care plans unless they dropped abortion coverage, even for victims of sexual assault. What health insurance company, I ask you, would continue to offer something if they were being taxed for it by the federal government? And might I remind you that these are the same people that refuse to offer a baby born with (let's say) a hole in his/her heart because it's a "pre-existing condition".
I'd like to go back to the quotation above for a second, because this is what really puts me over the edge. "...while 'forcible rape' isn't defined in the criminal code, the addition of the adjective seems certain to exclude acts of rape that don't involve overt violence- say, cases where a woman is drugged or has a limited mental capacity." I'm going to break that down for you, as it bears repeating. The dictionary definition for "rape" is the "act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person".
One would think the the addition of "forcible" onto the word "rape" would be a bit redundant. Rape is, by definition and nature, forced, no matter which way you spin it. Basically what the bill is saying is that if a psychotic rapist were to impregnate a women, she would only be able to abort the fetus if there was violence involved. If a date-rape pill were slipped into her drink, she'd be shit out of luck. Sorry, Tandy. Looks like your first born is also going to be a walking reminder that you were raped by a crazy person.
Boehners give Boehner a Boehner. Hah.
What exactly are Republicans trying to say here? That they would rather see the male rapist get away without bearing any responsibility to the mother and future child than have a tiny fetus the size of a half dollar be aborted? Come on. I would absolutely love to know what one of these Republican assholes would do if their wife was raped one night, only for her to find out she was pregnant two weeks later. I am willing to bet all of the money in my savings account that the Republican would be the first to look at his wife and say, "You need to get an abortion." Why? On the grounds that, "I'm not raising that thing," of course.
The House Majority leader, John Boehner, said that the bill is "one of [their] highest legislative priorities." Awesome. H.R. 3 will, without a doubt, pass the House and its 246 abortion opponents. The Senate is iffy, mostly because it's so close. In all likelihood, President Obama will stand up for women and veto this garbage the second it touches his desk. But whether or not this bill fails still says something about the GOP. The author of the article says it better than I can:
H.R. 3 is still scary, because it demonstrates a startling new extremism in the GOP. In the past, even the most resolutely antiabortion Republicans usually made exceptions for rape and for life-threatening medical emergencies. H.R. 3 is the product of a House willing to jettison even those minor protections for women... H.R. 3 is the product of a party that is willing to go much further than most people realize to force women to bear children against their will.
Call me crazy, but as a white male, I know that it is not, nor will it ever be, my decision as to whether or not my significant other gets an abortion. It simply isn't my call to make because it's not my goddamn body. I'm not the one that has to carry the child for nine months. I'm not the one that puts on 20+ pounds and has horrifying mood swings. And I'm certainly not the one that is going to push an eight pound baby out of my vagina. I know my place. I think it's time the Republicans in the House and the Senate realized theirs.
(IMAGE REMOVED FOR SOME DUMB FUCKING REASON)
Unless you're John Boehner... he cries so much,
he has to be positively stuffed with estrogen.
So GOP, I beg you... stop this. You're acting absolutely psychotic. You are, for the most part, a group of old, white, rich men that have no idea what it's like to be raped, sexually abused, or impregnated, and you never will. So stop trying to force yourselves into the lives of women that do not want anything to do with you. I think you'll find that, by passing retarded legislation like this, you're really no better than the rapists.
-Much thanks to The Daily Beast for providing the great article, and more thanks to B. Wing for enlightening me to it.
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