It's Not Rape Rape

The H.R. 3 bill - the "No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act" - that John Boehner and the new House are posing as some form of legitimate legislation is certainly one of the worst ideas ever. Worse then going ahead withthe Sex and the City 2 movie? Yes, even worse than that.

I can't break down the exact facts and phrasing that this bill suggests, and Maria did it pretty well, but, like my fellow feminists out there, the fact that it redefines rape and seemingly creates some sort of terror-alert advisory system for what qualifies as rape or who deserves abortions based on rape. Or if one rape is worse than other forms of rape is scary, disheartening and brings society one step closer to making those designer hangers for clandestine abortions.

In Sady Doyle's Salon article, which articulates the repercussions that this bill has, she said something ominously honest, "It shouldn't be shocking: The goal is no abortions for rape survivors. Because the goal is no abortions, for anyone." This is just one, in a laundry list of ways, in which women's reproductive rights are compromised by someone else making choices about complicated lady issues that the hegemony (yeah, I went there) intends to simplify as much as possible.

This blog, in many ways, and rightfully so, has a major Olivia Benson boner, and it makes sense, because her story is so similar to what H.R. 3 is trying to control. Olivia, in her dark and storied history, is a child of rape and is also a victim of her own sexual-assault. Of course, I'm not saying Olivia should have been aborted. But in alternate world, we'd have to assume her mother's rape was not "forcible rape," whatever that means. Her mother was drunk? Her mother was unconscious? Her mother was 14 and her rapist was 56? Her mother was bi-polar (Does this explain Britney Spears' children?). Well, it wasn't rape rape, so we can breathe easy?

But, to take this further, to Doyle's point, we can look at the abortion doctor in Pennsylvania, whose clinic turned out to be just a house of horrors of fetus limbs, cat feces and poorly-cared for women, in what is arguably one of the of the worst-case-scenario situations for abortion-rights activists. This is not what The Cider House Rules intended, guys! Things that were found:

*Fetuses, fetal remains and dismembered baby parts — especially, for some reason, baby feet — in bags, jars, milk jugs and cat-food containers kept around the clinic, in the freezer and in the basement; some containers were stored in the same refrigerator where clinic staff kept their lunches
*Instruments that were not properly sterilized or discarded, which allegedly spread venereal disease to several patients
*Cats roaming and excreting freely in the filthy clinic

My initial reaction to reading that was shock and horror that made my gag reflex work overtime. My second thought, well, I hate admitting this because I'm a self-described radical feminist, but I thought "maybe abortions are a bad idea. EEK!" But after some contemplation, this case is the perfect example of why we need Reproduction Rights that benefit women (poor women, really, who ultimately suffer the most because of these abortion/rape restrictions), so they can get some sort of tax-funded abortions without having to die in the process. This is a unique case (one hopes), but it does make us see the lengths women will go to in order to get an abortion, and it foreshadows what H.R. 3 will eventually lead to, if it passes (which it won't). It's a slippery slope to redefine rape, and it's even worse when we can't define rape now, when victim-bashing still happens, when Ben Roethlisberger can rape girls and we, as a society, accept his excuse because "she was probably asking for it."

Before I get off my rapey soap box without even a witty quip en tow, I will say that, it certainly doesn't help when we have EGOT winner Whoopi Goldberg defending the most heinous crimes, who introduced "rape rape" into the lexicon, who doesn't include statutory rape in her definition of "rape rape," (if said rape was done by an Oscar-winning director then let's get all the facts before we convinct him).



Whoopi Goldberg and John Boehner are the future, and that's a very scary thought.

And Scene.