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Janine discusses Republican plans to redefine rape.

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House Speaker John Boehner is introducing legislation in the House via  Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) to terminate federal funding for abortions for women who become pregnant by rape or incest. Mother Jones has a great article that discusses how the bill will impact federal funding for abortions and the end of a truce between pro and anti abortion activists on the matter of funding. I’ll look specifically at the rape redefinition portion of the bill.

Lucas Spiegel, writing on why definitions of key words matter…

“The way we define a given word, and more specifically, who does the defining, has an enormous impact on how we think about that word and what it represents. It also dictates the nature of our relationship to the thing or concept the word symbolizes. This could not be more true for the word rape.”

I agree.

This bill wants to redefine rape and limit its scope to “forcible rape.” While the bill uses tax funded abortions as it’s cover, it’s effect is to impose a new definition of rape onto the States. Thus, John Boehner and his GOP cadre want to ransack and pillage the individual State defined rape laws.

I am of the opinion that rape, by its very nature, is forcible.  Sometimes brute force is used; sometimes force of another kind is used by feeding drugs to the victim to make them less resistant.  Other times persons in authority take advantage of the mind of a younger person and then insidiously rape them.

Victims of rape are violated and invaded; their very sense of self is damaged.  What John Boehner wants to do is victimize them further by taking away choices for them to obtain assistance after being victimized.  The bill would, in essence, force a woman who was drugged and raped, and who may be economically struggling, to bear her rapist’s child.

Sexual assault agencies, first responders and pro-choice activists are opposed to any bill which does not include in the definition all the different types of rape. The GOP speciously counters that concern by saying they are only redefining rape as it applies to federal government monies used for abortions.  This is yet another short sighted and slight-of-hand position by the GOP because if this bill somehow makes it into law then States will be forced to litigate it at the State level and then take it up before the Supreme Court to protect that State’s definition of rape.  The GOP does not consider the public money that will be spent by States and then by the Federal Government in litigating the provisions of this bill.

At it’s core what this bill is not about is terminating federal funding of some abortions. It’s about sneaking in the back door to limit Roe v Wade.

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