The House GOP's Plan to Redefine Rape

[netcrusher88]

I don't see the committee bit mattering all that much; it'll never reach the floor. If ever there was a bill deserving of a filibuster, this is it.

[Oregonaut]

I don't see the committee bit mattering all that much; it'll never reach the floor. If ever there was a bill deserving of a filibuster, this is it.

I would fillibuster this by reading J.R.R. Tolkien.

[netcrusher88]

I don't see the committee bit mattering all that much; it'll never reach the floor. If ever there was a bill deserving of a filibuster, this is it.

I would fillibuster this by reading J.R.R. Tolkien.

I'd be wary of using the Black Speech in Congress. The last thing that building needs is someone summoning more Republicans.

[podbaydoor]

Douglas Adams would perhaps be a better choice, with the bonus of driving anyone out of the chamber who doesn't get his sense of humor. The Vogon poetry might very well drop them in their tracks. (Assuming it doesn't inspire the human vogons in the Senate to take up composing verse themselves...)

[netcrusher88]

I thought that's why bills are so long?

[Silknor]

I don't see a way this bill is defend-able really.
If they think it is something that could happen, they are bad people who should feel bad.
if they don't think it will work, they are purposefully wasting tax payer money, time, and trying to scare people making them bad people who should feel bad.

I don't support this bill at all, but you really don't see how someone could support it in good faith? I don't see how that would be difficult. If you believe that a fetus has rights and abortion is murder, it would seem self-evident that you don't want tax dollars supporting abortion.

Why then, you might ask, draw a line between "forcible" and statutory rape? Simple: because even if they'd prefer not to draw that line and ban funding for all abortions, then know they can't get that passed (or it would be too politically unpopular). The reason for the exclusion of statutory rape, in my best estimate, is not intended to say it's any less bad, or not rape rape, or victim-blame, or anything else that's been mentioned in this thread. It may have the effect of reinforcing those beliefs in the culture, but it seems more likely that's an unintended consequence.

Now surely, not all Republicans (and the 16 Dems) believe abortion is always wrong or should never receive funding. And some of those who do wouldn't admit that publicly, because it's a fairly unpopular position. But it's not hard to see how some strongly anti-abortion politicians like this, and how many others know they need to vote for it because so much of public discourse (especially in campaigns) gets reduced to pro-choice or pro-life, and they know they don't want to be on the pro-choice side.

The waste of taxpayer money is kind of a strange accusation. The House passes bills, for political reasons, all the time that they know the Senate won't. Even last Congress, when Democrats controlled both houses, the House passed more than 400 bills the Senate never considered, and for most of them they knew they stood no chance in the Senate. Many of these were on progressive priorities like environmental protection or anti-discrimination. Was each of these bills a waste of money?

Lastly about passage in the Senate:
There's no need for it to go through committee, even if it passed a committee, Reid wouldn't bring it to the floor (unless he knew it would fail and wanted to make a point, see Ryan Budget, HR.1). Instead it'd come through one of two routes: an amendment brought by the minority, where it'd need 60 votes to pass, or as a sweetener to buy a couple Republican votes in an important piece of legislation like the debt ceiling increase or the 2012 budget. Of these, only the latter seems a plausible path to passage. Though given that the Dems fought fiercely against the defunding of Planned Parenthood in the CR fight, and that this isn't really a spending cut issue (in fact, Norquist labeled it a tax increase), I suspect the chances of it being passed aren't too high.

[SummerGlauFan]

The exact problem here is that current Republican legislatures have inserted language into committee reports making bald-faced lies about what is actually in the Hyde Amendment.

In regards to rape, which some asshole has decided to try and bend the rules on. SGF was arguing that the GOP cut funding for abortion when the mother's life was in danger, which is not true in the case of the traditional Hyde Amendment, nor would it be true in this proposed modification to the Hyde Amendment.

Sorry, I was away from the party for some time and it's late, so I'll play catch up later today, but in regards to the Hyde amendment, in addition to it being undercut by current ultraconservatives, IIRC* there was actually a rather serious amount of opposition to it being made at all. Conservatives added the protection of the mother as a "compromise" so they could get the funding of abortions cut. Not to actually save women's' lives, but to cut funding.

*This taken from memory of various radio broadcasts of a very conservative nature that were part of the environment of my job at the time, yay. Since it's really late I'm skipping on the source searching for the time being, so feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

[Angua]

Why then, you might ask, draw a line between "forcible" and statutory rape? Simple: because even if they'd prefer not to draw that line and ban funding for all abortions, then know they can't get that passed (or it would be too politically unpopular). The reason for the exclusion of statutory rape, in my best estimate, is not intended to say it's any less bad, or not rape rape, or victim-blame, or anything else that's been mentioned in this thread. It may have the effect of reinforcing those beliefs in the culture, but it seems more likely that's an unintended consequence.

Why not allow for statutory rape (which doesn't make sense - how is a young girl, or mentally disabled person any better off by being pregnant after being manipulated into having sex)?

[sophyturtle]

Or victims of incest, or people who were drugged, or other forms of coercion like the threat of force? These people should be forced to carry the product of their rape to term if they are too poor?

The double whammy of 'screw the poor' and 'screw women', if sincere, is more than slightly problematic.

[podbaydoor]

Don't forget, this bill forbids private insurance plans that use any tax credits from going towards abortions. Analysis on NPR said that this isn't so much a tax thing as an attempt to scare private insurers away from covering abortion. Completely ideological. And hypocritical. It's perfectly fine to spend my money on wasteful Lockheed Martin military projects intended for killing furriners, but a moral outrage to spend someone else's money on abortions. It's outrageous for government to regulate companies polluting the environment, but totally okay to regulate private insurance companies from covering health procedures.

[Silknor]

Why not allow for statutory rape (which doesn't make sense - how is a young girl, or mentally disabled person any better off by being pregnant after being manipulated into having sex)?

Because it's not about who is better off. My best guess is that it's not based on a belief that one group needs the assistance less. It's driven by a conviction that abortion is wrong in all cases for some, and for political reasons for others. The question isn't why do supporters think the under-aged don't need that assistance, it's why do they think they can get away denying it when they couldn't do that for others (I'd think it's for political reasons, but it's possible a blanket ban on funding would run afoul of Roe).

Or victims of incest, or people who were drugged, or other forms of coercion like the threat of force? These people should be forced to carry the product of their rape to term if they are too poor?

Is there any evidence that H.R 3 would exclude these people? Yes, you could make that argument based on the word forcible, but that was removed from the bill in favor of a committee report statement excluding statutory rape.

@podbaydoor: Of course it's an attempt to try to get private companies not to cover abortion. It's really not surprising that those who are strongly opposed to abortion would try to restrict abortion as much as they can. And while they can't tell private companies not to cover legal abortion, they can incentivize it through the tax code.

[Xeio]

@podbaydoor: Of course it's an attempt to try to get private companies not to cover abortion. It's really not surprising that those who are strongly opposed to abortion would try to restrict abortion as much as they can. And while they can't tell private companies not to cover legal abortion, they can incentivize it through the tax code.

I think you'll understand why we would say that's scummy though. Particularly given they're basically going "Well, if we can't make it illegal, we'll just make it unavailable to people who need it. You know, except where it's political suicidal to do so (i.e. in the case of rape)". Hence trying to chip away at Hyde to a full ban.

[Silknor]

@Xeio: Oh, I can understand why you think it's scummy. I don't like this bill either. But I do believe it's possible to genuinely support it.

[Jave D]

If by "genuinely" you mean "honest in intentions, but too stupid and uninformed to know better" then perhaps it is. I don't care. People who support this bill are less than human, as far as I'm concerned.

[HungryHobo]

It's all about your precepts.

If you genuinely believed that a blastocyst was a human being and that killing it was equal to killing a 5 year old then a lot of things are justifiable.
if you really believed that there was the equivalent of the holocaust happening every few years would you do nothing?
If I had the chance to prevent millions of people from being killed I'd probably be willing to do a lot of very horrible things to prevent it.

Indeed in many ways the far far far far right who actually bomb abortion clinics are at least consistent, they believe mass murder is happening and they're taking action to prevent it. I don't agree with them but it's respectable in an odd way.
On the other hand the more moderate ones may believe huge numbers of people are being murdered but they don't actually get off their arse to do anything about it and occasionally crank out shit like this bill.

fortunately I don't believe blastocysts are people so I'm all about choice.