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The Idaho bill’s House sponsor, state Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, told legislators that the “hand of the Almighty” was at work. “His ways are higher than our ways,” Crane said. “He has the ability to take difficult, tragic, horrific circumstances and then turn them into wonderful examples.”

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Pro-life*


*offer expires at birth

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Originally posted by Louise:
Is this grandstanding which is likely to be struck down in the courts or is there any real prospect that they can get away with this?
L.

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Public Funding: 17 states use their own funds to pay for all or most medically necessary abortions for Medicaid
enrollees in the state. 32 states prohibit the use of state funds except in those cases when federal funds are available:
where the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. In defiance of federal
requirements, South Dakota limits funding to cases of life endangerment only

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However, who decides if she's a victim of rape?

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Oh, dear...we mustn't have the actual rape victim categorizing herself as such.

Let's pull out Teh Bibel! Yeah -- she needs male WITNESSES to confirm that it was a rape.

Otherwise she's just another loose woman who needs to be stoned to death (but not while pregnant, because that would be wrong).


 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:

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However, who decides if she's a victim of rape?

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Oh, dear...we mustn't have the actual rape victim categorizing herself as such.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
We will know when Anthony Kennedy decides in the next couple of years.

It's possible. I wouldn't be surprised either way. My guess would be...probably.

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:

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However, who decides if she's a victim of rape?

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Oh, dear...we mustn't have the actual rape victim categorizing herself as such.

Let's pull out Teh Bibel! Yeah -- she needs male WITNESSES to confirm that it was a rape.

Otherwise she's just another loose woman who needs to be stoned to death (but not while pregnant, because that would be wrong).

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Originally posted by mousethief:
It is inhuman to force a woman to bring to term a child gotten on her by rape. But there is no objective way to tell that. But we can't have these kinds of exceptions; it either has to be all one way or all the other way.

Therefore abortion should be legal for all.

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It is inhuman to force a woman to bring to term a child gotten on her by rape. It is also inhuman to kill an unborn child. But we can't have these kinds of exceptions; it either has to be all one way or all the other way.

Therefore abortion should be illegal for all.

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Originally posted by sharkshooter:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
It is inhuman to force a woman to bring to term a child gotten on her by rape. But there is no objective way to tell that. But we can't have these kinds of exceptions; it either has to be all one way or all the other way.

Therefore abortion should be legal for all.

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Of course, with a small change in assumption, that reads:

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It is inhuman to force a woman to bring to term a child gotten on her by rape. It is also inhuman to kill an unborn child. But we can't have these kinds of exceptions; it either has to be all one way or all the other way.

Therefore abortion should be illegal for all.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Hmm. You missed out the "inhuman" part. That was an essential part of my argument. There was an enthymeme: we should not do things that are inhuman. I thought we would all agree to that. Guess not.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
[tangent] I've noticed that the things bearing the descriptor 'inhuman' are often things that only humans do (or that only humans do on that scale). [/tangent]

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Depending on how you phrase it, a rape exemption can either be a loophole for extending the status quo or ultimately meaningless. Technically, the same thing can be said about the life of the mother. To me, you have to say abortion should be legal or it isn't. Trying to carve out those three exemptions isn't really practical.

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Originally posted by sharkshooter:
Of course, I am in neither camp. I believe there can be exceptions. I believe that love does, on an extreme exception basis (like the rape situation), provide, not permission, but forgiveness.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
... However, who decides if shes a victim of rape? If an actual conviction is necessary, viability becomes an issue.
...

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Plus there's the the squicky misogyny of a "We'll Tell You if You Were Raped, Young Lady" Board.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
... If the board says it is a rape and it isn't, a fetus is aborted that shouldn't be which defeats the purpose of banning abortion in the first place.

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if the only option is for all to carry to term, fine.

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Originally posted by North East Quine:
..No, it's not fine. ...

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Originally posted by North East Quine:
I see that the bill also bans termination on the grounds of fetal abnormality post 20 weeks (the time when most such abnormalities are picked up by scan here.)

I've been in this situation and chose to carry our baby to term, but I fully support those who choose to terminate. In the event our baby was still born, but during the pregnancy, when we were planning for the birth of a baby with gross skeletal deformity, it was obvious that the costs were going to be massive; the hospital were assuming that after the birth our baby would spend weeks, possibly 3 months in the Special Care Baby Unit, initially high dependency. He may well have faced several operations through his childhood. All this would have been paid for by the NHS (thank-you, British taxpayers!!) Also, it was unlikely that I'd work again in our son's lifetime, so I'd have been claiming state benefits as a carer, plus state benefits for our son as a disabled person.

How does this work in America - what provisions are made for the massive medical and social costs of a baby like this?

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Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
...
ISTM you're likely to get the worst possible outcomes in a great many respects.

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Originally posted by Louise:

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Originally posted by North East Quine:
How does this work in America - what provisions are made for the massive medical and social costs of a baby like this?

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I notice you didn't get an answer to that. I suppose we're back to Croesus' "offer expires at birth".

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
What happens in America is...the family is reduced to indigency in order to qualify for Medicaid; and then must stay indigent in order for Medicaid to continue paying for the child -- families can only have about $2,000 in assets, plus one vehicle and their house -- the latter, in most states, destined to be taken over by the state upon the death of the Medicaid recipient; at least that's true in the case of older people.

So basically state-enforced poverty, in return for medical care for the disabled child, is how it works here. There's a Puritanical streak in the American political psyche that tends to want to punish people in financial straits for needing help.

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Originally posted by Bran Stark:
And Joseph said unto them, "Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."

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Originally posted by art dunce:
I don't quite get the lack of generosity in your response though. I will bow out.

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Originally posted by John Holding:
I thought Art Dunce was perfectly clear -- we are not meant to place burdens on other people. And in the context of the OP, not to call on other people to suffer for our principles and beliefs.

I'm honestly amazed that anyone could have interpreted his/her initial post in any other way.

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Originally posted by John Holding:
I thought Art Dunce was perfectly clear -- we are not meant to place burdens on other people. And in the context of the OP, not to call on other people to suffer for our principles and beliefs.

I'm honestly amazed that anyone could have interpreted his/her initial post in any other way.

John

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Originally posted by Apocalypso:
To go back to an issue raised earlier, how does a doctor determine whether or not a rape has occurred? Last I checked, rape was not a medical condition, but a legal one.

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Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
I suspect that hard-line feminists won't like that, because they won't like the idea that the question of whether someone has been raped or not might sometimes be blurry. But I don't see why it should pose a problem for the rest of us.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
I suspect they wouldn't like it because such a system makes the same assumption rapists do, namely that someone else gets to decide for women what they do with their bodies regardless of their own preferences.

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Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
However, if it's necessary to charge fees for those abortions, then perhaps it's not a bad idea to give discounts to those who have attended martial arts classes.

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women are somehow less capable than men of getting the martial arts self-defence training they need to be able to fight the rapists off for themselves. The assumption is that the law should be providing that protection for them.

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Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
<tangent>
The thing that I find most intriguing about the fact that feminists make such a big song and dance about whether rapists respect the decisions of women or not, is that it presupposes that women are somehow less capable than men of getting the martial arts self-defence training they need to be able to fight the rapists off for themselves. The assumption is that the law should be providing that protection for them.

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<tangent>The thing that I find most intriguing about the fact that feminists make such a big song and dance about whether rapists respect the decisions of women or not, is that it presupposes that women are somehow less capable than men of getting the martial arts self-defence training they need to be able to fight the rapists off for themselves. The assumption is that the law should be providing that protection for them.

Snag is, as it stands, most of the front line operatives of that law, in most jurisdictions, are men. This is particularly true of the operatives that are chosen to deal with sex offenders. Police and probation services routinely exclude their own female staff from working with sex offenders, for the simple reason that women are not thought to be up to it. Why? Because feminist rhetoric tells them so!

Feminist rhetoric teaches that women deserve to be protected against the risk of rape. You therefore can't put a woman in a position where she is responsible for protecting people against sex offenders - because that would mean that if she failed in that responsibility, then any resulting rape might be considered to be at least indirectly the fault of that woman. And rape must never ever be thought of as a woman's fault in any way whatsoever.

As a result, feminist rhetoric has the side-effect of casting men in the role of the chivalrous protectors of women against the threat of rape. This results in the perpetuation of male dominance of women.
</end of tangent>

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Originally posted by earrings:
To blame "feminist rhetoric" for society's failure fully to accept the horror of rape is frankly laughable.

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I find it far more angering than funny, but I take your point.
 

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Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :
 
Also, out of curiosity, does anyone have stats on how effectively martial arts training protects women from gang-rape? Or from single rapists armed with a gun?

And of course, only young, fit women without significant handicaps & therefore able to do martial arts training are at risk of rape.


 

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Posted by Louise (# 30) on :
 

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Originally posted by Apocalypso:
Also, out of curiosity, does anyone have stats on how effectively martial arts training protects women from gang-rape? Or from single rapists armed with a gun?

And of course, only young, fit women without significant handicaps & therefore able to do martial arts training are at risk of rape.

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In February, Republicans drew widespread condemnation for their "forcible rape" proposal, which legal experts said would have excluded statutory rape victims and others from obtaining abortions through Medicaid. Amidst public outcry and a protest campaign by left-leaning groups, Republicans abandoned the language, which had been included in the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill the GOP leadership numbered H.R. 3 to signify its high priority to the party. But while they've amended their legislation, which faces a floor vote in the House on Wednesday, Republicans haven't stopped trying to narrow the already small exception under which federal funding for abortions is permissible. They've used a sly legislative maneuver to make sure that even though the language of the bill is different, the effect remains the same.

The backdoor reintroduction of the statutory rape change relies on the use of a committee report, a document that congressional committees produce outlining what they intend a piece of legislation to do. If there's ever a court fight about the interpretation of a law—and when it comes to a subject as contentious as abortion rights, there almost always is—judges will look to the committee report as evidence of congressional intent, and use it to decide what the law actually means.

In this case, the committee report for H.R. 3 says that the bill will "not allow the Federal Government to subsidize abortions in cases of statutory rape." The bill itself doesn't say anything like that, but if a court decides that legislators intended to exclude statutory rape-related abortions from eligibility for Medicaid funding, then that will be the effect.

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Originally posted by no_prophet:
... I don't believe in any laws about abortion. None.

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