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kalikshama -> RE: Congressman Akin on legitimate rape (8/19/2012 6:35:43 PM)
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Troy Akin, John Boehner, and 200 other Republicans sought to bring us back to the 1887 definition of rape:
John Boehner's push to redefine rape
Banning publicly funded abortions for victims of "non-forcible" rape is one of the House speaker's top priorities
...First, there are the people who would be overtly denied coverage, as outlined by Nick Baumann at Mother Jones. Those who were raped while drugged or unconscious, or through means of coercion, would not be covered. Survivors of statutory rape would not be covered: “if a minor,” one is only covered in case of incest. And if one is a survivor of incest, and not a minor, that’s also not covered. Studies of how rapists find and subdue victims reveal that about 70 percent of rapes wouldn’t fall under the “forcible” designation.
Which leaves us with those rapes that could be construed as “forcible.” Except that this clause doesn’t guarantee an exemption for them, either. The term “forcible rape” actually has no set meaning; legal definitions of “force” vary widely. And every survivor who finds herself in need of abortion funding will have to submit her rape for government approval.
H.R. 3′s language brings us back to an ancient, long-outdated standard of rape law: “Utmost resistance.” By this standard, a rape verdict depended not on whether the victim consented, but on whether outsiders thought she resisted as hard as humanly possible. Survivors rarely measured up.
There’s an example of how “utmost resistance” worked in the 1887 text Defences to Crime. In this case, a man was accused of raping a
[self-censored due to potential TOS issue]
Rape law is filled with cases like these. Definitions of “force” are still used to make highly subjective judgments that minimize actual violence. H.R. 3 leaves every survivor open to a decision that her attacker wasn’t forceful enough, or that she didn’t scream enough, or that she didn’t struggle enough. “Forcible,” like “utmost resistance,” can be redefined by anyone in a position to apply it. Under H.R. 3, there is no guaranteed exemption for any survivors; everyone’s coverage depends on the case-by-case judgment of a government working from a hugely flawed, inevitably subjective standard.
Read more: http://www.salon.com/2011/02/01/hr3_abortion_rape/
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