Redefining rape: all feminists are up in arms. Feminists re-defined rape 30 years ago, and now republicans want to re-re-redefine rape to the original definition. The definition "rape" had since the old Romans and Greek before Christ was born.
This bill takes us back to a time when just saying ‘no’ wasn’t enough to qualify as rape," says Steph Sterling, a lawyer and senior adviser to the National Women’s Law Center.
(The House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape)
And when being too young for sex were not called "rape" either, kissing a minor was not called rape either. In the old times, when language still had its own precise terminology, like "indecent act with a minor". And when the age of consent was lower, so 17 year olds enjoying sex were not "rape victims". As ‘Whoppie Goldberg called it "it was not real rape-rape".
Human-Stupidity Analysis
We are language semantics freaks: we don’t like that one word defines 2 different things. Not every killing is murder, and not every problematic sex act is rape.
Readers might disagree, if a irresponsible teen who got herself pregnant should get free abortion. Or if it is better to get an, even undeserved, abortion then the prospect of an immature poor mother traumatizing a baby. Or one might wonder why the immature teen girl that got pregnant from an immature teen boy the same age was not statutorily raped and thus does not deserve a free abortion. But if she had a relationship with a more sensible, responsible, mature man, then she was statutorily raped and deserves a free abortion.
- Definition of “Rape”: When a “Rape” is not a Rape! The Abuse of the word “Rape” & the Perversion of Language
- manipulative language (Human-Stupidity)
The House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape
Rape is only really rape if it involves force. So says the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law. […]
Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion.[…]
"This bill takes us back to a time when just saying ‘no’ wasn’t enough to qualify as rape," says Steph Sterling, a lawyer and senior adviser to the National Women’s Law Center.[..]
Other types of rapes that would no longer be covered by the exemption include rapes in which the woman was drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes. "There are a lot of aspects of rape that are not included," Levenson says.
House Republicans aim to redefine rape to limit abortion coverage
Currently, the federal government denies taxpayer monies to be used to pay for abortions, except in cases when pregnancies result from rape or incest or when the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life.
However, if the 173 mainly Republican co-sponsors of the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" have their way, that would all change. Instead of keeping the 30-year-old definition of rape in federal law, the bill would modify it to "forcible rape," thereby severely limiting the health care choices of millions of American women and their families.
In other words, rape would not be rape unless violence were involved; however, the term "forcible rape" was left undefined, leading some to speculate its meaning since it is also not defined in the federal criminal code or in some state laws.
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