Lindsey Graham Finding It Difficult To Separate Good Girls From Lying Sluts, Would Appreciate Suggestions

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-please just stop) spoke Thursday at the annual March for Life Rally/Recycled Offensive Placard Emporium about the House GOP's failure to get their act together enough to pass H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. As you will recall, GOP congressladies objected to the truly obnoxious rape exception in the bill, which would have allowed abortions in cases of rape IF and ONLY IF the rape was reported to the police. On the basis of their objections, Republican House leaders canceled the scheduled vote.[contextly_sidebar id="yjSPo1vCf79V8s3iC5WQCgNTRscJIMkp"]

Canceling the vote is all good, at least until Republicans fix their internal problems and whip the bill correctly next time, but please let us keep in mind that the congressladies' objection to the rape provision wasn't that it is absolutely offensive (the only rape worthy of the exception is the kind of rape that is reported to the police, or forcible stranger rape, and not date rape or spousal rape), the objection was that the OPTICS of passing this kind of legislation LOOK BAD. Republicans are completely sold on the idea that some rapes are "legitimate" and some aren't, but they know that when they talk about this out loud in public (hi, Todd Akin, what are you up to these days?), they have a PR nightmare. What to do?

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So Senator Lindsey Graham gets up in front of the March for Life/Annual Troll Speed-Dating Symposium, because he is a Senior Statesman who is going to Fix This Problem. Salon reports that Graham said:

I’m going to need your help to find a way out of this definitional problem with rape,” Graham told the marchers, according to Dave Weigel. "We need to find a consensus position on the rape exception. The rape exception will be part of the bill. We just need to find a way definitionally to not get us into a spot where we’re debating what legitimate is. That’s not the cause. We’re not here debating legitimate rape. We’re talking about saving babies at 20 weeks.

Okay, issue number one is that Graham seems to think that attendees at the March for Life/AssholeCon will be able to help him with his party's legislative conundrum. Issue number two is that Republicans still think we have a DEFINITIONAL problem with rape, and by the way, yes, we absolutely are debating "legitimate rape," thank you for clarifying that, Senator Graham. Here, would you like a pretty straightforward definition of rape? The FBI defines rape for crime statistics purposes as :

Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim

Do you see how there is no requirement that, in order to be an actual (legitimate?) rape, the crime must be reported to the police? You do not see that requirement? That's because it isn't there! If a lady does not report her rape to the police, she will not be COUNTED by the FBI in its crime statistics, but she was still raped. Whom she talks to afterward does not change that fact.

Senator Graham and probably most other congressional Republican men seem to want the word "rape" to apply only to scenarios like this: a virginal girl who is wearing a promise ring is accosted on her way home from church by a violent stranger, who brutally violates her, leaving her with defensive injuries because she fought back very hard. This girl would definitely go to the police, right? She is wearing a white dress and carrying a bible, she must be a Good Girl, and for real, a terrible crime happened to her, no doubt about it. The H.R. 36 police report requirement would include "deserving" victims like her, and she would be allowed to have an abortion.

Republicans would NOT like "rape" to apply to a scenario like this: an unmarried teenage mother of a toddler tells her abusive boyfriend that she doesn't want to do sex right now, no, she really does not want to right now, please , and her boyfriend pushes her down and does sex anyway. And voila, that is the FBI definition of rape! This lady might not go to the police. She is living with her attacker! She probably asked for it! But guess what? A terrible crime happened to this lady, too, the exact same terrible crime that happened to the Good Girl above. But she did not report this rape to the police, so she's probably a slut who had it coming, check it out, she has a baby and she is not even married, plus she lives with her attacker; it wasn't really rape. If she gets pregnant, she needs to take the consequence. She does not deserve to have an abortion. The H.R. 36 requirement would exclude this rape victim, because the GOP does not view her as a rape victim; they view her as a lying rape accuser.

How do you write a rape exception that only includes "worthy" victims and excludes slutty ones? How do you separate the "legitimate" victims from the lying ladies who want to get their boyfriends in trouble? How in US Jesus America is the GOP able to believe on one hand that abortion is some kind of prize that worthy and pure victims can access and slutty accusers cannot, and on the other hand that abortion is the most evil act there is? These are literally the problems that Republicans struggle with when they write abortion legislation.

There aren't a whole lot of other constitutional rights that you can only access after proving to Lindsey Graham's satisfaction that you are the perfect crime victim with an unblemished personal history! In fact, are there even any at all? Haha, nope!

The United States of Jesus America has elected a Republican House and Senate, and wow, do they seem willing to keep this issue on the front burner! So, you are possibly going to be reading words about abortion until 2016, when we vote some more to fix that shit.

[ Salon ]