I Thought 'No' Meant 'No'?

The GOP is really beginning to rack up quite the pro-rape reputation:

For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. (Another exemption covers pregnancies that could endanger the life of the woman.) But the "No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act," a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), 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.

[...]

Laurie Levenson, a former assistant US attorney and expert on criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, notes that the new bill's authors are "using language that's not particularly clear, and some people are going to lose protection." 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.

Personally, I can't think of anyone more qualified to define rape and the federal protections afforded thereto than the middle-aged white male vagina police in the Republican caucus that will never be subjected to the trauma of such a horrific crime. File this one under another of the "how the fuck could any decent or sane human being honestly support something like this?" Republican policies.

But wait! There's more. Let's not forget the Franken Amendment to the FY2010 Defense Appropriations Bill, which sought to exempt federal funding from defense contractors that use mandatory arbitration clauses in cases of allegations of sexual assault or rape. This was sparked by the case of Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang raped while working for KBR in Iraq. Jones sued KBR, and KBR later tried to enforce a mandatory arbitration clause in her employment contract (under the pretense of terming her gang rape a 'personal injury' resulting from her employment) in order to sweep the crime under the rug. Thirty Republican Senators voted against the amendment, and it was opposed by our favorite serious and principled We-Only-Want-What's-Best-For-America-and-the-Average-Citizen political organization, the US Chamber of Congress.

Next up: the Rape Babies Are A Blessing From Jebus Act, which prohibits abortions of pregnancies resulting from rape under any circumstances, and provides federal funding for mandatory counseling of victims to 'choose life.' Because that's what Sarah Palin would do.