The Rape Of Morality

There is a movement afoot to subvert a woman's control of her own body. For the longest time, it was held in abeyance, but now the movement has reached one of the pinnacles of power in Washington, D.C.: the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Representative John Boehner, heir to that title through the power of fear-mongering and President-bashing, coupled with Tea Party fomentation and ranting, along with the abdication of backbone by the Democratic Party, now stands at the forefront of the effort to strip women, not just of choice of what to do with their bodies, but even what constitutes violation of their bodies. One of his acolytes, Representative Chris Smith on New Jersey (who, sadly, is this author's representative), is introducing a bill that, amongst other things, redefine what constitutes rape, to include only cases of overt force.

So much for the party that claims to have the best interests of America at heart.

As I have mentioned before, I consider rape to be an even more heinous crime than murder, not that this diminishes the horror and injustice of taking a life; for rape is the equivalent to taking a life and leaving the victim alive. A woman -- and yes, the victim is more often a woman, though men can be raped as well -- is, through no fault of her own, taken advantage of, treated as an object and not a person, violated, and left bereft of the feeling of safety, security, and above all, integrity of her person. She may feel her soul has been stained, her very being compromised, and the saddest part is that often her brutalizer is someone she thought she could trust or who would treat her with respect.Whether it is someone she knows, someone she met at a bar, or some shadowy figure, the woman is stripped of her self, and then thrust into a confusing and confounding mill that treats her as both victim and perpetrator, more the latter.To this, in an attempt to further denigrate women and reduce their worth in the eyes of the law, while denying them an unpleasant but necessary service, Representative Smith has brought to the floor a most unnerving and aggravating piece of legislation: H.R.3 - No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. Beyond yet another attempt to keep women from having safe, legal abortions, as is their right, and doing it with Federal dollars, which, as I recall, is a fund I and many others who are pro-Choice pay into, he is attempting to muddy the waters further, and provide the greatest latitude for bureaucrats, by redefining rape:

‘SEC. 309. TREATMENT OF ABORTIONS RELATED TO RAPE, INCEST, OR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER.


      2
      ‘The limitations established in sections 301, 302, 303, and 304 shall not apply to an abortion--


            27
            ‘(1) if the pregnancy occurred because the pregnant female was the subject of an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest; or

The word 'forcible' is added to construe that any woman, who finds herself in a situation where she is 'sweet-talked' into sex despite objections, or psychologically manipulated into consenting, or drugged and unable to give consent, is no longer truly a rape victim. Rape is not a question of force, but of lack of or denial of, consent. By applying a modifier to rape, this will allow the Federal government to deny even more women a chance to use Federal funds (including their HSA accounts), to pay for a procedure which they can be forgiven for wanting, given that a man violated them and impregnated them, without the intent to provide for the life thus created.

This is the latest attempt by the Republican Party to appease a minority faction of their base, to supplicate those who would enjoin others with their 'morality,'in contravention of the individual liberties outlined in the Constitution. They would take any path to see the expression of their religious faith turned into law, and bend women to their will again, slamming the door on women's suffrage and freedom. They would turn women into baby-making chattel, forced by any man to endure the privation of rape and the suffering of childbirth toward their own ends. In a world so easily horrified by the idea of easily cloning humans, there is no hue and outcry over forcing women to bring to term pregnancies against their will.

This return to the subjugation of women to the whims of men is deplorable in an age of freedom, knowledge, and information. That a dogmatic past should chart a course toward an uncertain future is laughable -- the past is best relegated to history, and to the learning of the lessons it teaches, that we might not make the same mistakes again. However, there are those who would return us to a way of life we have sought to shake off over many generations, as if that past were the zenith of humanity, and the current world its nadir. Now, they have powerful representation in one of the highest ruling bodies of the nation, and those of us of good conscience and reason must rise up and defend all women from being snapped up into the clutches of those who would relegate them once more to obscurity.

The time is now, to write your Representative, to write the office of the Speaker of the House, and call them out for their transparent attempts to reverse the course of freedom and liberty. They must be made aware that their insidious and shameful plans will not be allowed to come to fruition, and that they will pay a dear price for pressing them, against the wishes of the vast majority of Americans. Let their be no doubt -- if we sit by quietly in our living rooms, bemoaning such things, and do not leave our homes, and make our voices heard, then this bill will represent a fait accompli for the forces of ignorance, and will be only the beginning of the stripping away of our dearest liberties. It may start here, but it will never end with this. We must stand now.