GOP Rep. Chris Smith is talking about “forcible rape”

Huffington Post has Keli Goff’s spot on commentary on abortion rights in America and how some politicians are now employing questionable ways to achieve their goal of denying a woman her reproductive rights.

When I first heard that GOP Rep. Chris Smith was introducing a bill to redefine the rape exemption allowed for Medicaid coverage of abortions to include only “forcible rape,” my first thought was, “Does he mean forcible rape as opposed to consensual rape?” My second thought was, “What exactly is consensual rape?” (According to Rep. Smith’s bill statutory rape and drug induced rape do not qualify as “forcible rape.”) My final thought on the matter was “Damn. What a good idea.” Not the bill itself but the strategy behind it.

It is troubling that a Representative is trying to twist language to re-define rape to benefit his agenda. This unusual and very much morally unacceptable tactic is raising lot of eyebrows. Unfortunately, the outrage has not received national media’s attention. Most of the news networks have ignored this completely, and the debate is mostly online barring some national papers.

Jonathan Capehart at The Washington Post says,

‘Forcible rape’? The very concept is offensive on its face. How is that even defined? There is no definition in the bill. Maybe I’m a do-gooder liberal who fell for the whole “no means no” mantra of my childhood. Or that rape isn’t sex, it’s violence. But if a woman or girl gets pregnant through incest or rape (in all ways it is defined or understood) the government should not limit her choice by withholding the funding she could use to end the pregnancy — if she chooses to do so.

While Charlie Sheen’s “emergency” gets  much air time and stupid chatter on John Boehner’s tan is played with priority, this attack on women’s health is being ignored!