Buerkle and Reed Need to Answer for Their Vote on "Forcible Rape"

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Submitted by SusanGalloway on Wed, 2012-08-22 23:54

With all the coverage of Todd Akin's statement about rape and abortion, we need only look at two local Congressional members, who share similar beliefs.  Both Ann Marie Buerkle and Thomas Reed cosponsored the bill H.R. 3 that uses the words "forcible rape".  What does that mean?  Does that mean that the women who are victims of rape would be interrogated about the force used by the the perpetrator to see if it was "forcible rape" before she could terminate a pregnancy that was the product of this violent act?  Would there have to be a certain number of bruises, contusions, cuts, broken bones…. to qualify as a "forcible rape"?

Many women choose not to report rapes because of the way they are treated by law enforcement and the judicial system.    Women who have reported  their assaults, have reported being questioned about what they were wearing, why were they in a certain area, and their past sexual history; as if their behavior or wardrobe was the reason that they were violated.  Women that do have the courage to come forward and report an incident, according to Buerkle and Reed, would have to prove that they were "forcibly raped", in order to get an abortion paid for with public money.  What do Reed and Buerkle say to the women who are sexually assaulted while in the military, who are already facing a climate of denial and retaliation when they report the violation?

Buerkle and Reed ran on less government and keeping government out of citizens lives.  How much more could government intrude on a person's life then denying women the privacy and respect of making her own decisions regarding terminating a pregnancy or not.  By denying a woman the ability to terminate pregnancy produced through rape, the woman is being made a victim of these lawmakers as well as the perpetrator.  We need to call them out on this and not let them squirm out of answering for their vote and assault on women.

Link to summary of H.R. Bill 3:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR00003:@@@D&summ2=0&

Anti-fascism / Fascism
Anti-sexism / Sexism
Civil Liberties / Human Rights
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Comments

ValerieKLazarus's picture

Submitted by ValerieKLazarus on Sat, 2012-08-25 21:55
It's amazing to think that an incidence of rape even needs to be a factor in whether a woman can get an abortion... the way family court works, for instance, by the time a judge approved said surgical procedure, the fetus in question would be a child of between 5 and 9 years old... I mean, people disapprove of late-term abortions, but THIS is RIDICULOUS!

Secondly, I don't know what Missouri Congressman Todd Akins was thinking about when he said doctors have told him women rarely become pregnant by being raped. Someone should let him and his doctors know that rape involves sex, which makes babies.

Or maybe he had just been to the dog breeders and he was thinking about how female dogs "reabsorb" their puppies sometimes when they're pregnant. Human females don't do that. Someone should remind him that women and dogs are two different species (although I've never met his wife).