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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIn abortion debates, female lawmakers recount their rapes
COLUMBUS, Ohio For more than two decades, Nancy Mace did not speak publicly about her rape. In April, when she finally broke her silence, she chose the most public of forums before her colleagues in South Carolina's legislature.
A bill was being debated that would ban all abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected; Mace, a Republican lawmaker, wanted to add an exception for rape and incest. When some of her colleagues in the House dismissed her amendment some women invent rapes to justify seeking an abortion, they claimed she could not restrain herself.
"For some of us who have been raped, it can take 25 years to get up the courage and talk about being a victim of rape," Mace said, gripping the lectern so hard she thought she might pull it up from the floor. "My mother and my best friend in high school were the only two people who knew."
As one Republican legislature after another has pressed ahead with restrictive abortion bills in recent months, they have been confronted with raw and emotional testimony about the consequences of such laws. Female lawmakers and other women have stepped forward to tell searing, personal stories in some cases speaking about attacks for the first time to anyone but a loved one or their closest friend.
Mace is against abortion in most cases and supported the fetal heartbeat bill as long as it contained the exception for rape and incest. She said her decision to reveal an attack that has haunted her for so long was intended to help male lawmakers understand the experience of those victims.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-abortion-debates-female-lawmakers-recount-their-rapes/ar-AABxJzJ?li=BBnbcA1
some women invent rapes to justify seeking an abortion
How fucking stupid can you get? Oh wait, some Republicans take that as a challenge.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(116,032 posts)GOP: "Hold my beer..."
Ohiogal
(32,213 posts)invent a rape to justify an abortion .
So, lets punish them all so that *one* zygote can develop.
Thats not only blatantly wrong, its extremely insulting to half the population.
For those male lawmakers to sit there and listen to these womens stories with a stone cold heart just defies explanation.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,528 posts)of empathy from people in power. You see this in any oppression, and I'm tired of it. If this were a society that gave a shit about trauma, it would make a difference. But it isn't, so it doesn't.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,528 posts)are more entitled to abortions than people who want them for other reasons.
50 Shades Of Blue
(10,112 posts)She's a hypocrite. Fetuses who are products of rape have heartbeats too. If you provide an exception for your own group, then you're willing to murder (by your supposed belief) some fetuses. Proving that it's not the fetuses you care about, it's how they were conceived. The American Christian Taliban doesn't care about though since it blames women for their own rapes.
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)Mace is against abortion in most cases and supported the fetal heartbeat bill as long as it contained the exception for rape and incest.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)This started with Genesis 18, so good Christians in the bible belt should know about it. Ben Franklin repeated it, and it's in law as the Blackstone Formulation.
In this case, while it may be that some women have falsely claimed rape for whatever reasons (not just to have an abortion) there is absolutely no justification to assume the claim is a lie and even less to forbid the process "just in case" the claim is a lie. (That's another point of law)
At any rate, these laws compounding the horror of any woman being raped, and even moreso children, are as debased, immoral, and just plain wrong as any we have had in our history. If there were indeed a Satan sitting in hell playing with things, he would be laughing his rosy red ass off for so easily manipulating Jesus' flock to do this.
It's beyond cynical that these people passed these laws just as a trick to see how bad they can make a law to guarantee the Supreme Court decides on it.
CousinIT
(9,279 posts)ALL of these excuses are not excuses. They're a coverup to hide what's not being said - what cannot be said.
What are those who say these things about sexual assault and rape victims covering up?
THIS:
THEY. JUST. DON'T. GIVE. A. DAMN.
But they can't say that.
So, they use these dishonest excuses to cover up their massive indifference to female life and suffering.
This is THE thing that underpins the entire anti-abortion, MRA, GOP, and evangelical movements -- AND the destruction of the planet (Earth as Mother | giver and sustainer of all human life). Those who are indifferent to female human suffering and abuse are also indifferent to the suffering and abuse of Earth, too.
They're massively ignorant people. Because Earth will have the last word once she tosses off the parasitic infestation of homo-sapiens when she can no longer sustain them.
Meanwhile, they're happy to commit the massive human rights abuses which encompass one half of the homo-sapiens on the planet (the females). Except they don't call it a "human rights abuse" or a "human rights crisis" because they don't consider female homo-sapiens human. They consider them slaves and they are regarded with the same indifference to their humanity and suffering as African slaves once were.
No different.
Just as ugly, ignorant and immoral as it ever was. Except more widespread and a HELL of a lot more deadly to all of humanity including them.
So here we are.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(116,032 posts)Their argument is that abortion is murder and therefore it should be outlawed. OK, but if that's the case, why will they make (or even consider) exceptions for rape, incest or the woman's life, or that are performed extremely early in the woman's pregnancy? By allowing even a few narrow exceptions (and even the draconian Alabama law allows abortion for the sake of the woman's life or health), aren't they admitting that it isn't really murder, at least not all the time? Aren't the embryos/fetuses that resulted from rape or incest, or that threatened the woman's life or health, or that have been developing for only a few weeks, just as "innocent" as all others? Of course there are some who would like to prohibit all abortion in all cases (but they won't enact such laws because even this Supreme Court probably wouldn't uphold them), but nobody is presenting bills that do that. All of them have exceptions. And as long as there are exceptions they are tacitly admitting that abortion isn't necessarily murder.
So the next time an anti-choicer tells you abortion is murder, ask them why it isn't murder if it's done in the first 8 weeks, or if the woman was the victim of rape or incest or if her life is threatened by the pregnancy (depending on which legislation they are supporting). And then watch the sputtering.
Hekate
(91,055 posts)...to understand the issue? It feels like decades. AND YET THOSE MEN'S MINDS REMAIN CLOSED.
keithbvadu2
(37,066 posts)Her Missouri GOP cohort will set her straight on 'consensual rape'.