The Indiana House has approved one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, but not after a bizarre debate led by sponsor state Rep. Eric Turner (R). When Democratic legislators asked for an exception for rape and incest, Turner cried foul and warned that women would just fake rapes to get some of those free abortions. The Indiana House agreed and rejected the amendment.
State Rep. Gail Riecken (D) introduced an amendment to exempt “women who became pregnant due to rape or incest, or women for whom pregnancy threatens their life or could cause serious and irreversible physical harm.”
In the video below, Turner stepped forward to warn of legions of false rape victims clamoring for free abortions:
Turner then stepped to the podium and insisted that Riecken’s amendment would create a “giant loophole” for women. That loophole? Women “could simply say they’ve been raped”:
With all do respect to Rep. Riecken, I understand what she’s trying to do. But as you know that when the federal health care bill was going through Congress there was a lot of discussion whether this would allow for abortion coverage and of course we were all told it would not. And the bill, my house bill 1210, would prevent that for any insurance company to provide abortion coverage under federal health care bill. This [amendment] would open that window and I would ask you to oppose this amendment.
I just want you to think about this, in my view, giant loophole that could be created where someone who could — now i want to be careful, I don’t want to disparage in any way someone who has gone through the experience of a rape or incest — but someone who is desirous of an abortion could simply say that they’ve been raped or there’s incest.
The House voted down Riecken’s amendment 42 to 54. There appeared to be little consideration of the fact that it is a crime to falsely allege a crime.
Source: Think Progress and found first on Reddit.
Jonathan Turley
Of course they will….say what? Did the Chocolaty Easter Melt in his hands….
So . . . Indiana.
You’ve decided that in order to keep your fundamentalist Biblically based control over women’s reproductive choice, it merits the additional societal costs of punishing victims of the crimes of rape and incest.
Let me repeat that . . . you are punishing victims of the crimes of rape and incest.
Crimes. Rape. Incest. Victims.
What would Jesus do?
Other than slap the shit out of you hypocrites that is.
The republican assault on women continues. Am I partisan? yes.
Vote for these right wing republicans or stay home if you want the women in your family thrown back to the dark ages.
Swarthmore mom,
This is all part of the right-wingers’ implementation of “She-ria” law against women.
Dark Ages? I’d say they’re looking to have us gals thrown back even farther than that–maybe to the Stone Age!
Elaine, I get so angry when I about read this everyday. It will get much worse if Obama loses and we lose the senate.
This news item from a couple of days ago, seen in Talking Points Memo:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/arizona_approves_nations_first_ban_on_gender_race.php?ref=fpb
Another battle erupts in the right-wing’s War on Women.
I have a suggestion – I’ll beat the living daylights out of Representative Turner. Then, when the turd seeks to have me arrested, I’ll just say it was a fake assault.
The hypocrisy of the GOP is stunning. They don’t want government in any aspect of life except the lives of women. I am so fucking sick and tired of these old white men stepping all over my rights as if I cannot make my own goddamned decisions; decisions that affect no one else but me. I am NO ONE’s property, I am NOT a fucking brood mare whose sole purpose in life is to reproduce so the end result can fund Social Security, ala Rick Sanitarium; I am NOT a second class citizen; I am NOT a circus animal trained to jump through the fifty-million fucking hoops the GOP seens content to have me jump through.
This further cements for me that there is no way in hell that I will ever vote Republican, I don’t give a shit who is in the running.
come on you girls! you know how much fun an abortion is! of course you girls will be lining up to have them just for shits and grins as soon as we let you. and, if we try to put a few sensible rules in place like it has to be rape or the life of the girl and not after the 6th week and a 45 day waiting period and you have to watch some torture porn of a baby being ripped apart and you have to attend classes where we give you the latest statistics we pull out of our asses you girls will just lie and sneak around to have you abortion fun anyway.
That goodness you sill girls have men to protect and care for you.
Indiana to women: we don’t want you, move to a state that does.
Tony S.: That state is not Arizona.
Stamford Liberal,
Please send that sentiment that you so eloquently posted to Rep. Turner!
emw1,
“Please send that sentiment that you so eloquently posted to Rep. Turner!”
Do I note a hint of sarcasm or are you patronizing me?
Indiana has gone crazy. Elaine, you are right that this is just one more example of the “She-ria” law taking over. Swarthmore, I get upset reading this obviously male dominance legislation. It is so crazy it makes me think that we are now entering Zombieland and the right wing wackos are the zombies!
OS,
That Arizona law is a farce. There is not any evidence that women are having abortions because of gender or race, but it makes Brewer look tough to her Teapublican buddies. I can’t imagine that it is Constitutional.
“There appeared to be little consideration of the fact that it is a crime to falsely allege a crime.”
Professor Turley, I am pro-choice, I am a Democrat, I think Eric Turner is insane, but this statement of yours is ignorant as well. I remark on it only because you seem to claim some interest in civil liberties.
I don’t think there is any conflict between being pro-choice, and acknowledging our legal system does create incentives for women to lie about rape.
This has nothing to do with Turner and his nonsense.
It has to do with your non sequitor suggestion that since it is a crime to falsely allege a crime, no one would ever falsely allege a crime.
And if you really were reality based you would acknowledge that women can and do make false allegations of rape and domestic violence many times, often at the (perhaps indirect) suggestion of your fellow colleague lawyers that you choose to turn a blind eye to.
Hey! Who are you and what have you done with Kansas and the GOP!!!
KS GOP Rep. Slams Anti-Abortion Bill: I’m ‘Embarrassed To Be A State That Bases Its Laws On Untruths’
The nationwide war on a woman’s right to choose secured significant victories this week. Yesterday, Arizona became the first state in the nation to criminalize abortions based on a problem that doesn’t exist. Virginia will now force 80 percent of its clinics to close. Not to be outdone, the Kansas legislature swiftly approved not one, but two anti-abortion bills yesterday. HB 2218, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, strictly limits abortions after 22 weeks “based on disputed research that fetuses can feel pain at that point of development.” Though only 1.5 percent of abortions are performed after this period, the bill marks a significant victory for anti-choice activists who “have turned fetal pain into a new front in their battle to restrict or ban abortion.”
But not all Republicans bought the Republican argument that “this is a significant advancement” and “a more appropriate benchmark for late-term abortions.” “It’s based on false research,” said GOP Rep. Barbara Bollier who joined 8 other Republicans who voted against the bill:
“No one really knows and it’s based on false research,” said Rep. Barbara Bollier, R-Mission Hills. “It’s not universally held and I would be embarrassed to be a state that bases its laws on untruths.”
Bollier’s skepticism is shared by many in the medical profession. Though debate exists, a thorough review of the medical evidence in the Journal of the American Medical Association determined that “pain perception probably does not function before the third trimester.” Before then, “the fetus’s higher pain pathways are not yet fully developed and functional.”
But why worry about “untruths” when right-wing lawmakers can use “false research” to challenge Roe v. Wade? This bill, a twin of Nebraska’s “first in the nation” fetal pain law, challenges the ruling’s key viability standard — “the point at which the fetus can live outside the womb” — as the point when states can ban abortions. These laws could submit fetal pain as “a new dividing line at which abortions could be banned.” Nebraska’s law, enacted last year, has already had drastic consequences — just ask Danielle Deaver.
Kansas’s second anti-abortion bill, HB 2035, would require parental consent for anyone under 18 to have an abortion. Current law requires that one parent be notified, but neither parent can veto a daughter’s abortion. Unsatisfied with tightening parental control, the GOP included provisions that allow family members to sue doctors and force women to agree that they’re terminating a human being:
* Allow a woman’s close family members to sue if they believe an illegal abortion was performed.
* Require providers of abortions to provide patients with a newly revised informed consent statement including wording that abortion “terminates the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”
Both bills go directly to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R). Brownback, “who is pro-life, has promised to sign” the fetal pain measure into law. Florida, Arkansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, and Kentucky are mulling similar “fetal pain” bills.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/30/kansas-anti-abortion-bill/
Some of these rabid right-wingers are taking their anti-abortion/anti-women cause to other countries. Read on…
*****
Chris Smith’s African Abortion Adventure
The New Jersey Republican spent part of last week meddling in Kenya’s abortion politics—and taxpayers footed the bill.
— By Kate Sheppard
Mother Jones, 3/30/2011
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/chris-smith-kenya-abortion-constitution
Excerpt:
Most members of Congress spent last week’s recess back in their districts, talking to their constituents and getting a sense of what Americans want their elected officials to be doing back in Washington. But Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, had other plans: He spent part of the break on a taxpayer-funded trip to Kenya, where he slammed the country’s new constitution for allowing abortions in cases when the health of the mother is at risk.
Kenyan abortion restrictions go far beyond those in American law, and Kenya’s new constitution, approved overwhelmingly last August, codifies a ban on abortions in the country. But that’s not enough for Smith and US anti-abortion groups, who argue that the exception allowing for legal abortions to preserve the health of the mother “opens the door to abortion on demand.”
Smith wasn’t just meeting with Kenyan politicians and activists during his time in East Africa—he was actively politicking. On March 21, Smith spoke at an event on the new constitution sponsored by the Kenya Christian Professional Forum in Limuru, a town about 35 miles outside Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. A staffer for the US-based group Center for Reproductive Rights, which recently opened an office in Nairobi, took notes during the speech. In it, the congressman reportedly called for “a world free of abortion.” Smith also accused “pro-abortion NGOs” of having “hijacked” the maternal mortality issue in order to legalize the killing of the unborn, CRR says.
Her baby wasn’t expected to live, but Nebraska law banned abortion
10:39 PM, Mar. 5, 2011
Law didn’t allow couple to end pregnancy: Danielle and Robb Deaver knew their baby had little chance of survival, but Nebraska law prevented them from having the choice to end the pregnancy.
Written by
JASON CLAYWORTH
jclayworth@dmreg.com Danielle Deaver cradled her daughter, knowing the newborn’s gasps would slowly subside, and the baby would die.
Through tear-blurred eyes, she looked her daughter over for physical defects.
Deaver, 34, of Grand Island, Neb., wanted to see something, anything to validate the news doctors delivered eight days before: Her baby had virtually no chance of survival. And if she lived, she would be severely disabled.
What Deaver saw was perfection: A tiny but beautiful child. Ten toes. Ten fingers. Long eyelashes.
Her baby tried desperately to inhale.
With her husband, Robb, at her side, Deaver sobbed, gently kissing her daughter’s forehead and hoping her baby wasn’t in pain. That fear – that the baby would suffer before its predestined death – compelled the couple to seek an abortion. But a new Nebraska law that limits abortion after the 20th week of gestation prevented her from getting one. The Iowa Legislature is considering a similar law.
A nurse at Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital in Hastings instructed the couple to closely monitor their daughter’s breathing so when it stopped the staff could accurately record the death.
The clock ticked.
At 3:15 p.m. Dec. 8, 1-pound, 10-ounce Elizabeth Deaver – named in memory of Robb’s grandmother – made one final attempt to breathe.
Her life struggle, 15 minutes outside the womb after 23 weeks and five days of gestation, was over.
“Our hands were tied,” Danielle Deaver said. “The outcome of my pregnancy, that choice was made by God. I feel like how to handle the end of my pregnancy, that choice should have been mine, and it wasn’t because of a law.”
Years of trying to conceive
The Deavers’ path to the Hastings hospital is a story of faith and persistence in their desire to have children.
Danielle and Robb met in 2002 at a karaoke bar in Grand Island, Neb. Danielle attempted to set up Robb with one of her friends. But Robb, the son of rural Nebraska dairy farmers, was attracted to the bubbly matchmaker instead.
They dated for about a year and talked almost immediately about having children. She was 27 and he was 33 when they married.
“Conversations that would scare most people away, we chose to have because we weren’t 20,” Danielle said.
They married in a Methodist church in St. Paul, Neb., a compromise between his family’s Presbyterian roots and her Episcopalian denomination.
Soon after the wedding, they began trying to have children. Three pregnancies ended in miscarriages.
One was particularly devastating. The pregnancy was progressing so well that a doctor told them to go home and paint their baby room: They were going to be parents. She miscarried after the 16th week.
In 2007, when Danielle became pregnant again, Robb, a hospital emergency room admissions staffer, felt an intuition that everything would be OK this time.
Danielle, a registered nurse, felt anxiety the entire pregnancy, fearful that even a cough or hiccup would cause her to miscarry. But on May 18, 2008, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Alex.
Danielle Deaver calls all children, and specifically Alex, her active 2-year-old, “God’s greatest gift.”
“It’s everything I had hoped and dreamed it would be and more,” Robb Deaver said.
Joy turns to devastation
In June 2010, Robb and Danielle began trying to have another child. Danielle found out in August she was pregnant.
After telling immediate family, the couple took a picture of Alex in his blue booster seat with a poster reading “FUTURE BIG BROTHER” and posted it on Facebook.
“I was the one this time that was like, ‘Hey, I’ve done this once. I’m a pro,’ ” Danielle said. “I didn’t worry about anything.”
Then came Sunday, Nov. 28, as Danielle and Robb were tucking Alex into bed. Danielle’s water broke.
Robb rushed his wife to the hospital. Doctors told the couple the incident didn’t mean the pregnancy was over. It was possible Danielle’s body could make more amniotic fluid, and the baby would be all right.
“I said, ‘OK, what do we need to do? Do I need to stand on my head for the next four months? Whatever it is I need to do,’ ” Danielle said.
But the next morning, an ultrasound showed hardly any amniotic fluid around the baby. Danielle spent the next 24 hours on bed rest, scared to move. She saw a perinatologist in Omaha on Tuesday, Nov. 30.
A perinatologist is an obstetrical specialist often involved in caring for pregnancies that have a high risk for complications. The Deavers’ hearts sank when they heard the perinatologist’s first words: about hope for subsequent pregnancies.
Danielle had suffered anhydramnios, a premature rupture of the membranes before a fetus has achieved viability.
Without amniotic fluid around the fetus, the infant would likely be born with contractures, a shortening of muscle tissue that causes an inability to move limbs. Because the skull of the fetus was still soft, the muscles in the mother’s uterus would likely cause deformities to its face and head. It also was unlikely the baby’s lungs would develop beyond the 22-week stage, when Danielle’s water broke.
“Even if we did carry the pregnancy further, and we decided to try heroic measures with ventilation and stuff, she may not even have the anatomy to maintain” life, Danielle said. “You have to have the anatomy to have the ventilator help.”
The couple talked about bed rest, fluid replacement, steroids and any other idea they could imagine to save the pregnancy.
“I’ve said through this ordeal that I don’t want to be a person that doesn’t believe in miracles, but I think that day my hope was gone. I had none left,” Danielle said.
They asked the perinatologist a question no parent wants to ask: At what point do parents who are willing to do anything to save a child turn selfish by putting the child through what seemed to them like torture?
There was no clear-cut answer.
There was less than a 10 percent chance their child would have a heartbeat and be able to breathe on its own. There was an even smaller chance – estimated at 2 percent – that the baby would ultimately be able to perform the most basic functions on its own, such as eating.
Robb and Danielle, left alone in an exam room, held each other and discussed what to do. They just couldn’t see the logic in exhausting painful, expensive medical procedures after being told they had almost no chance to save their baby’s life.
They decided: There are worse things than death.
“So (the perinatologist) came in, and we said we’d just like to put an end to this nightmare and can you help us. She said, no, she can’t,” Danielle said.
The perinatologist said Nebraska’s abortion law, which had been in effect less than two months, would not allow Danielle to terminate her pregnancy because her baby still had a heartbeat and because her own life was not immediately jeopardized.
The couple went home to wait, brokenhearted. They acknowledge they could probably have gone to another state to terminate the pregnancy. Danielle said she felt intense stress and wasn’t strong enough emotionally to deal with an unfamiliar place and doctors she hadn’t met.
Eight days later, Danielle went into contractions, and baby Elizabeth was born to her 15-minute life.
Doctor acted on legal advice
Danielle Deaver gave The Des Moines Register permission to review her medical records, which confirmed her account of the pregnancy.
Dr. Todd Pankcatz, her primary physician in Hastings, said he asked several attorneys to review the law to see whether he could fulfill the family’s request to terminate the pregnancy.
It was possible that Danielle, who complained of intense pain during the last few days before birth, could have been suffering from an infection. However, it is debatable whether the possibility of an infection could have been used as the legal basis to move forward with an abortion, Pankcatz said.
Because of the uncertainty, Pankcatz said he was advised not to fulfill the family’s request.
“This is an untested case law,” Pankcatz said. A case could be pressed as a way to contest current abortion law, or “if somebody saw this in a way that could potentially further their political career,” his lawyers told him.
“There were criminal charges that I would potentially face by intervening in a pregnancy like this,” Pankcatz said.
Physicians who break the law face felony charges that could result in five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Leanne Parker, Danielle’s mother, arrived at the hospital soon after Elizabeth, her first granddaughter, died. She held the infant’s body while saying goodbye to the child she never knew.
“So many of these people that are behind this law have never gone through anything like what our family has gone through,” Parker said. “It’s just an unreasonable law.”
Abortion limits in Iowa
Iowa Republican lawmakers have proposed several bills to further restrict abortion in Iowa. House File 5 mirrors the Nebraska law.
One of the most aggressive anti-abortion legislators who supports House File 5, Rep. Glen Massie, R-Des Moines, said Elizabeth Deaver deserved the chance that Nebraska’s law gave her.
“In life, amazing things happen,” Massie said, noting examples of when unborn children have beaten the odds of a dire medical prognosis. “I know it may be a one in a bazillion snowballs’ chance, but if I were that snowball, I’d want that chance.”
Other anti-abortion lawmakers agreed that Deaver’s doctor acted appropriately to maintain the pregnancy.
“You have to take into account the life of the child and the life of the mother,” said Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, a board member of Iowa Right to Life and author of House File 5. “It’s that basic foundation. You have two lives there.”
The author of the Nebraska law, Speaker Mike Flood, a Republican and attorney from Norfolk, maintained last week that the law worked in the Deavers’ case.
“Even in these situations where the baby has a terminal condition or there’s not much chance of surviving outside of the womb, my point has been and remains that is still a life,” Flood said.
Consider impact, pair pleads
Danielle and Robb Deaver describe themselves as private people who have never been politically active. Before December, they weren’t aware of the Nebraska abortion law, they said.
Their interview with the Register was the first time they’d spoken publicly about their daughter’s death.
Politicians “put words out there like the ‘partial birth abortion act.’ Well, gosh, nobody wants a partial-birth abortion,” Danielle said. “That sounds so gruesome, but that’s not what this was about. Our situation got lumped in with that.”
The Deavers have contacted Planned Parenthood of the Heartland but have not determined whether they will pursue a case to challenge the constitutionality of the Nebraska law. Because Planned Parenthood does not provide abortions after the 20th week, it would not likely have legal standing to bring a case. Because the Deavers’ situation is resolved, they may no longer have standing either.
For now, the Deavers say speaking out is a form of therapy. It’s also a way to push states like Iowa to consider the ramifications of a broadly written law like Nebraska’s.
Jill June, president of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, called the Deavers courageous.
“I think those that hear her story will be very, very moved,” June said. “Hopefully some of them that are on this reckless stampede against a woman’s right to decide with her doctor what is in the best interest of her health and well being – I hope they will hear her words and listen to her.”
The three-month anniversary of Elizabeth’s birth and death is Tuesday. Her cremated remains are in an urn in the family’s house, next to pictures and other mementos of her life.
“I get so frustrated. I just think if they (lawmakers) thought about their daughter, their sister, their mother, their wife being in this situation, they would never want them to go through that,” Danielle Deaver said.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110306/NEWS10/103060331/Her-baby-wasn-t-expected-live-Nebraska-law-banned-abortion
Stamford Liberal,
No, I am not patronizing you. I loved your sentiments, because I feel the same way, but you put it way better than I ever could, with a lot less swearing than I would use.
emw1,
Many thanks for clarifying … just wanted to make sure
I’ve been trying to “clean up” the language but news like this ticks me off – the f-bombs help get the anger out …
Elaine,
If only Rep. Smith would just stay in Kenya, this country would be a better place.
Stamford,
Those are horrible stories that are still hard to believe. Those religious freaks or the religious freaks that these politicians are catering too need to be reminded that conservative doesn’t mean meddling in women’s and couple’s private medical business. This kind of crap legislation just makes a joke out of HIPAA privacy.
I grew up in a progressive neighborhood/area of Chicago in the 70s and 80s. While in hindsight, I probably saw some of the negatives of Feminism, for the most part it was an important component of the broader Civil Rights movement that has made my life, and America, much, much better. Most of us are lucky enough today to live in a world where the worst, craziest stereotypes of women are absent, or at least concealed.
I’d like to thank Rep. Turner for reminding all of us what it used to be like back when his attitude that “all women are stupid, lying whores” was common. I feel sorry for the women who have to deal with men like that today, but at least it is abnormal and rightly scorned, as opposed to normative.
Somewhere in Indiana there’s the underside of a rock that misses him and his appalling hate. He should crawl back under it.
rafflaw,
It is utterly disgusting what the GOP is putting women through. As if finding out that there’s something wrong with the pregnancy isn’t heart-wrenching enough, forcing a woman to carry the pregnancy to term is just the lowest of lows.
It is despicable, callous and, in my mind, amounts to psychological torture.
Tomdarch,
Well said. Politicians like this want to move us back to the 18th century when women were chattel.
I hate to say it but this ass-hat Eric Turner might be atleast partially correct. I don’t know about an avalanche of false rape complaints, but I can certainly see an indigent woman, with no healthcare option (and no bus fair to Illinois), or a pregnant teenager who’s terrified of her parents and can’t invision trying to put an abortion on the family health insurance doing what they feel is necessary to get an abortion.
What I can not gather from the article is whether the health care providers would be put in the position of “mandatory reporters” under the proposed amendment. If they are not, I could certainly see a sympathetic docter telling an indigent woman how to phrase something to get the proceedure.
I think one has to assume that any docters who are performing abortions are pro choice to begin with. I don’t think it’s too far fetched to imagine a docter saying to a poor woman who wants/needs an abortion, “Your going to have to check box “A” and then we can get started”
It really all depends on what if any duty the amendment placed upon the docters and the women to report the allegd rape.
I have represented numerous men charged with domestic violence, where there wives and girlfriends have come to my office and told me that thier boyfriend/husband never hit them but the officer told them at the time they had to say that to get there drunken spouse out of the house for 48 hours. Now some women recant genuine complaints of abuse because of unhealthy co-dependant relationships. I’ve seen alot of those too. But I’m talking about women who were being yelled at, were probably genuining afraid ( or atleast genuinely pissed off). And they were told they had to lie to get Bubba out of the house for a couple of days. I don’t think the cops who advise this or the women that make the false police reports are evil. It’s just an officer and a frightened/piss-off spouse trying to get around the limits of the law to deal with a bad situation.
So I think Turner may be in some way correct. And he’s an ass h**e.
Stamford,
It is at least cruel, but unfortunately not too unusual these days!
Seams, it is easy for Turner to be “right” when he is writing the laws to force women into these kind of Sophies Choices.
tomdarch,
“I’d like to thank Rep. Turner for reminding all of us what it used to be like back when his attitude that ‘all women are stupid, lying whores’ was common.”
And those who weren’t thought of as lying whores were looked upon as grown up girls who knew their place in a man’s world–and who knew how to hold their tongues.
This is what we are up against and this is why we fight.
We will not give up, we will not back down, and we will continue to stand together, always watching and at the ready.
Blouise and Elaine,
I agree with both of you. Turner is trying to turn the clock back to a bad time.
Up here in Ohio any woman who states she is going to vote republican is referred to as belonging to the “Bimbos on Barstools” arm of the Republican Party. Their only real movement is spinning.
Vagina and breasts would cause the holier-than-thou saints of the GOP to be positively apoplectic:
Florida GOP commandment: Thou shalt not say “uterus”
A Democrat connects a woman’s womb to the Republican attack on unions, and gets admonished: No body parts, please!
By Andrew Leonard
I’ve been waiting in vain for a long time for the moment when reproductive female sex organs got mixed up with the national Republican assault on unions, but thanks to the reliable insanity of Florida, finally we have a story that has it all — with a dash of the GOP’s deregulatory agenda on top, just for spice. (Thanks to a tweet from Sierra Magazine’s Paul Rauber, for the tip.)
Last week, the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill banning the automatic deduction of union dues from government paychecks. During debate on the issue, state representative Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, used his floor time, reported the St. Petersberg Times, to make a point about how Republicans “are against regulations — except when it comes to the little guys, or serves their specific interests.”
At one point Randolph suggested that his wife “incorporate her uterus” to stop Republicans from pushing measures that would restrict abortions. Republicans, after all, wouldn’t want to further regulate a Florida business.
Apparently the GOP leadership of the House didn’t like the one-liner.
They told Democrats that Randolph is not to discuss body parts on the House floor.
“The point was that Republicans are always talking about deregulation and big government,” Randolph said Thursday. “And I always say their philosophy is small government for the big guy and big government for the little guy. And so, if my wife’s uterus was incorporated or my friend’s bedroom was incorporated, maybe they (Republicans) would be talking about deregulating.
A spokeswoman for the House GOP later explained “that members of both parties needed to be mindful of decorum during debate” and that “language that would be considered inappropriate for children and other guests” should be avoided.
I’m not sure what is really scarier to the Florida GOP, the mention of the word uterus or the public invocation of the concept of “regulation.” But Scott Randolph is my new hero — in one stroke he managed to not only tie together the entire social agenda of today’s GOP — crush unions, restrict abortions, and allow corporations to do as they please — but to also reveal the hysterical prudery of the folks currently in charge in Florida. A woman’s womb is a scary thing, indeed.
Meanwhile, can someone get to work on my next T-shirt: “Get the government out of my uterus, and into Goldman Sachs”?
Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More: Andrew Leonard
http://www.salon.com/news/the_labor_movement/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/03/31/florida_republicans_chastise_democrat_for_saying_uterus
Why is it that government wants to give free shit to everyone?
Stamford Liberal,
I love it … Bust a union; Bust a uterus; Vote Republican and get Busty!
Blouise,
“Bust a union; Bust a uterus; Vote Republican and get Busty!”
Lol – Now that’s a t-shirt I would wear with pride!!
“Blouise
1, March 31, 2011 at 4:27 pm
This is what we are up against and this is why we fight.”
And the** MIKE** is a big part of that fight to.
CNN’s ratings soared in the first quarter of 2011, making it one of the biggest winners of the last three months of cable news ratings. While Fox News, as it always does, had the top 12 programs of the quarter, CNN’s ratings climbed to heights it has not seen in many, many months. Among the biggest beneficiaries of the ratings spike, which occurred during an unusually heavy period of breaking and international news: Anderson Cooper, who won the demo in his timeslot for the first time in over two years, and Piers Morgan, who drew nearly a million viewers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/cable-news-ratings-top-30_n_842122.html#s259143&title=1_The_OReilly
Eniobob,
You are correct that we need main stream media to get on board and hold these radicals accountable for their crazy actions.
eniobob & rafflaw,
I fear women’s issues aren’t sensational enough for the MSM … it’s far more important to cover the latest blunders by Palin and the squeamish in Libya, or Bachmann and the Revolutionary Wars start in New Hampshire to what Lindsay Lohan wore to her latest court hearing and the new psycho-babble coming from Charlie Sheen.
The MSM are not interested in truth; the MSM are not interested in calling the liars of the GOP to the carpet for their lies; the MSM are not interested in journalistic integrity. The MSM is only interested in what will bring in the biggest bucks …
anon:
I don’t need to defend Prof. Turley; he’s more than capable of doing that himself. But I feel compelled to respond to your comments.
My impression is that you may have had a personal experience that you have determined reflects some sort of universal truths regarding human behavior. The clincher is your statement that “our legal system does create incentives for women to lie about rape.” To the contrary, our legal system actually discourages women from even reporting rapes.
You further assert, citing no authority, that women make false allegations of rape “many times,” and frequently do so at the urging of lawyers. That is nonsense.
I have been practicing law for almost 39 years (I know, I know, but I have no competence for anything else). That means that I have been exposed to both the best and the worst in human beings. The truth is that most people do not lie, even when they are deeply hurt and angry about the actions of another. The truth is that it is very difficult for most people to share even embarrassing experiences with their lawyers, let alone the humiliating and degrading experience of sexual assault. That is why most cases of rape are never even reported.
Most cases of incest likewise are never disclosed. My own mother was raped repeatedly by her stepfather before she was even in her teens. She lived with that shame all of her life and was able to reveal her pain to my sisters after they had become adults. I did not even learn of it until my sisters told me following my mother’s death. I have come to understand my mother’s agony only because I have represented hundreds of abused and neglected children over the years, many of whom were also victims of sexual assault in their homes.
The point of Rep. Turner’s comments was that he does not wish for rape and incest victims to have access to abortions. Since he can offer no rational basis for his position, he created an absurd argument predicated on a problem that doesn’t exist. It was a disgusting display of ignorance, arrogance and condescension. You can buy into it if you wish, but don’t kid yourself about what you’ve purchased.
Mike Appleton,
Thinking women everywhere thank you for that sensitive and insightful post and for the representation you have provided over the years.
So 200,000 of the tea party people show up at the capitol,oooppss
my bad about 200 tea partiers show up at the capitol.
Maybe the tide is turning.
“By MARIN COGAN | 3/31/11 5:49 PM EDT
At a tea party rally outside the Capitol Thursday, the pressures facing Republican leadership as it navigates a budget impasse were on full display.
Tea party leaders and Republican politicians repeated similar talking points — that they did not want the government to shut down and that the onus was on Senate Democrats to finalize a deal that would keep the government funded through the rest of the fiscal year.”
The only problem? Whenever they pushed to avoid a shutdown, the crowd of roughly 200 people kept getting in the way
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52343.html#ixzz1IDqN1YFA
Blouise:
Thanks for your kind words. The “fake rape” crap really gets my goat.
Mike Appleton,
I echo Blouise’s post – thank you.
Stamford Liberal:
You’re quite welcome.
Mike Appleton, I will echo it, also, and add that your wife is very fortunate to be married to you.
the network media only covers what is not controversial. how many drunken assholes are going to call or write and complain about the coverage charlie sheen or lindsey lohan is getting.
untill a media outlet stops listening to complaints from organized rightwing groups about their coverage we will continue to get coverage of the lowest common denominator.
sarah palin likes to talk about the “lame stream media”. she knows they’re lame, they’ve been hamstrung by her and people like her.
Swarthmore mom:
LOL. Thanks. I’d quote you, but it would be met with exaggerated groans and the rolling of eyes.
Mike Appleton
1, March 31, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Swarthmore mom:
LOL. Thanks. I’d quote you, but it would be met with exaggerated groans and the rolling of eyes.
=========================================================
Lol … that just means you’re still being trained … it’s a never ending job!
Mike A.,
Great response to Anon’s post. He is obviously swallowing Turner’s hateful nonsense hook, line and sinker. Thanks for sharing your very personal story with us. Your Mother was an extraordinary woman.
So I spent some time providing some links that Mike Appleton might find enlightening.
But to avoid the spam filter, I obfuscated the links slightly.
Well, chalk one up for a very smart blog that corrected every single one of my spam filter avoiding obfuscated links, linked them correctly, and then decided with so many links it must just be spam.
Seriously, that’s kind of funny.
Actually, all I should have done is link to this Google Search, because naturally, Professor Turley has often blogged about false accusations of rape: http://www.google.com/search?q=jonathan+turley+false+accusations+rape
Professor Turley, would you be so kind as to fish my post out of moderation?
mindless pigs
Women with money/resources will always have access to abortions and other medical procedures. Women without money/resources will never have access to abortions and other medical procedures. It doesn’t really matter what laws are in the books. The republicans may make it harder but they will never be able to end the practice.
These silly games that our elected officials play are just that- silly games. Does anyone seriously think your average republican legislator gives a sh*t about children? Does anyone seriously think your average democratic legislator gives a sh*t about the reproductive rights of women? They don’t- it is about firing up a specific base of voters and getting money.
It makes me angry too- free people in a free society should have absolute control over personal decisions in their life. I just find it hard to believe that abortion will ever be completely banned throughout the entire country- especially when something like one in four women have an abortion sometime during their lifetime (and women still get to vote- don’t they?).
Again the only women who won’t have access are the women who wouldn’t have access anyway- the poor.
Joeey,
F you don’t think that abortions can’t be outlawed, you haven’t been paying attention. Besides, I am old enough to remember when abortions were outlawed in most states and women died getting illegal and unsafe abortions in the shadows.
http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims
this database doesn’t mention the statistical percentage of woman faking rape….I’ve heard that it is hugely less than the percent of men that actually do respect you in the morning…..
That should have started with the word “If”. It is getting late!
Woosty,
Well done!
W=c
That report could be in line with todays date:=)
“While about 80% of all victims are white, minorities are somewhat more likely to be attacked.”
Not quite sure I understand that summation.
anon,
You can only post two links in a comment. Otherwise, your comment will remain in moderation limbo until the end of time.
eniobob, you’re right, it’s a tad dated.
Here’s a less comprhensive but updated database….one that illustrates that for women especially, it’s who you know that counts….
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvv.pdf
I’ll look for a study that attempts to show the relation between misogyny and abuse of women…..
I was reading about eugenics when I came across this little tidbit:
Abortions by healthy women were forbidden by law in both Nazi Germany (famous for their “enlightened eugenics” programs) and Russia under Stalin.
So, GOP . . . it seems like you’ve been keeping
good badappropriate company.Judge allows Duke lacrosse lawsuit to go forward
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more/04/01/duke-lacrosse-lawsuit.ap/index.html#ixzz1IHQpi8C2
Buddha do you have a source for that info?
The saddest misunderstanding is that abortion can be regulated by law. It is a natural response to conditions and as such, correcting the conditions is the effective way to lessen the occurrance.
Protecting women from abusive and controlling forces would be a good start.
W=c,
I got the information about Germany from an article entitled:
“Abortion and Eugenics in Nazi Germany” by Henry P. David, Jochen Fleischhacker and Charlotte Hohn
Population and Development Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 81-112
This may or may not be available on the internet.
I found out about Russia under Stalin after reading several sources on the Internet (including Wikipedia) that referenced similar laws during Stalin’s time.
Thank you Elaine,
Mike Appleton, I’m going to repost some of what I wrote (or really collected. I have *removed* the links, but I think google will find each source for you if you are interested.
You seem eager to pin my beliefs on some experience I had, and I suspect you find my credibility low since I am a man and after all you have all your anecdotal experiences,…
False accusations of sexual misconduct by women? NEVER you say. It’s a load of crap!
Have you done any research into this at all?
Hofstra University? Duke University? Ever googled false rape?
Read some of these, then get back to me.
The links in order are:
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume6/j6_2_4.htm/www.salon.com/news/1999/03/cov_10news.html/www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html/www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,194032,00.html/www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/10/feminism-apos-s-identity-crisis/4921/www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/penalty-falsely-crying-rape-prison
ABSTRACT: Empirical evidence does not support the widespread belief that women are extremely unlikely to make false accusations of male sexual misconduct. Rather the research on accusations of rape, sexual harassment, incest, and child sexual abuse indicates that false accusations have become a serious problem. The motivations involved in making a false report are widely varied and include confusion, outside influence from therapists and others, habitual lying, advantages in custody disputes, financial gain, and the political ideology of radical feminism.
Katie Roiphe: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/13/magazine/date-rape-s-other-victim.html
Date Rape’s Other Victim
One in four college women has been the victim of rape or attempted rape. One in four. I remember standing outside the dining hall in college, looking at the purple poster with this statistic written in bold letters. It didn’t seem right. If sexual assault was really so pervasive, it seemed strange that the intricate gossip networks hadn’t picked up more than one or two shadowy instances of rape. If I was really standing in the middle of an “epidemic,” a “crisis”- if 25 percent of my women friends were really being raped- wouldn’t I know it?
…
Neil Gilbert, a professor of social welfare at the University of California at Berkeley, questions the validity of the one-in-four statistic. Gilbert points out that in a 1985 survey undertaken by Ms. magazine and financed by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73 percent of the women categorized as rape victims did not initially define their experience as rape; it was Mary Koss, the psychologist conducting the study, who did
Cathy Young:
Who says women never lie about Rape?
The “believe the woman” zealotry promoted by Juanita Broaddrick’s defenders is bad for feminism.
Heather MacDonald:
The Campus Rape Myth
The reality: bogus statistics, feminist victimology, and university-approved sex toys
Wendy McElroy:
False Rape Accusations May Be More Common Than Thought
Wendy Kaminer (ACLU)
It is heresy, in general, to question the testimony of self-proclaimed victims of date rape or harassment, as it is heresy in a twelve-step group to question claims of abuse. All claims of suffering are sacred and presumed to be absolutely true. It is a primary article of faith among many feminists that women don’t lie about rape, ever; they lack the dishonesty gene. Some may call this feminism, but it looks more like femininity to me.
Emily Bazelon:
Biurny Gonzalez testified in 2006 that a man named William McCaffrey raped her after taking her for a drive late one night. McCaffrey was convicted and sent to prison for 20 years. The drive happened but the rape didn’t. Gonzalez pleaded guilty to perjury Monday. She faces a prison sentence of two to seven years. She could also be deported to the Dominican Republic where she was born, though she is a legal resident in the United States.
What prompted the lie? Gonzalez says that friends she’d gone out with that night got angry with her—a fight among them broke a car window—and that “she wanted the group to feel badly.” Then “the lie became too big for her to back out of.” But the guilt, apparently, became too big, too. McCaffrey has been incredibly gracious in commending Gonzalez for coming forward to tell the truth. Should Gonzalez have to do every day of prison time that McCaffrey did? Will this story help deter other women who might be tempted to make up a rape story, or will the harsh penalty scare the ones who falsely cry rape (a minority, to be sure) from coming forward?
Kinda OT but in the same realm of how conservatives view women:
Friday, Apr 1, 2011 10:52 ET
War Room
The hypocrisy of Phyllis Schlafly
By Justin Elliott
Gage Skidmore / CC BY 3.0
Phyllis Schlafly, the longtime conservative activist and anti-feminist, spent much of her career railing against efforts to increase access to child care — and even the very concept of parents (specifically mothers) using child care to allow them to pursue careers. But, according to a new report, Schlafly herself had “domestic help” to help raise her six children, a fact that she has either never mentioned or, at the least, not emphasized in her public rhetoric.
Schlafly is out with a new book co-written with her niece, called “The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say.” In writing about the book, the Los Angeles Times’ Meghan Daum interviewed Schlafly’s niece, Suzanne Venker. And when Daum asked Venker how Schlafly had managed it all, she surfaced a remarkable piece of information:
How did Schlafly manage to raise all those kids and pursue such a prominent career? Granted, at 25 Schlafly married an older, well- established lawyer, and granted, she herself didn’t go to law school until she was in her 50s, but did she have help? If so, she never seemed to mention it.
Venker seemed to almost despair at the question: “I’m in a pickle because I haven’t been asked this directly before,” she said. “I’m going to say this the best way I can. She had domestic help…. She wouldn’t have called them nannies, but she had people in her home. That’s what she chose. Did she mention that fact enough to get her point across to young people about how she managed to do it? No, she did not.”
Indeed, even a cursory search of Schlafly’s public statements show an outright hostility to use of help or child care. In 1989, when the Senate was considering a Dodd-Kennedy bill to provide day care to poor families, Schlafly fired off an angry letter to one of its Republican sponsors, Orrin Hatch. In it, Schlafly blasts what she calls “stranger care”:
We expected pro-family leadership from you, not surrender to the liberals who want to build a baby-sitting bureaucracy, penalize full-time mothers, and impose federal regulations that will drive low-cost daycare out of business.
The Dodd bill is unjust and discriminatory because it discriminates against mothers who take care of their own children and taxes them in order to subsidize those who use stranger care — because it discriminates against employed mothers whose children are cared for by relatives — and because it encourages and subsidizes institutional care of babies instead of encouraging the care of babies within the family home.
Here is Schlafly in 1980, quoted in Newsweek:
In 1971, Congress approved a $ 15 billion child-development program aimed at making “quality child care” available to all, according to ability to pay. But it was vetoed by President Richard Nixon, who declared that such government interference would threaten family life. That sentiment still prevails among conservatives. It has helped defeat every comprehensive day-care bill for the past nine years, and right-wing delegates promise to make day care a prominent target next month at the White House Conference on Families. Argues conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly: “There’s no real substitute for the care of the real mother.”
Testifying before Congress on another matter in 1981, Schlafly said (via Nexis): “It would be a tragic mistake for Congress ever to adopt any public or tax policy which encourages mothers to assign child care to others and enter the labor force.”
And she’s still not being candid about her own experience. Check out this exchange from an NPR interview this week, in which Schlafly was asked directly how she managed her career and her family:
MARTIN: How did you manage, though? As a mother of six, as your husband was -certainly had a busy career of his own, and being as significant a national figure as you have been, how did you manage?
Ms. SCHLAFLY: Well, politics was my hobby. And I really spent 25 years as a full-time homemaker before I did any particular traveling around. And by that time the children were well along in school or college. And they were very supportive. My husband was very supportive. I told the feminists the only person’s permission I had to get was my husband’s.
What about that domestic help?
(Hat tip: Right Wing Watch) With research assistance from Justin Spees
Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott
http://www.salon.com/life/family/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/04/01/phyllis_schlafly_child_care
Mike,
If you were to research the issue you would find many studies showing wide results from the famous, but debunked Brownmiller number of 2% to the FBI number of I think 8% up to Gene Kanin’s 40% and higher.
So I have questions for you since you think the issue is a load of crap.
What officially well studied false rape accusation rate would you require before you did not think it was a load of crap?
You may also wish to take a look at:
//jrsm.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/full/100/7/321
About 9% of cases are classified as false allegations,
And here are some more run together links. Pull them apart and perhaps you will learn a bit that you didn’t know.
//lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2004/12/2_false_rape_st.html//www.billoblog.com/?p=134//antimisandry.com/false-allegations/list-false-rape-cases-12455.html
And finally Mike, you don’t say what kind of law you practice, but here is another lawyer’s thoughts, he practices family law and has actual experience and quite more to offer than your anecdotes.
After you read the essay below, notice how similar Wendy Murphy’s thoughts are to your own: Appleton: “The “fake rape” crap really gets my goat.” Murphy: “Ugly myth” calls for “boiling rage”.
http:www.glennsacks.com/blog/?page_id=1334
Research Shows False Accusations of Rape Common
Despite its many painful and unseemly aspects, the Kobe Bryant rape case and the media storm surrounding it have drawn attention to a severely neglected problem: false rape accusations.In her recent Daily Journal column, high profile feminist professor Wendy Murphy dismisses the problem of false accusations as an “ugly myth,” and calls for “boiling rage” activism to address what she perceives as the anti-woman bias of the criminal justice system. Like many victims’ advocates, Murphy cannot seem to fathom the possibility that Bryant could be innocent. However, research shows that false allegations of rape are frighteningly common.
According to a nine-year study conducted by former Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin, in over 40 percent of the cases reviewed, the complainants eventually admitted that no rape had occurred (Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994). Kanin also studied rape allegations in two large Midwestern universities and found that 50 percent of the allegations were recanted by the accuser.
Kanin found that most of the false accusers were motivated by a need for an alibi or a desire for revenge. Kanin was once well known and lauded by the feminist movement for his groundbreaking research on male sexual aggression. His studies on false rape accusations, however, received very little attention.
Kanin’s findings are hardly unique. In 1985 the Air Force conducted a study of 556 rape accusations. Over one quarter of the accusers admitted, either just before they took a lie detector test of after they had failed it, that no rape occurred. A further investigation by independent reviewers found that 60 percent of the original rape allegations were false.
The most common reasons the women gave for falsely accusing rape were “spite or revenge,” and to compensate for feelings of guilt or shame (Forensic Science Digest, vol. 11. no. 4, December 1985).
A Washington Post investigation of rape reports in seven Virginia and Maryland counties in 1990 and 1991 found that nearly one in four were unfounded. When contacted by the Post, many of the alleged victims admitted that they had lied.
It is true, of course, that not every accuser who recants had accused falsely. But it is also true that some who do not recant were not telling the truth.
According to a 1996 Department of Justice Report, of the roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases analyzed with DNA evidence over the previous seven years, 2,000 excluded the primary suspect, and another 2,000 were inconclusive. The report notes that these figures mirror an informal National Institute of Justice survey of private laboratories, and suggests that there exists “some strong, underlying systemic problems that generate erroneous accusations and convictions.”
Craig Silverman, a former Colorado prosecutor known for his zealous prosecution of rapists during his 16-year career, says that false rape accusations occur with “scary frequency.” As a regular commentator on the Bryant trial for Denver’s ABC affiliate, Silverman noted that “any honest veteran sex assault investigator will tell you that rape is one of the most falsely reported crimes.” According to Silverman, a Denver sex-assault unit commander estimates that nearly half of all reported rape claims are false.
The media has largely ignored these studies and experts and has instead promoted the notion that only 2% of rape allegations are false. This figure was made famous by feminist Susan Brownmiller in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Brownmiller was relaying the alleged comments of a New York judge concerning the rate of false rape accusations in a New York City police precinct in 1974.
A 1997 Columbia Journalism Review analysis of rape statistics noted that the 2% statistic is often falsely attributed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and has no clear and credible study to support it. The FBI’s statistic for “unfounded” rape accusations is 9%, but this definition only includes cases where the accuser recants or the evidence contradicts her story. Instances where the case is dismissed for lack of evidence are not included in the “unfounded” category. Brownmiller’s credibility can be assessed by her assertion in Against Our Will that rape is “nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.”
Murphy also contends that the criminal justice system is stacked against women, and that the law reform initiatives promoted during the past three decades have “failed to make a bit of difference in the justice system’s handling of rape cases.” In reality, feminist advocacy and the now ubiquitous rape-shield laws have made an enormous difference in the way the system treats rape cases.
Some of these changes have been fair, and have led to greater protections for rape victims. However, others have made it more difficult for men to defend themselves, with at times horrifying consequences for the accused.
For example, in December, the Arkansas Supreme Court denied an appeal by Ralph Taylor, who is serving a 13-year sentence for rape. The court held that evidence of the victim’s alleged prior false allegations of rape was inadmissible because it was considered sexual conduct within the meaning of the state’s rape shield statute. In that case, the defense proffered the testimony of two friends of the alleged victim, both of whom claimed that she had previously falsely accused another man of raping her. The court added that admitting such evidence could “inflame the jury.”
In her book Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young details numerous questionable rulings in which potentially innocent men were prevented from properly defending themselves by the rape shield laws which Murphy endorses.
One of these cases concerns an 18 year-old Wisconsin boy named Charles Steadman, who in 1993 was sentenced to eight years in prison for allegedly raping an older woman. Steadman was underage when the crime allegedly occurred, but was prohibited from revealing that his accuser was currently facing criminal charges of having sex with minors, and thus had an excellent reason to claim that the sex with Steadman was not consensual. Such evidence was deemed related to his accuser’s sexual history and thus inadmissible.
In 1997, sportscaster Marv Albert was accused of assault and battery during a sexual encounter with a woman with whom he had had a 10-year sexual relationship. Albert sought to introduce evidence that his accuser, who had been in a mental hospital six weeks before the alleged assault, had previously made false accusations against men who had left her, as Albert, who was engaged to be married, was planning to do. Albert’s offer of proof was denied, compromising his ability to defend himself. Facing a possible life sentence, he chose to plead guilty to misdemeanor assault.
Murphy’s dogged attacks on Ruckriegle as a veritable “advocate for the accused” are also without foundation. Far from being a black robed patriarch in league with the defendant, Ruckriegle’s rulings were reasonable and, if anything, minimalist. It is not the rulings but the reaction to them by victims’ advocates and the media which are worrisome.
For example, Ruckriegle granted a defense motion that Bryant’s accuser would not be referred to as “the victim” in court. Such labeling, as opposed to “alleged victim” or “accuser,” undermines the presumption of innocence. However, this motion was hotly contested by both the prosecution and by victims’ rights organizations, which filed amicus briefs and complained that Ruckriegle’s decision created an anti-woman double-standard.
Ruckriegle also allowed Bryant to introduce evidence that his accuser had had other sexual encounters in the 72 hours before her medical examination for the alleged assault. Bryant’s defense team contended that the microscopic vaginal injuries the prosecution claimed were suffered in the alleged assault could instead have been the product of various consensual sexual encounters.
Media commentators labeled the 72 hour decision a “bombshell for prosecutors” that “threatens all women,” and likened Ruckriegle to a man who has “tiptoed into a minefield.”
Murphy is correct that rape is a horrible crime. But false accusations of rape are every bit as horrible. They are a form of psychological rape that can emotionally, socially, and economically destroy a person even if there is no conviction, especially for those of less fame and fortune than Bryant. The stigma attaches to the falsely accused for life. Few believe them and few care. Prosecutors systematically refuse to prosecute the perpetrators. And victims’ advocates like Murphy refuse to see falsely accused men as victims, and instead work to minimize and conceal the problem.
This column first appeared in the Los Angeles Daily Journal and San Francisco Daily Journal (9/15/04).
Marc E. Angelucci is a public interest attorney in Los Angeles and is the president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Coalition of Free Men.
RE: Stamford Liberal, March 31, 2011 at 12:26 pm
Though debate exists, a thorough review of the medical evidence in the Journal of the American Medical Association determined that “pain perception probably does not function before the third trimester.”
#####################################
While it may be correct to allow that pain perception does not function before the third trimester, perception is not sensation and sensation is not perception.
There has been a long-standing medical fiction regarding pain, pain sensation, pain perception, overt response to pain.
The conventional medical model has it, so I understand, that the symptom of something is the cause of the symptom, such that, if there are no disease symptoms, there is no disease. With all due respect, methinks such a notion is biological stupidity at of tragically profound consequences.
In the extreme, this notion can result in not using anesthetic for a baby because the baby has not learned the conditioned responses to pain which are the physician’s way of noticing pain. That a physician does not notice something is not evidence that the not noticed something is unreal.
SL:
“Ms. SCHLAFLY-”. I told the feminists the only person’s permission I had to get was my husband’s”
That must have been well received,LOL!!
eniobob,
““Ms. SCHLAFLY-”. I told the feminists the only person’s permission I had to get was my husband’s”
That must have been well received,LOL!!”
Lol – I bet the crickets were lively that night, huh??
Phyllis Schlafly? I haven’t heard her name mentioned in awhile. Talk about taking women’s rights back to the 40′s and 50′s.. She is the poster child for doing just that.
rafflaw,
I know … that’s why I posted the above article from Salon.com … the poster child for conservative women has crawled out from under her husband.
Let me preface this by saying three things:
If you create a system that only allows medical treatment for certain reasons, you may get people faking those reasons for that medical treatment. This doesn’t mean those exceptions to the ban shouldn’t exist. Punishing the innocent to get at those you MIGHT be guilty in the future is the action of a power hungry and insecure person.
This particular medical treatment should be more, not less, easily available.
Rape (regardless of it’s a family member, but especially in that case) is a horrible thing, and anyone dismisses it lightly, (I’m looking at you Rep. Eric Turner) is in fact a horrible human being.
That said, this Onion article sprang to mind.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/us-out-of-my-uterus-vs-we-must-deploy-troops-to-je,11546/
Gyges,
Lol – I read the Onion piece a long time ago … and I laughed just as hard this time as I did the first time … thanks for posting!
Way to go GOP Reps of Indiana! You have extrememly restricted the rights of women over their OWN bodies! I could see this leading to women doing abortions themselves at home, which is much worse than a clinical abortion.. And just a thought, but arent Republicans supposed to be for less government interference anyways? Oh the irony.. and not to mention the hipocricy..
And congratulations to Rep. Eric Turner! You won the ‘Douchebag of the Year’ award; you and your buddies must be so proud..