posted
I just thought I'd post this on here. It's absolutely horrifying. I'm hoping it will never ever have the chance to even make it through Congress. I literally began to cry after I read it. I want to be safe. Why can't we be safe?
posted
I know. Oh, I know. Reading the stories on this as it's developed have had a similar effect on me, which I think may be particularly strong because I feel like at my age, I've watched the laws around rape and cultural treatment of victims and survivors improve, and now it's like watching that tape get rewound.
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me • Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63418 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I was reading another article about it and was checking the comments section...all of them were about taxes, funding abortion, etc. And I feel like the larger issue is the definition of rape because that will change lives, it will change views on women, it will change our justice system.
I'm so upset. I hope it just remains a scare and nothing more.
Posts: 168 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
I think they're all large issues, but for sure, the core is about, and impacts, women's sexual, bodily and reproductive autonomy: the right to CHOOSE sex and the right to CHOOSE to remain pregnant and/or parent.
While for me, personally, my experiences as a rape victim were primarily about forcible rape, I have always recognized I am the exception in that, not the rule. Defining rape that way and only that way denies the experiences of most people who have been sexually abused and assaulted. I also know full well that all rape is traumatic, all rape removes bodily autonomy, and it's not like becoming pregnant from one kind of rape, or one way of having it happen to you, versus another makes a pregnancy that happens because of it any more or less a choice.
I think one thing to try and stay very aware of around this and in talking about this is that it's very crafty, really, for them to affix this to abortion, because far more people recognize the right not to be raped as more essential or valid than the right not to be forced into a pregnancy or continuing a pregnancy. So, strategically, and with women's rights in mind, I'd encourage you and anyone else to not try and separate abortion from this, but to do your best to talk about that right to choose as being as central and essential as the right to choose sex. Know what I mean?
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me • Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63418 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I've been following and tweeting with many others on this issue - and like so many others it sickens me to think the government when so far in debt and with so many problems going on with the war etc. is wasting time with something so hurtful to so many people. I'm hoping it never makes it to the floor, and that should it somehow pass, Obama is willing to throw it back away where it belongs.
-------------------- "Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side" ~Anon Posts: 3365 | From: Pennsylvania | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
I'm so angered by this as well--to top it off, my congressperson co-sponsored this bill. I've been throwing it back and forth between myself if I should write a letter to him on not only my opposition of the bill, but even more so, the language it uses. I'm only 16, though--does anyone think it would be worth it, as one who can't vote?
Posts: 26 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Jan 2010
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posted
I think it is ALWAYS worth it, and that unless his political career is something he's ready to leave in the next two years, your vote-to-be is important to this person.
I'd also add that as a person under the age of majority, policies like this will tend to have an even bigger impact on you. You have less rights already, less autonomy, less resources. You are also statistically far more likely to be a victim of rape than those older than you are, awful as that is to know.
So, please write! Don't let your age fool you into thinking you're any less powerful.
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me • Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63418 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I know exactly what you mean, Heather, and I will keep that in mind. It was just hard to not become fixated on one specific aspect of the bill. When really, it's the bill as a whole that needs to be scrutinized.
Posts: 168 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
There's an awesome post up on Tiger Beatdown that really breaks down how and why this law isn't so much about saving money as it is about curtailing reproductive rights.
As someone who's rape wasn't "forcible", reading about this has made me feel so invisible. I just hope that this bill doesn't make it very far.
-------------------- -joey Scarleteen Volunteer
"The question is not who will let me, but who is going to stop me." -Ayn Rand Posts: 8424 | From: Cologne, Germany | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Thanks, Heather. I hadn't thought about it in terms of my vote in the next major election.
Posts: 26 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by MonarchButterfly: I'm so angered by this as well--to top it off, my congressperson co-sponsored this bill. I've been throwing it back and forth between myself if I should write a letter to him on not only my opposition of the bill, but even more so, the language it uses. I'm only 16, though--does anyone think it would be worth it, as one who can't vote?
It's also important to remember that congresspeople know that the letters they recieve are only a small sample representing views that lots of other voters might have but just didn't bother writing and sending in.
Even if they don't care about your opinion as an individual, the representation of that view is something they will care about.
Posts: 64 | From: United States | Registered: May 2010
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posted
The people who are pushing this bill are worthy of contempt. Right now, I'm simultaneously glad I don't live in america because I'm safer in this regard in my own country (u.k.), and wishing it were easier to get involved in political campaigning to improve things in the u.s., it's harder to be effective from where I live now.
-------------------- Always knock before entering my room when I am in there alone, as I may be doing all sorts of wonderfully thrilling things that I'd rather you didn't see. Posts: 839 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
I don't know how to make the link all pretty, like everyone else does, but this is a link to sign a petition against this bill. Three of my Facebook friends-all female-posted it today, two adults and a girl a bit younger than me (about 17). I signed the petition, then directed the teenager to Scarleteen. Her response to my mentioning Scarleteen: honestly any pro-choice group that supports sex education, being healthy, and keeping rape defined as what it is right now is a group i support. So that made me pretty happy. Scarleteen is really important with people who are supposed to be protecting us trying to pass something like this.
posted
I signed the moveon.org petition against this. The main reason I knew about this bill was because the father of one of my friends from high school posted an article about it on Facebook. Of all the things the House should be working on, its disgusting that they are trying to push this through.
posted
Let's only address how it was (they have since changed the language) being defined in this bill and other legal statutes, okay?
Because ultimately,drawing a big line between "forcible" rape and other ways one might describe rape is tricky, difficult, and will often make assumptions and generalizations about rape, as a whole, that are either true or simply not sound.
That said, the term "forcible" rape typically means that either a victim was drugged without their knowledge and/or that a weapon is used by the perpetrator or physical violence of other kinds like, for instance, a perpetrator forcibly holding a victim down.
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me • Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63418 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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posted
Heather, did you mean to say "not true/untrue"? Or did I misunderstand what you wrote?
-------------------- Always knock before entering my room when I am in there alone, as I may be doing all sorts of wonderfully thrilling things that I'd rather you didn't see. Posts: 839 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
How do they define "forcible"? All rapes, in some way, are forced. "Forcible rape" does not have a legal definition. Is it considered "forcible" if the attacker has a weapon and threatens the victim's life, but the victim doesn't fight back?
Posts: 7 | From: Connecticut | Registered: Sep 2010
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posted
I consider rape to be a breach of consent and a sexual (and many other) violation without being sex. Even the term "sexual assualt" I think marginalizes the issue (although I know it's a generic legal term including other stuff). Even though most rapes are perpetrated by men against women, that does not mean that any other breach of consent is not rape. The only possible exception is if both people who are of legal age are not capable of giving consent (being drunk or under the influence of drugs).
My personal opinion is that the US political (at least presidential) way that if you win a state, you win all the votes in a state, to be a little flawed. But still despite the political system, one person, when teaming up with enough others, can enact positive change. Don't believe the media that one person is not worth anything, they are (like in many other issues) wrong and/or misleading.
It is important to express your core and essential views. One person, with the help of others, can change the world. So if you feel in a space to express them, let your true beliefs shine! Posts: 514 | From: Australia | Registered: Feb 2011
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I hadn't thought about it in terms of my vote in the next major election.
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