How does this have anything to do with getting government involved in health insurance (which is usually understood to be government-funded/run health care)? Even if there were no government-funded healthcare whatsoever and all health care was through private insurance, this bill would still have a huge impact by not allowing individuals and companies the right to choose whether their plan includes abortion coverage or whether they can claim abortion-related medical expenses on their taxes.
Saying that this is an unintended consequence of health reform is bullshit. It has nothing to do with health reform, and the majority of people who support health reform would not support this bill. The authors of this bill are not those who support health reform.
Well, yeah, and that’s why these guys are introducing this bill. Because the HCR law requires every American to buy HC Insurance. That’s the government getting involved in the health insurance business.
Yeah, it would. But in the absence of a clear definition in the bill, you could challenge it in court (assuming you had standing), and get the courts to determine what it means.
The article’s title is also very misleading. I’ll give the OP a pass, since he just copied his thread title from the article, but this bill does not redefine rape. It redefines when federal funds can be used for abortions.
They tend to define “federal funds for abortion” as “any money going to an organization that might theoretically at some point engage in abortion”. Which is why the “Mexico City Policy” that forbade such federal money going to overseas organizations in effect amounted to a ban on all medical care for pregnant women in foreign hospitals supported by American foreign aid. If some pregnant woman came to their doors seeking aid, to protect their other patients such a hospital would be forced to literally shut their doors in her face and let her bleed to death, because otherwise if she lost the baby for any reason we’d scream “abortion” and yank their funding.
That makes sense. However I’m then confused about:
Which unless I’m misreading boils down to “Republicans don’t like this health-care law so lets make it do something its supporters would really hate”.
Reading it a third time I think you’re saying they’re trying to hijack the law(which if I may add was needed and didn’t go far enough) to their own unrelated project.
If so I disagree with your conclusion. The conclusion I draw is “vote the Republican jackasses out, and if possible amend the Constitution so they, by name, have to start the day with a bowl of pissed in Wheaties”.
Piss-Wheaties, the breakfast of jackasses.
If the goal is to limit this to forms of rape that are relatively easy to prove, I don’t have a problem with that. Providing a financial incentive to accuse someone of rape is not something that should be done lightly.
There’s nothing in there about having to prove the “forcible rape,” nor would there be any time to wait for a trial. The abortion needs to happen immediately.
Also, what makes “forcible rape” so easy to prove? It’s actually notoriously difficult to prove.
So, two questions: Do you acknowledge that your cite is full of shit, and this bill, whatever you think of it otherwise, does none of the nonsense thrown about regarding roofy-induced rapes and twelve-year-olds (since forcible rape covers those scenarios)? Second, while I know you’d prefer this bill didn’t exist at all, given its existence, would you prefer there be no exclusion for rape?
I want to see if this will be a redirection to the “real concern” when the facts collapse, or an acknowledgment that *the specific concern this OP raised *is based on hysterical nonsense. (Or none of the above?)
I haven’t seen any rebuttal of the facts alleged in the article (your own cite breaks down at the meaningless use of the phrase “forcible rape”).
The bill is an abomination and should not exist at all, but if they are going to exclude rape and incest, they should actually exclude rape and incest, not just pretend to by defining them so narrowly that nothing counts.
Diogenes, what’s meaningless? I actually provided a cite defining forcible rape, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting definition no less, and that definition was inclusive of all the scenarios your cite asserts this bill is trying to exclude from funding. You’re acting like “forcible rape” was some term they cooked up specifically to victimize a subset of rape victims. You’re wrong. The cite you provided was hysterical nonsense, a product of the writer’s imagination and political bias.
I havent read through the thread, and it may have already been said, but I think redefining stat rape is a great idea. At least in my state, they throw the charge around for kind of petty dealings. I agree that the example you provided is worthy of punishment, but a 16 year old should not be able to charge her 18 year old boyfriend with stat rape because she’s pissed when they break up, or when daddy finds out theyre banging.
Actually, that cite defines statutory rape as “non-forcible rape”, so the 12 year old example would not be covered under this law, by that definition.
This bill is largely symbolic since even if it passes it’s not going to affect many people. But it does seem to be targeted at not allowing minors to access federal funds for abortions when they have had consensual sex. Seems like that would be the largest group affected.
?? By my reading, it targets both direct federal funding of abortion and anyone who has a health insurance plan that includes coverage of abortion (even if that plan member doesn’t have an abortion themselves). The second group is probably larger than the first.