The Raping of American Women

It has taken me several weeks to find a good head space to write about rape in the United States and how too many politicians from the right are using it to exploit their abortion beliefs. I boil up with anger just thinking about it, so I have to pause a lot to get my thoughts together.

I will start with attempting to make a person (especially men) understand what a woman goes through when she is raped. First of all, she is forcibly and sometimes violently violated in the most personal way possible by a person she did not want to have sex with. Not only can it cause irreparable physical damage, but it completely causes irreparable psychological damage. It not only destroys the life of the victim, but the victim's friends and family are also permanently scarred. It sets off a chain of destruction in the lives of countless people and that kind of deep-seated suffering and trauma never completely goes away.

"Victims who survive these crimes have to worry about having contracted sexually transmitted diseases, they may have physical injuries, girls and women have to worry about pregnancy. This is on top of the stigma, fear and anger that being victimized may bring. It is never 'just sex'. Ask any victim of any age or gender. Anyone who's ever had someone trespass against them can start to understand how this crime can traumatize."

That quote is from an unidentified rape victim I found on a victims support website.

And let's also keep in mind that many rapes aren't reported because the crime is so personal and heinous and private. When asked about the attack, victims must relive what happened and reporting it to the police means reliving it. Reliving it at trial etc... That's not to mention the medical examination after the attack. You were just man-handled inappropriately and traumatically and now, you must undergo similar touching as part of your exam.

And despite what some politicians claim, you can indeed get pregnant from a rape. It has happened hundreds and hundreds of times. And I guess this is leading up to what I really want to address in this blog and that is politicians continually excusing and trivializing rape in order to push their anti-abortion agenda. 

After seeing the reports of New Mexico rep Cathrynn Brown, who introduced a bill where rape victims who got pregnant from their attack would be jailed for having an abortion because they destroyed evidence of the crime, that was the last straw. (Fortunately, Brown's bill doesn't have the support to become a law, but the fact it was even introduced is mind boggling. And the fact it was introduced by a woman is disgusting.)

Of course, there have been other pieces of legislation introduced and my mind automatically turns to Paul Ryan, who doesn't seem to care much for the victims of rape, but more for the product of rape. 

"Whether it's the language of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan that isolates the concept of  'forcible rape,' simply looking to limit abortions at all costs, or bills like Brown's that have a myopic focus on punishing the assailant, the GOP continually misses what should be one of the most critical parts of any rape-abortion legislation -- the perspective of the victim." - Brittany Bullock, Huffington Post blogger.

Bullock's point is what's so infuriating. These laws are introduced with ZERO consideration of the victim of a heinous crime. These politicians are introducing legislation that would allow rapists parental rights to children they created during a rape. It's bad enough these women are victims, but people like Paul Ryan want to force them to have a child they probably don't want and then have to DEAL with the man who attacked them in their everyday lives because that child has a right to see their rapist father. It is sick. 

You have to be a sick, heartless bastard to push your pro-life agenda? We get it. You are pro-life, but be pro-life to the point of reason. In trying to save the life of one child, how many more are you destroying?  These proposed laws turn rape victims into criminals. Rape is NEVER deserved and if pregnancy is the product of that rape, you should NEVER be forced to have that child. 

This mindset of using rape as a means to give your pro-life agenda a boost is doing nothing but trivializing rape. The more you talk about it happening and the more you give reasons as to why a rapist has certain rights, the more you put the notion into society that rape is okay. And rape is NEVER okay. EVER. And lending it credence is Mr. Ryan saying that rape is just another "method of conception." 

If you want the national mindset on abortion to turn around, then use education (something the GOP seems to dislike) instead of asinine laws that will only empower rapists. We need common sense in these kinds of situations. Women who are raped are victims and they have and will have gone through enough without a heartless politician furthering their suffering to gain brownie points with an extreme right agenda.

I have personally seen the negative toll the rape of one person can have and the aftershocks number in the hundreds. Stop being a champion for an agenda and start being a champion for victims. You might also be able to keep your public office. Maybe.