There has been a bit of a stir about the alleged Republican attempt to “redefine rape” in H. R. 3, the “no taxpayer funding for abortion” act^[a].  I am no supporter of the law itself. I am torn on the idea of abortion’s legality (unlike many on either side of the debate, I can’t bring myself to say that the rights of either the fetus or the mother completely override teh rights of the other, which leaves me in a moral dilemma when I consider my stance), but if one stipulates that abortion is legal, I see no problem with the government covering it like any other medical procedure.

That said, I find the assertion that section 309.1 of this bill represents a Republican “redefinition” of rape to be a pretty significant stretch. To infer that this is somehow meant to return us to the standard of “utmost resistance” and that it represents Republicans’ secret desire to subjugate women and return them to the status of second class citizens requires one to basically say that Republicans are evil to the core, which is a sure-fire way of stifling debate^[b]. Many of those vilifying Republicans for this bill were decrying the “violent rhetoric” in political discourse in this nation; I believe that deliberately taking the worst possible interpretation of the bill’s language to be just as harmful.

Technically speaking, even if you don’t give even the slightest benefit of the doubt to the bill’s author, this bill has nothing to do with the legal definition of rape. Even if one is being uncharitable, one could say that Republicans are trivializing some types of rape, but not that they are using this bill to redefine some types of rape as not being rape at all.

That said, I really don’t think the intent here is to exempt some types of rape without exempting others. It looks to me like this is an unfortunate reuse of a meaningless term (all rape is forceful, so the term is redundant) that was probably pulled from elsewhere. The FBI uses the term in their Uniform Crime Report, where it is defined as carnal knowledge of a victim against the victim’s will – rapes where the victim is drugged or otherwise unable to give consent fall under this category.

There is one problem with my interpretation, though, and it ties directly into a second criticism I have seen. The second clause of section 309.1 addresses the exemption for minor victims of incest. Some people seem to be interpreting this to mean that minors are only covered in cases of incest. That interpretation holds no water. The law says that rape is exempted, with no conditions on the age of the victim. The existence of a second clause exempting a minor under certain conditions does not remove the exemption under the first part of the section. Rape itself is sufficient condition for exemption, minor or not.

The existence of this second clause does pose a small problem for my interpretation that “forcible rape” is a redundant phrase, though. Minors cannot legally give consent, therefore any sex with a minor is rape. Given that, if all rape is forcible, then the forcible rape condition makes this condition unnecessary. The inclusion of the second clause would seem to indicate that the writer did not believe that first clause precluded the need for the second. 

I have two explanations for this discrepancy.  First, the writer has already shown, by use of the phrase “forcible rape,” a propensity for redundancy.  Given that leaving the incest condition to be implied would have been political suicide, the writer could have been creating this redundancy on purpose.

A second interpretation is that the writer wanted to exempt situations of minor incest where the question of rape is ambiguous (two minor siblings where both are incapable of legally consenting) without exempting instances of consentual adult incest.  I find this to be most likely, though I have some problem with it. Consider the recent case of the professor who had had a relationship with his adult daughter. While the relationship was theoretically consensual, I would argue that she was likely “groomed” during her childhood, and was a victim as deserving of every possible protection as any other.

There is plenty to criticize Republicans for in their actual philosophies and policies – vilifying them by accusing them of trying to deny that women who are roofied, for example, seems unnecessary and dishonest.  I am not a Republican, myself, but I do lean rightward politically and have a number of friends who are Republicans. I know that they are not secretly working to bring back the days when women were simply objects to be used as a man pleased. Tarring them with that brush merely because of some ill-considered language in a bill that probably isn’t really even intended to pass^[c] is counterproductive, especially considering the cries for more civil discourse we’ve had recently.

Is this bill a sign that lawmakers need to be more clear and precise in their wording? Sure, just like some of the most odious stuff in the healthcare bill was a sign that bills should be sorry enough for legislators and constituents to reasonably read and understand. Is it a sign that Republicans as a whole are barely concealing their desire to treat women as property? I don’t think so.

1. The acronym guys must be on vacation – no catchy name for this boondoggle. [↩]
2. That, in turn, is a great way of convincing people that non-violent options for fixing problems have expired… [↩]
3. its sponsors know it faces a huge uphill battle in the Senate and would likely be vetoed even if it were to get over that hurdle [↩]