I Must Have Missed The Outcry About The Rape Panels.

I mean, I totally remember the blue in the face teabaggers getting their boxers in a bunch over death panels. Sara Palin and her ilk telling us that Big Government was gonna be deciding whether to pull the plug on Grandma, deciding whether she would live or die. Scary stuff.

Also total fiction.

Which is good news for rapists. Because if we keep Grandma in a coma and unable to fight back, someday  she might just be fair game for an unlimited gangbang thanks to the Republicans those teabaggers put in power. From the website of Mother Jones magazine:

Rape is only really rape if it involves force. So says the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law.

For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. But the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible.

Other types of rapes that would no longer be covered by the exemption include rapes in which the woman was drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes."

Victory at last for lobbyists working for the manufacturers of Jim Beam and Rohypnol no doubt.

That was a snarky comment, but there is one line in the article that will bring joy to the hearts of rapists everywhere:

The bill hasn't been carefully constructed, Levenson notes. The term "forcible rape" is not defined in the federal criminal code, and the bill's authors don't offer their own definition.

Should this bill ever pass however, that definition will come. And when it does, most of you know how it'll go from there.. "Forcible rape" will become synonymous with "real rape," the distinction meaning if you didn't fight with all your might against a 300 pound lunatic high on PCP, then your violation isn't to be taken quite so seriously.

And if you were drugged to the point of not being able to fight back, well that's just too bad slut, you shouldn't have been wearing that miniskirt anyway.

And who better really, to come up with that definition than a panel of government appointed bureaucrats working to implement the will of politicians?

A rape panel. It's far closer to reality than the death panels ever were, and the ensuing silence says volumes about the value we place on women.

You've come a long way baby.

Thanks to the alert reader who tipped me to this.