Senate committee throws weight behind military abortion push
Over the past couple of months, the military has upped the ante in its fight to reduce sexual harassment and assault through education and prevention programs. This is all good, but it will take time to see whether or not these initiatives actually work.
In the short run, women are still being assaulted, and some of those assaults result in pregnancy. A pregnancy that cannot be aborted at a military facility because the military healthcare system denies coverage of abortion care, even in cases of rape or incest. This is grossly unfair….
Congress is the only organization that can change this scenario.
There may be hope. At the end of May, the Senate Armed Services Committee, with the endorsement of Senator John McCain, R-Ariz. passed an amendment from Senator Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., that would end this policy and let military women (and dependents) receive insurance coverage of abortion in cases of rape or incest. The amendment was adopted by a bipartisan vote of 16-10….
The next step is for the bill to go before the entire Senate for a vote….
Passing this bill is the first step in improving the rights of military women.
~ Darlene M. Iskra, Time’s Battleland, June 11
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
John McCain is the definition of a RINO. Finding himself in the company of Scott Brown and Susan Collins should tell him something. No wonder my solid Pro-Life friends from Arizona do not think much of him.
Was McCain really the best the Republicans could do in 2008? Ugh, no wonder we lost that one.
McCain was that election’s Romney: a terrible candidate, but the one the Republican establishment pushed through because they thought he was the likeliest to keep their butts in chairs. For anyone wondering how I could consider not voting for Romney out of anger at the GOP, here’s your answer. Because these are the kinds of people Republicans think they can fob off on us for presidential nominees and they won’t stop doing it until they’re forced to.
Instead of working toward the goal of killing children who are not responsible for the crimes of its bio parent, shouldn’t the time and effort be put into stopping women from getting assaulted in the first place?! Why is this such a problem?! If rape is an occupational hazard in our armed forces, that’s an appalling state of affairs.
Totally agree, JoAnna. The problem that needs to be “taken care of” is sexual assault in the military, not getting rid of the “evidence” of sexual assault (babies).
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
Instead of working toward the goal of killing children who are not responsible for the crimes of its bio parent, shouldn’t the time and effort be put into stopping women from getting assaulted in the first place?! Why is this such a problem?! If rape is an occupational hazard in our armed forces, that’s an appalling state of affairs.
Yes. This.
The author seems to think the educational program in place will do little good, so… hey, just let the guys continue to prey upon women and then let’s help out the women who have been violated by… killing their offspring.
Why is killing an innocent party the solution here?
“In the short run, women are still being assaulted, and some of those assaults result in pregnancy. A pregnancy that cannot be aborted at a military facility because the military healthcare system denies coverage of abortion care, even in cases of rape or incest. This is grossly unfair….”
Ah yes, the only “fair” way to deal with rape is to impose the death penalty on the innocent child. Why leave anyone unvictimized.
Concerning rape victims and abortions in military clinics: As long as we think that killing is an adequate solution to any problem, there will be a force in our culture that desires infanticide and abortion, euthanasia, frivolous military action, capital punishment, assasinations, etc. Pro-lifers will be playing Whack-A-Mole at these issues until the culture is converted to life.
Concerning McCain and the 2008 election: Pro-lifers got tired of the lip-service we were getting from old Republicans, and we failed to show up in 2008. Republicans lost big.
Meanwhile in 2010, a fresh generation of Republican candidates appeared. These newcomers share our social concern for life and the economic concerns of the TEA Party, and they are more faithful to the folks back home than to the Party brass. We showed up big to support them, and they won big.
Anyone who thinks that Romney is ‘more electable’ than Santorum still doesn’t get the electorate.
And people still think a co-ed military is a good idea why?
Darlene Iskra is walking down the street one day when a police officer yells – “That’s her!” whereupon she is surrounded by cops, arrested, charged with reminding a sexual assault crime victim of her perpetrator and is brought into an abortuary where she is to be executed by being drawn and quartered.
Prior to her execution she cries out to the sexual assault victim – “Why? I’m innocent!!!! I didn’t do anything!” Her mother, (the victim) stares back at her. “You remind me, more than ever, about what your father did to me.”
Killing an innocent child for the crimes of her father is wrong.
Aborting an innocent child is grossly unfair to both the mother and child.
Alice,
One of the reasons Romney ended up getting the nomination is there were too many conservative candidates running and they ended up dividing the pro-life/conservative votes between themselves.
Now maybe some establishment fat cat was stroking one of the conervative/pro-lifers ego by pumping money into his campaign to keep him in the race longer than his votes tallies justified, but at the end of the day the reality is Romney got more votes than his fellow republicans.
It sure looks like Romney will get the nod at the convention.
What we can do now is bring pressure to bear on Mitt to select a proven pro-lifer as his running mate and hope she/he will have influence in the Romney administration when it counts.
It sure would be nice to have a reliable pro-life VP in Senate to cast the vote to break ties.
Hopefully Romney will realize tho the pro-life votes may not be enough to ensure his victory, if we don’t all show up his chances of success are doubtful.
But while we are at the polls we can support other pro-life candidates who are on the ballot.
We really need to get more than 60 republicans in the senate and enough republicans in the house to override a presidential veto no matter who wins the presidency.
Let not your heart be troubled, be of good cheer, Christ has gotten us the one ‘victory’ that counts.
Everything else is subordinate to that eternal truth.
@U-104: You’re absolutely right. Clearly the problem is that men and women are serving together. So since men are the primary perpetrators of sexual assault, obviously the solution is that only women should be allowed in the military. You have clearly struck the ideal solution. Certainly we can’t possibly expect people not to assault other people. That’s impossible.
(Because tone is hard to communicate over text-based media, read the above paragraph with particularly oppressive sarcasm.)
Or, Alice, we can supply the military servicemen (and women) with “comfort” workers, like the Japanese did during WWII. Then, after they’re too old to be of use “comforting,” our military can call them liars and deny it ever happened.
After all, if we must provide water fountains to illegal immigrants crossing our borders, then surely we can provide ”comfort” to our military since they can’t be expected to follow orders or exercise any self-control. PS: when men get assaulted by other men, isn’t it unfair that they don’t get to kill anyone innocent? I mean, they might see people who look like their perpetrators and isn’t that unfair? Can’t they kill the dopplegangers? After all, if reminding someone of something is worthy of death, then we should be able to expand the category of who we can kill.
Romney is certainly no Chris Smith, but he is more pro-life than McCain and more pro-life than 2008 Romney. The primary season made sure of that.
Taking the pro-life vote for granted? Not this election.
@Alice
I’ll go with innocent until proven guilty and wait for evidence of these rampant assaults.
@ninek
Ah yes i forgot all women are perfect angels who never lie about anything, and here i though women were equal….
That’s cool. So, since you don’t believe this is a prevalent problem, then we agree that segregating the military services would not be a good thing. After all, we’re hardly going to punish all servicemembers of either gender for the bad behavior of those who are committing the assaults. That wouldn’t be right. And we’re certainly not going to add insult to injury by firing assault victims for having been raped. Because that would be the height of unfairness and victim-blaming.
I am inexpressibly happy that we are on the same page.
@Alice
I agree rape is not a huge problem, women and men having sex and getting knocked up is, bring back the WACs WAVEs and WASPs and the problem should go away. :)
and how disgusting it would be to walk in to a clinic that does abortions on specific days and OB care the next. I would never be able to sit on a table, talking to my OB doc, knowing abortions are performed in that room, on that table. this person is trying to use the same tactic as the idiots that say contraception is so hard to come by. Abortions are not hard to come by and I know for a fact that the abortion clinic outside our military base takes Tricare. if a military girl wants an abortion, she should pay for it…and someone needs to tell her that less than 1% of abortions are done from pregnancies resulting from rape.
From Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice:
“Any person subject to this chapter who commits an act of sexual intercourse with a female not his wife, by force and without consent, is guilty of rape and shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.”
Somehow, I knew you were going to say that. Because “separate but equal” has worked so well in the past. Just, argh. “Women get raped, so let’s punish them by denying them the right to protect their country!” Just no to that idea. So much no. When dealing with cases of sexual assault, the solution is never to take things away from the victims, and it’s especially not to take things away from large demographic groups the victims just happen to be a part of. The solution is, always, to punish the perpetrators, and only the perpetrators, in the manner set out by law.
I am just so incredibly infuriated that anyone would look at cases of sexual assault and have their go-to solution be, “Kick the women out of mainstream service!” And I’m not saying that for the sake of emphasis or anything. I am honestly, genuinely angry right now. There are women who have died in combat for you, and this is the thanks they get for it? That’s just…so very not okay.
To clarify what I wrote earlier: Article 120 of the UCMJ was re-written in 2006 and now only includes capital punishment for rape of a child.
@Alice
You keep screaming rape as it it had something to do with what i’m talking about, i am talking about CONSENSUAL sex.
“I am honestly, genuinely angry right now”
Welcome to the club, you see i too am angry that you put the fantasies of a few GI janes over the safety of an entire Country.
“There are women who have died in combat for you, and this is the thanks they get for it?” I don’t want women in combat, if i had my way they would not have died in the first place.
@Alice
You see if i had my way less women would be raped less women would have abortions and less women would die, but i guess women getting to play solider is just more important.
Women should be allowed to serve. However, entry requirements-physical and otherwise-should be identical for men and women, and placed at the level men currently have to pass to gain entry (if not rolled back to the more strenuous ones of yesteryear). I’m all about equality. So much so, that I think women should be allowed to do everything that men are, and ONLY if we can meet the same requirements men are.
It’s a lot harder to rape someone when they can overpower you.
It is not necessarily degrading to women to have separate units in the military! Sex segregation CAN be harmful to women but is not necessarily so. There are separate restrooms. There are separate P.E. classes. There are separate sports teams.
Separate military units don’t necessarily mean failing to appreciate female contribution to the military but recognizing that this is one of a handful of areas in which sex segregation is justified by biological realities.
“Women should be allowed to serve. However, entry requirements-physical and otherwise-should be identical for men and women, and placed at the level men currently have to pass to gain entry (if not rolled back to the more strenuous ones of yesteryear). I’m all about equality. So much so, that I think women should be allowed to do everything that men are, and ONLY if we can meet the same requirements men are.”
Using male fitness requirements would disqualify virtually all women serving. Any woman who could meet them would be a professional athlete. Still, the military needs nurses and support personnel. So, I am not sure how workable that is.
@hippie
WACs WAVEs and WASPs.
“Women should be allowed to serve. However, entry requirements-physical and otherwise-should be identical for men and women, and placed at the level men currently have to pass to gain entry (if not rolled back to the more strenuous ones of yesteryear). I’m all about equality. So much so, that I think women should be allowed to do everything that men are, and ONLY if we can meet the same requirements men are.”
That’s absurd. Women will never be able to do everything that men can do because the male and female body are designed differently. Neither can men do everything women can do! That’s not an indication of either one’s inferiority — it’s just the difference in design, done purposely by an intelligent and loving Father. The goal shouldn’t be to make women like men, or men like women. Can’t we be both different and equal in dignity?
There’s a place for what women have to offer, even in the military. (Though I firmly believe that place for women is NOT in combat.) Women should be safe to serve without the threat of sexual assault.
Military women should also NOT be persuaded/encouraged/forced to abort their babies or have it paid for by others. Women who want to be mothers should consider that perhaps the military is not the best career choice for them. Whatever the decision, killing the baby is not the answer and is never an acceptable “choice.” I do not want my military clinic becoming an abortuary.
“Military women should also NOT be persuaded/encouraged/forced to abort their babies or have it paid for by others.”
Nor should military doctors and nurses be forced to participate in abortions.
“The problem that needs to be ‘taken care of’ is sexual assault in the military, not getting rid of the “evidence” of sexual assault (babies).”
The problem that needs to be “taken care of” is a total disregard for women’s autonomy. Rape and unwanted pregnancy: two sides of the same coin. Also, that’s totally a healthy way to regard a child: as “evidence” of a crime.
Threads about rape are always a race to the bottom.
“The problem that needs to be “taken care of” is a total disregard for women’s autonomy. Rape and unwanted pregnancy: two sides of the same coin”
Megan, don’t feed us that garbage. No baby should have to die for a woman’s autonomy. When two sets of rights conflict, we must find which are more important. In this case, life wins.
”Threads about rape are always a race to the bottom.”
On this point, I actually agree with you, although my reasons may be a little different.
I don’t want women in combat, if i had my way they would not have died in the first place.
So you not only don’t appreciate their sacrifice, you would have denied them the right to protect what they love. If you had your way women would be confined only to doing what you let them. That’s not respecting or honoring women, that’s putting them in jail. I don’t care how nice or good or whatever you think you’re being. When the people you’re “helping” tell you what you’re doing isn’t actually helpful, you’re not doing it for them anymore.
The solution to stopping sexual assault is not to punish the victims by removing their right to do things, it’s to stop the assault in the first place. That’s it. That’s the only way to do it. Because if you honestly think women are not raped at home, or in public, or in private, or by people they know, or by strangers, or really if there is any scenario at all that can erase the risk of rape, you are not living in the real world. You are blaming the victims, and what’s more, you’re insulting them by telling them that if only they hadn’t been in the career their in, they wouldn’t have gotten themselves raped.
As a woman, I most definitely don’t need your sort of help. From anyone. Ever.
I agree with X. I’m not the right size to be a firefighter, for example, and their innate predisposition to protect me would put my fellows in danger. You wouldn’t put a very small man in the position for which you needed a big man, but the small man has other talents and skills that can be put to good use. The same for a woman. We can fight war, but if we are not physically up to the same kind of combat, we should be assigned a different position.
Oh, and I found this in the dictionary under Disconnect:
believing it is unhealthy to consider a person as also evidence, but that it is healthy to consider the exact same person as “medical waste.”
@Alice
“you would have denied them the right to protect what they love”
How many time do i have to tell you to get it through your skull i think the WACs WAVEs and WASPs were wonderful, they allowed women to serve and made everyone safer at the same time, you are the one who seems to not appreciate their sacrifices.
“If you had your way women would be confined only to doing what you let them”
Yes if i had it my way women would not be allowed to murder their babies, what a horrible person i am.
“That’s not respecting or honoring women”
Respect is something you earn.
“you’re not doing it for them anymore”
You’re damn right i’m not doing it for them, i’m doing it for the people they endanger, you sacrifice common sense for PC crap you get this.
As i told rasqual in a different thread i don’t care about one person’s comfort at the expense of another person’s safety, it’s what makes me an anti abortionist.
“you’re insulting them by telling them that if only they hadn’t been in the career their in, they wouldn’t have gotten themselves raped.”
Oh i forgot actions only have consequences for men.
There ya go………. one among many losers, John McCain thinks you can solve the rape problem with abortion.
Thanks, ninek. It’s all about practicality. And I believe the same should go for firefighters, police officers, etc.
If women want to do the jobs men do, they should first be physically able to what those jobs require of men.
If a woman would have to work x times as hard as a man to do the job, oh well. If they really want to do the job, they’ll accommodate it. The job requirements shouldn’t change to fit them, they should change to do the job. Too bad, so sad, but them’s the breaks, and that’s biology for ya.
Deal with it.
Talk to the hoof. ;)
“When two sets of rights conflict, we must find which are more important.”
Oh, and it’s self-evident that the interests of a nine-week-old embryo should outweigh those of its mother.
I <3 Hans.
Oh, and it’s self-evident that the interests of a nine-week-old embryo should outweigh those of its mother.
When those interests are a.) staying alive, and b.) being uncomfortable, yeah. Yeah very much. Very much yeah.
Always remember, it’s not whose rights but which rights.
JDC,
Megan can’t let herself acknowledge that, or else her child died for nothing, and she couldn’t deal with that, oh no. Mommy dearest’s rights and wishes must matter most, always, or else she might have to come to terms with the reality of her deeds, and that’d just be too difficult to bear!
Oh, and it’s not like you guys don’t act like your views are self-evident. Some of you feel the need to come up with crazy theories as to why promote the policies we promote (one popular theory involves “hating women”). This surely indicates that our actual arguments are things no one could actually believe, therefore necessitating alternate theories to explain us.
Here is another example what PRO-CHOICE aka “Roe versus Wade” and how it has gradually paved a LOWWAY to HELL in the USA over the past 40 years. What has been gained, womens freedom to kill their offspring and fathers who have been absolved of responsible fatherhood? It all spells the end of a civilized nation. It is simply a matter of time.
Oh, and it’s self-evident that the interests of a nine-week-old embryo should outweigh those of its mother.
Oh, and it’s self-evident that the right to life of a nine-week-old embryo should outweigh the temporary loss of bodily autonomy of its mother.
Fixed it for ya.
Furthermore, Megan, your main argument for abortion always seems to be bodily autonomy. But if that is the case, then even if the embryo is a full fledged human person like you or me, the argument for bodily autonomy will still hold. Yet when you say that “it’s self-evident that the interests of a nine-week-old embryo should outweigh those of its mother” especially the part about it being “nine weeks old” and the fact that it is an “embryo,” you are implicitly putting forward the opinion that the embryo is NOT a full fledged human person with rights like you or me- that for some reason it has less rights because of its age or stage of development. But if that is the case, then why hold to bodily autonomy in defense of abortion? If you can show that the embryo is not a person with rights, then there is no need to appeal to bodily autonomy because the thing you are killing isn’t like you or me anyway.
Unfortunately this is very common in PC arguing, a kind of “bait and switch” that we often see pro-choicers performing. They will hold to either the bodily autonomy or non-personhood of the fetus in order to defend abortion and when given arguments against their position, defend their position by appealing to the other one. The following oversimplified example illustrates this point.
PC: Women should be allowed to do what they want with their bodies.
PL: That doesn’t work because of X Y and Z.
PC: You’re assuming the fetus is a person, which it isn’t!
PL: The fetus should be considered a person because A B and C and hence it should not be killed in the womb.
PC: It doesn’t matter because the fetus is violating the woman’s bodily autonomy and women should be allowed to do what they want with their bodies.
PL: Again, that doesn’t work because of X Y and Z.
PC: You’re assuming the fetus is a person, which it isn’t!
ad nauseum
The pro-choicer is able to defend his/her position without addressing any arguments whatsoever simply by jumping back and forth between the two main arguments in favor of abortion. I don’t think this fact is well known among pro-lifers and it needs to be made more well known so that pro-lifers can call pro-choicers out on this.
Know what’s funny? This thread seems to be moving in the reverse of the usual direction. Normally, we start out talking about abortion in general and then within about three posts it becomes about rape. This time, it’s started out about rape and then became about abortion in general. [/pointless observation]
Oh, and it’s self-evident that the interests of a nine-week-old embryo should outweigh those of its mother.
With your logic, Megan, we would have to advocate killing the mom if it would be more convenient for the child not to have that mother. We don’t do that.
If there ever comes a time when we can remove a nine-week old human from it’s mom and he/she can continue on his/her life journey, would you be okay with the killing of the mom if it was inconvenient for the child to have that mother? I know there are times when my children find it inconvenient to have me in their life!
Do only adults have a right to bodily autonomy, Megan? Would a parent who refuses to let a child date someone that child wants to have sex with be violating that child’s right to bodily autonomy?
“But if that is the case, then even if the embryo is a full fledged human person like you or me, the argument for bodily autonomy will still hold.”
But would it? What does autonomy mean–the mere right to keeping our physical selves intact, or the right to control what’s actually taking place inside our physical selves? For me, the crux of the argument is that an embryo/fetus, being entirely dependent on a woman’s body (i.e., being 9 weeks old), cannot claim a set of rights independent from (and perhaps in conflict with) those of its mother.
“If there ever comes a time when we can remove a nine-week old human from it’s mom and he/she can continue on his/her life journey, would you be okay with the killing of the mom if it was inconvenient for the child to have that mother?”
Only if the woman took up residence inside the embryo, or somehow harnessed herself to the embryo to sustain herself.
Only if the woman took up residence inside the embryo, or somehow harnessed herself to the embryo to sustain herself.
Would it make a difference to you if the embryo was the one who forced the woman to be somehow harnessed to him/her in the first place?
You must have missed these questions, Meg: Do only adults have a right to bodily autonomy, Megan? Would a parent who refuses to let a child date someone that child wants to have sex with be violating that child’s right to bodily autonomy?
“But would it? What does autonomy mean–the mere right to keeping our physical selves intact, or the right to control what’s actually taking place inside our physical selves? For me, the crux of the argument is that an embryo/fetus, being entirely dependent on a woman’s body (i.e., being 9 weeks old), cannot claim a set of rights independent from (and perhaps in conflict with) those of its mother.”
Yes, so even though there is no difference in kind between the embryo and a full fledged human person, the mother is still allowed to kill the embryo. In other words, if somehow a 25 year old could reside inside a woman’s body, she would have just as much right to kill it as she does the fetus. So yes, it does follow that the personhood of the embryo is irrelevant if the bodily autonomy argument holds.