The Prowl: My Friend's Date with Mickey Finn
A few summers ago, a friend headed to a bar with co-workers. The next morning she woke in a hotel, slightly bruised and with no recollection of the night before.
Last weekend at CPAC, the final panel before the straw poll was entitled "Changing the Conversation: Winning with Women, Minorities, and Independents." After a convention practically defined by exclusivity amongst conservative ranks, a discussion focusing on how to redefine the Republican Party as a party of inclusion, a party that still embodies Ronald Reagan's big tent philosophy should have been compelling. Yet, all of the panelists disregarded this opportunity to discuss why certain groups have traditionally shunned conservative politics and instead recycled the same tired rhetoric that somehow this, as with so many other problems, is all President Obama's fault. Given that these conservatives chose not to tackle this question in any kind of meaningful way, I am willing to offer a thought, at least where women are concerned, as to why many (although by no means universally all) are not flocking to the GOP. The reason may be because certain House Republicans (again, not all) have consistently shown that they do not actually respect women. If they did, they would be less concerned with redefining rape, for example by trying to close that tricky rape-loophole in abortion regulations so that only victims of "forcible rape" are eligible to receive federal funds for an abortion.
After our senior year, my college roommate accepted a summer internship in her congressman's DC office. She was starting law school at Georgetown in the fall, and decided, unlike the rest of us, that three months on a beach was not for her; she wanted to stay busy in the interim and acclimate to her new city. One night, just before August recess, she headed with a few colleagues from the office to a bar, as Hill staffers tend to do. After a drink -- maybe two -- but surely not enough to cause any sort of personal derailment, she said she felt "off." The details at this point are somewhat fuzzy as this is a topic I have never fully pressed her on, especially given that she herself is not entirely certain of the events of the night. One thing though led to another and she ended up in a cab, evidently with a stranger. She said she remembers throwing up on herself in the cab and very little after that.
She woke up in a hotel, slightly although not alarmingly bruised, and missing her driver’s license, keys, and one shoe. What happened? She is fairly confident she knows although could never really prove it. Well, she likely could have, but for reasons that, again, are somewhat unknown to me she opted not to go to the police. I believe her reasoning was: what can they do about it now?
She spent the next day in bed and the day after that doing what she referred to as "taking care of it." She went to Planned Parenthood to make sure she had not contracted any diseases. There she braved the picketers with pictures of dead fetuses who seemed overly concerned with her eternal salvation. She also received a dose of some emergency contraception, assuming that a condom had not been used. The woman at Planned Parenthood told her that this was a story she had heard countless times in some form or another, as if the knowledge that thousands of other women had experienced roughly the same thing made it better. While she admitted it was comforting to hear someone else say that this was in absolutely no way her fault, that she did nothing wrong and probably could not have prevented this, it really did not help all that much. And it just added to a sneaking suspicion that the world was not as rosy as her privileged suburban upbringing had otherwise suggested.
She gradually got over all of this, and carried on but the thought that certain politicians feel that what happened to her, because she cannot prove that she struggled (as she was physically incapable of doing so) somehow isn’t exactly rape, might be one reason Republicans have not endeared themselves to female voters.
Regardless of how you might feel about abortion, this is clearly a secondary issue in this discussion. If it really were about abortion, the legislation would not need to differentiate between typologies of rape or cases of incest, as making this concession already cedes the argument that life begins at conception. Thus, the true intention is not about federal funds for abortion per se as there are already restrictions on this, as well as easier and more philosophically coherent mechanisms to tighten them further. Instead, if I were to venture a guess, this is still somehow about the perception that females who have been raped somehow deserved it - they were asking for it or gave some other indication that it would be OK. There are those who will think this conclusion overly radical or extreme, and that is perfectly valid, but I have a very difficult time trying to make sense of this move any other way. Therefore, until House Republicans stop pulling symbolic stunts such as this one, which thankfully will never pass in this Senate, I would be very surprised if they are successful in building the big tent they claim to want.