The Republican effort to redefine rape a "priority" with Boehner

This is not a funny issue and woe be to any candidate at the national level who think this will help them. This is a disgusting effort by the GOP to redefine rape in hopes of gaining legal inroads to overturn abortion. The new language would say that rape is only really rape if it involves force.

Today, news hit that a Georgia state lawmaker introduced a bill changing the state legal codes to refer to a rape victim as a "rape accuser".

Apart from the absolutely vile nature of this effort, how, exactly, does this pertain to the "jobs, jobs, jobs" commitment from the GOP when they took the House? This isn't about jobs, it's about cynically reigniting the culture wars and re-litigating any laws that they don't like.

Mother Jones

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. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion.

Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old's parents wouldn't be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure.

Jon Stewart, predictably, had a field day with this.