Raw Story: A Texas Republican state representative pushing legislation that would enact one of the nation’s strictest bans on abortion claimed in floor debate Sunday night that exceptions for the victims of rape and incest are not needed because emergency rooms offer rape kits that “basically clean her out.”As Raw Story’s headline suggests, there’s video to go with this. But there’s no need to subject you to it here. It’s basically posted to prove that, yes, Laubenberg did indeed say something so incredibly stupid. Follow the link if you have to prove it to yourself.
“If a woman is raped… We have hospital emergency rooms,” Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R) insisted. “We have funded what’s called rape kits that will help the woman, basically clean her out. And then hopefully that will alleviate that.”
Laubenberg, from Collin County, sits on the Texas House Public Health Committee and chairs the state’s chapter of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which promotes business-friendly legislation to conservative lawmakers all around the country.
She was responding to a Democratic lawmaker who asked if she feels it is fair to require that rape victims in El Paso travel over 500 miles to San Antonio — which is where the nearest clinic would be located if Laubenberg’s bill becomes law — just to obtain an abortion.
All this rape theorizing is just a way to justify taking the right to choose away from even the victims of sexual violence. After all, if every fetus is the same thing as an actual infant and abortion really is murder, then carving out exceptions for rape and incest makes no sense at all. Women who are victims of sexual violence shouldn’t be allowed to kill their babies.
Of course, that explanation may be the truest, but it’s also not very popular. It’s as true to say that a fetus is a baby as it is to say that an acorn is an oak tree. And if the explanation isn’t very popular, then you lie. You lie your lying ass off and make up stories about how abortion following rape is unnecessary, instead of explaining that you can’t let a rape victim murder her “baby.”
This is why Republicans can’t shut up about rape and abortion. The lie causes enough outrage. The truth would be even worse. Between making up some crazy bullshit about rape and abortion and telling people what you really think, the crazy bullshit does a lot less damage.
