Nice Girls Don't Say 'Vagina' -- What The Rep. Lisa Brown Controversy Is Really About

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118. What exactly is the problem with a veiled rape reference in this case?

Rape is about the sexual domination of another human's body. The legislators in Michigan may not be explicitly legislating rape, and they may not like to see what they are doing presented as being in the same vein as rape, but how else do we make it clear what a heinous violation this is?

They are telling me that if I discover at 20 weeks that the child I carry will not survive upon birth, that I must continue to carry it, for perhaps another twenty weeks--a situation they will never find themselves in. I would argue, with a full understanding of the seriousness of rape, that being forced against one's will to do such a thing is in many ways as traumatizing, as much a violation of my body and soul, as a rape would be.

On a macrosocial scale, what do these ridiculous, medically ignorant, and extraordinarily intrusive measures reflect other than the large-scale domination of women's bodies and sexualities, a form of domination being proposed and passed almost entirely by male legislators? If a duly elected female representative cannot express the dramatic extent of this violation in clear, and yes, dramatic language, directly to those legislators, then what can she do to make them and their constituents see the dramatic nature of what they are doing?

And furthermore, are they applying the same standard to the proponents of these bills? If an anti-abortion activists were to passionately demand that abortion-supporting legislators stop murdering children, would these same legislators that banned the two women demand that their similarly histrionic supporters also be ejected from the floor? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. If I could be shown an example, wher similar dramatic and accusatory language by anti-choicers resulted in similar sanctions, then perhaps I would find your point valid.