News that makes Erica mad

In case you all don't remember, it's October, and that means that in the US it's Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Cities all over the country are holding events to raise awareness about this issue and to support those who have survived intimate partner abuse.

Unless, of course, you're in Topeka, in which case you get a giant middle finger. Metaphorically, that is, although I'm sure there will be literal cases of flipping off too.

What's the issue, you ask? In essence, the city has voted to repeal its misdemeanor domestic battery law in favour of forcing the state to prosecute partner abuse cases instead. The decision came about as a result of cuts to the budget for the county district attorney, which resulted in the DA choosing to cease prosecution of partner abuse cases under state law and let the city handle them under city law. So when the city chooses to repeal its law making partner abuse a misdemeanor, what happens then? Theoretically, the county prosecutor picks the cases right back up again, although I'm still trying to figure out how the ending of the city law magically restores the funding to the county prosecution budget and thus ends the whole fiasco. If no magic wand does the job, though, then we're looking at a very real possibility that the DA won't be able to pick up the slack and keep people safe from their abusers. Already, offenders are being turned loose in some sick version of catch and release.

It all boils down to a giant fucking game of chicken, and I'm very worried that it's going to get someone killed.

Followup: South Dakota

According to the New York Times, HB 1171 has been shelved indefinitely. The article's authors state that the decision was the result of public outcry about the vagueness of the bill's language. For the most part, it sounds as though objections were raised by people in both pro- and anti-abortion camps, which (I think) is a good thing. As one person quoted in the article put it, "It’s a very clear shift in the conversation. We have never had a public conversation about whether it’s right to kill a doctor."

At the same time, however, we still have a few fringe groups who thought that the measure was a good deterrent against abortion:

Dave Leach, an Iowa anti-abortion activist, praised the bill, saying it could end abortions in South Dakota by scaring away doctors or by establishing grounds for someone to kill those who stay.

“There may be something I’m overlooking, but from all appearances, this bill would certainly justify an individual taking the life of an abortionist in order to save human lives,” he said.

Maybe it's because I don't agree with the idea of taking lives to save them, but I have a hard time understanding how Mr. Leach's notion of "taking [a] life...to save human lives" makes any sense.

Redefining Rape...20 years ago

A friend of mine recently linked me to this article from Mother Jones. At first I thought it was a joke. Federal funding to be limited only to cases of "forcible rape," without ever defining that term? Federal funding for abortions is already quite limited, but has never specified what kind of rape is necessary for someone to qualify. After some searching around, though, I discovered that H.R.3 is a real proposal. It's not overly long, and not overly specific- which is part of my problem with it. Guess who's currently left out by the term "forcible rape" and the bill's exceptions?

• Someone who is raped while drunk
• Someone who is raped while drugged
• Someone who is raped by a family member, but is over the age of 18
• Someone with a mental health condition that affects their decisionmaking skills
• Someone who freezes instead of fighting
• Someone who is raped by an acquaintance
• Someone who is the victim of statutory rape

The list continues. There are so many things wrong with this bill, I get a headache thinking about it. The important thing at the moment, however, is the way this bill could drastically limit the options for people who are pregnant as a result of a rape that it doesn't recognize- and the way this could negatively shape future legislation that deals with rape.

Legal ambiguity (from Erica)

First: this is our 100th post! Congratulations to us!

Second: I just came across this article outlining a bill that's been introduced in the Utah legislature that increases the restrictions on women's access to abortions to include "reckless" in its descriptions of the "homicidal" behaviour (their language). The general problem (besides the frightening level of erosion of a woman's legal right to medical privacy) is that the language of the proposed law is so ambiguous about what constitutes reckless conduct that it could easily lead to the prosecution of women who miscarry after any number of activities while pregnant- whether or not those activities are proven to be the cause of the miscarriage.

There are a lot of things to be said about the law and abortions, including moral arguments on both sides of the issue. When you look at the law itself, however, it's frightening to see what's being created. The legal arguments in this country that make it okay for a state to interfere with a private medical decision and force a woman not to get an abortion are identical to the legal arguments that make it okay for a state to interfere with that same decision and force a woman to have an abortion. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, and to be fair, I'm not saying that the social climate is such that states are likely to start doing that (I hope). However, the legal framework for them to do so is most assuredly in place. And punitive laws like this one, that attack women in ridiculous ways and don't even glance in the direction of other people causing danger to her fetus (abusive partner? Reckless driver? Chef who undercooks her dinner?), aren't doing anything productive, positive, or good.

From Erica: FGC is out in Uganda!

So my partner sent me a link this morning to this article about Uganda's recent decision to outlaw female genital cutting (FGC) in its borders. I'm simultaneously overjoyed and concerned. Primarily, I'm overjoyed. Having formal recognition from the political leader in a country with citizens that still practice FGC that the practice is dangerous, damaging, and pointless is a huge leap forward.

My concern has to do with the connection between law and practice. The legality or illegality of a practice doesn't change whether or not the practice is performed; it just changes the circumstances of that performance. I'm concerned that making FGC illegal will mean that families will continue to practice it, but in increasingly unsanitary and unsafe conditions. I wonder if a viable option would be an exemption for medical doctors, who could (in theory) perform FGC in conditions that minimize the risk of trauma, infection, and mistakes. Of course, that possibility also raises questions about the consent of the girls who get the procedure done, and the affordability and geographic accessibility of the procedure.

When I mentioned this to Emily, she responded that it reminds her of the abortion debates in the United States, to the extent that the law can make an unsafe procedure safer when it legalizes it under certain circumstances. Without legal codification of abortion rights, she pointed out, women seeking illegal abortions would be putting themselves at high risk for all kinds of infections, complications, and of course, death.

Obviously, the two issues are quite different in a lot of ways; the abortion example is a way of illustrating the ways in which law can protect women during procedures that are likely to continue to occur regardless of their legality. It'll be interesting to see how Uganda's law impacts the procedure over the next few years, and to see how the grassroots organizations that respond to FGC as it is (and here I'm thinking of the organizations that promote alternative rituals to FGC, since FGC has a history of being a significant ritual in the attainment of maturity of girls and young women) adapt their work (or expand it!) under the new policy.

--Erica