Maine Republican Is Anti-Abortion And Pro-Rape

It beggars belief that any American woman would risk her personal safety by even being in the presence of this Republican nut-job, let alone voting to put him in Maine's state House of Representatives. Via Brainwrap at Kos, in turn via Igor Derysh at IssueHawk, we hear from Mike Tipping at his blog The Tipping Point at Bangor Daily News:

Representative Lawrence Lockman of Amherst is in his first term in office, but he has quickly established himself as a vocal leader of the GOP’s tea party wing. He led the group of 26 Representatives ...

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In the early 1990s, Lockman was active on the issue of abortion. He became a director of the Pro Life Education Association and in 1990 was quoted as saying “If a woman has (the right to abortion), why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.”

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Most of us know the Tea Party is a house of nuts. If you ever wondered just how extreme their insanity can be, now you know. Why any woman would vote for such a nut is quite beyond my understanding. But just to make sure you understand, in GOP terms, what form of rape you were subjected to, someone has constructed the following chart:

Note: the first quote, "Emergency Rape," from Linda McMahon, is nearly illegible; here it is, from ThinkProgress:

It was really an issue about a Catholic church being forced to offer those pills if the person came in in an emergency rape.

'Pro‑Life' Legislation? 'Pro‑Rape' Is More Like It

Robin Marty at TPM discusses changes in Michigan law that makes it almost impossible for a woman to purchase private insurance with her own money that covers abortion... even when the pregnancy results from rape... without buying a separate "rider" explicitly covering the rape exception, a rider which is, effectively, utterly unavailable.

Marty says this:

Supporters called it “The Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act.” Opponents referred to it as the “rape insurance” bill. ...

Of course, neither name reflects reality. What this law does in fact is authorize rapists to force their victims not only to have sex with them, but also to bear their child. "The Rapist Empowerment Act"? "The Woman As Reproductive Vessel Act"? Pick a name: under any name, this bill, which has passed in eight states including Michigan, point-blank deprives a woman not only of the right to decide whether to reproduce, but also of the right to choose the father of her children. Under such a law, a rapist off the street acquires the same parental rights as a consensual sex partner. And the woman... the woman has no rights at all.

These laws are being passed in states that have petition mechanisms by which citizens can introduce and pass laws, mechanisms which can completely circumvent the fundamental protection of a governor's veto. Government by the consent of the governed mutates into a kind of mob rule available to any large enough group of extremists. If you do not see the difference between laws created by this process and laws created by the more conventional legislative process, you are not thinking clearly. Only the latter laws really reflect the consent of the governed.

No one... no one... has a right to force a woman to bear a child conceived as a result of a sexual act in which her participation was involuntary... an assault, a rape. What's next... a reinstitution of droit du seigneur?