Sen Kit Bond doesn't care about rape victims

The note below is the letter I sent to Sen Kit Bond today in response to his "no" vote on the Franken Amendment.

First, watch the Daily Show segment calling out those who voted against Franken's amendment to protect rape victims:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Feel free to copy & paste what you want -- or write your own letter -- and send to your own Senator if they were one of the 30 male Republican senators who voted against S.Amdt. 2588. (Find your Senator's vote here.)


I cannot WAIT to replace this man with Robin Carnahan.


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Senator Bond:

I'm writing to express my extreme disappointment with your vote two weeks ago on Senator Franken's amendment (S Amdt 2588) to the Defense Appropriations Bill (HR 3326). You, along with 29 of your male Republican colleagues, voted against his non-controversial amendment to protect rape victims. His amendment will deny the granting of federal funds to contractors that prohibit their employees from pursuing their full due process rights for certain crimes.
Your "nay" vote on this amendment protects these companies, putting their financial needs above the needs and rights of their employees. It troubles me that one of my Senators, elected to represent me and the people of my state, would prioritize corporations over rape victims.


There are a lot of things I do not understand about your vote, and I am genuinely curious to hear the reasons behind the decision to vote against this amendment.

I heard one of your colleagues argue on the floor that this bill targets Halliburton, and is a political move against one corporation. This amendment, though it does mention Halliburton by name, does not limit its scope to one corporation. Any company found to be participating in these practices would be denied federal funds.
The denial of federal funds due to unethical practices is nothing new. You voted "yes" to Amdt 2355 to HR 3288, prohibiting federal funds from going to ACORN. This adds a particularly troubling aspect to your vote: You are willing to deny ACORN funds based on the unethical actions of some of its employees. You are not willing to deny Halliburton or KBR or other similar companies funds based on the unethical official company policy.


The fact that it seems as though you are willing to side with large corporations over rape victims scares me. Last year in Missouri, one rape was committed every 5.5 hours (this number does not count any unreported or statutory rapes, or rape committed against male victims).* It concerns me that a representative of a state with such a serious problem with rape would not take the needs of rape victims seriously.


Sincerely,
Jen L.
Kansas City, MO

*MO's 2008 crime statistics on rape can be found here: http://www.mshp.dps.mo.gov/MSHPWeb/SAC/pdf/2008CrimeInMO.pdf

welcome to kansas city, the midwestern leg of your trip.

i've been neglecting this little blog lately. oops.
things have been a little crazy, what with moving halfway across the country and all.

in fact, we almost didn't make it here at all. we came thisclose to death on I-90, just beyond the NY-PA border. we spun out, and ended up facing oncoming traffic. well past sundown. in what should've been travel-ban-worthy snowy weather. H, my invaluable travel buddy, claims we only spun around one and a half times (that's 540 degrees, if you're counting). i maintain that it had to have been way more than that. as the driver, i think that my version of the story trumps hers. in any case, it was absolutely terrifying.
makes me regret never doing donuts in safely abandoned parking lots when i was younger...
we miraculously didn't hit anything and got out of it alive...then crawled with the rest of the traffic over 2 miles of black ice to the next exit, where we slid into the first hotel and downed a shot of tequila each at the pub next door. (i should probably clarify: H downed a shot of tequila. i downed maybe a half shot, after dribbling the other half on the bar. i blame my lack of coordination on nervous energy from the spinout.)

if we'd taken our intended route - through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois - we probably would have died. luckily, the inordinate amount of money i paid for a moving company also afforded me an absolutely wonderful moving truck driver who told us terrifying tales of the awful conditions of I-70 (his route and our intended interstate). John, our driver, strongly advised us to take a different route.

never one to doubt a trucker, reroute we did. and so two massachusetts homos in a little blue car with a rainbow sticker on the back window drove, instead, through west virginia, rural kentucky, rural indiana, and rural illinois.
luckily, we both pass. H as a midwestern suburban mom, me as just plain het. we only got a few dirty looks from drivers with Jesus-fish on their back bumpers. not bad, given our route. and we only went about 300 miles out of our way. small price to pay for not spinning out off of a cliff en route, i suppose.



once we got to KC, we quickly found a really great local coffee shop (The Roasterie - not entirely fair trade/organic, but they've got some, and they're very invested in the local community, and they air roast their own beans). i still love dean's beans the best, and H sends me care packages consisting solely of their coffee. but it's good to have a local alternative.



before she left on a jet plane, H also introduced me to a friend of hers here in KC, who just added two super cute 8(?)month old babies to his family. twins - one boy & one girl. i've babysat for them once so far. i miss my babysittees in northampton, but these adorable babies are helping to ease the pain quite nicely.




i've been here for four weeks so far. i'm more homesick than i ever thought possible, but i love my job just as much as i thought i would. not quite a balance that i've struck yet, but it's on its way.
in the four weeks i've been here, i've learned more than my brain has the capacity to hold. the organization i work for bases their (successful) organizing strategy & tactics on the Midwest Academy's style of organizing. my new Bible is their activist manual. it lives on my bedside table. yes, i read it before going to sleep.

i've also learned an awful lot about Missouri politics.
like, for example:

south dakota? colorado? where to, this time around?

two years ago this november, i went to south dakota for a week to volunteer with South Dakota Campaign For Healthy Families, the coalition formed to oppose the ban on abortion (Referred Law 6, that year) that was placed on the ballot by the same coalition. (for the few of you not in the know: the south dakota legislature had passed, and the governor had signed, a ban on abortion in march of that year. putting it on the ballot was safer than going through the courts system to make the ban go away.) it was a totally amazing, incredible experience; i missed a week's worth of classes, flew to a state i've never been, mostly closeted myself as a queer (...well, sorta. that is, if making out with a girl in the front seat of our rental car still counts as "closeted"), picked up a midwestern accent, and actually made change. saw a victory, and was part of it. incredible.

we won by a pretty decent margin...but in a weird way. the way that the campaign strategy worked, we opened ourselves up for exactly the ban that's currently on the ballot for this year: the ballot initiative, this time, includes the exceptions for rape, incest, and women's health that were our strategic points last time around.
(i fucking hate leslee unruh.)


so it's back.
i'm working on finding a way to get back to south dakota for november, to volunteer again with the SDCHF. to work again with some of the people still kicking around SD, still working against the ban, to work for this amazing coalition, to help them win again (they have to win again. we have to win again.).

footage from SDCHF's and PPMNNDSD (planned parenthood of minnesota, north dakota, & south dakota) follows:

(also see PPMNNDSD's blog, Stand Up South Dakota)



now, though, i'm torn.
do i go back to south dakota, work again with the coalition i love, work against the crazy that is leslee unruh and her campaign?
or do i go to colorado, where there is a full zip code full of evangelical woman-haters (focus on the family's frightening hq is in colorado springs), where there's another abortion ban on the ballot for november?
the campaign against this ban in colorado is Protect Families, Protect Choice. (interesting how they both use the emotionally loaded word, "family," in their campaign names.)
this ban is really frightening for a lot of reasons. mostly, because it's not explicitly a ban on abortion; instead, it's a "personhood amendment." meaning that it would change the state constitution of CO to define "personhood" as beginning at fertilization. this definition extends to the sections of the state constitution regarding due process, inalienable rights, and equality of justice.
this, by extension, makes abortion illegal. this makes a lot of forms of birth control illegal. this makes emergency contraception illegal. this has no exceptions, whatsoever. not for rape, not for incest, not for the health (maybe even the life) of the mother. nothing.

(one of my big fears: the colorado campaign will go the way of the SD campaign and use the so, so problematic strategy of opposing it based on the lack of exceptions. it worked in sd two years ago, sure, but now the ban is back, with a much worse prognosis for us than before. please, colorado, learn from this. please please please.)



so, decision-making time:
colorado?
south dakota?
(or maybe california, where that fucking parental notification bullshit is back on the ballot again?)




où vais-je?

dear lesbians,

this is why you should care about what's going on in the reproductive justice world.

because refusal clauses cover more than just those pills for those straight girls.

because Guadalupe Benitez represents more than just one wronged woman in California.

because people like Americans United For Life, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists, and the American Civil Rights Union (the asshole counterpart to the ACLU) are organizations that all hate you, my fellow queer women, just as much as they hate women who've engaged in PIV intercourse and want to be able to exercise control over their bodies.

because these organizations and people aren't just going to stop with trying to control contraception and abortion, which applies more directly to het women than to my women-loving women friends. because you've got vaginas too, my dear lesbians. and the anti-choicers? they want to control your vaginas (and the rest of your reproductive systems), too.





yes, what happened in Benitez's case, when she was refused IVF (in vitro fertilization) treatment because she was an unmarried lesbian, is different from the use of refusal clauses by pharmacists, hospitals, and doctors when women are denied EC or other contraception because these health care professionals have "moral, religious, personal, or ideological objections" to providing this kind of health care. of course they're different. the individual discrimination in Benitez's case isn't always involved in your everyday invocations of the "conscience clause." but they're fruit of the same fucked up tree.
make no mistake: these doctors were able to refuse to treat Benitez based on her sexuality exactly because of the groundwork laid by anti-choicers. this "conscience clause" that they've pushed so hard for has worked...on a much larger scale than we usually recognize.
it's worked on a level that directly affects us, as queer women.




now, my dear lesbians, i know that there are few of you that i need to speak to here. most of us already have what seems to be an odd, misplaced investment in the reproductive rights movement. from the outside, it seems weird that all of these women who aren't engaging in PIV intercourse and don't usually need ready access to contraception or abortion would care so deeply about repro rights.
i don't have sex with people who have organs that can get me pregnant. i don't really need to care about whether or not my pharmacist is going to be able to refuse my prescription for birth control. except...i do.
because i might want a kid someday. and i might want to use a fertility doctor to make that happen (for my partner - no baby is squeezing out of this vag). i don't want my doctor to be able to cite some bullshit piece of legislation that says he doesn't need to treat my lesbian partner, and i don't want to sit in that office, years from now, and think, "fuck, i guess i should've paid attention to that refusal clause shit."

this movement is something i need to be invested in.
this movement affects me, directly.
and, my dear fellow lesbians, this movement affects you, directly, too.

quick hit: some south dakotans really hate women. still.

Leslee Unruh and her ilk are at it again. for real this time, though.

(leslee spearheaded the anti-choice campaign in South Dakota two years ago, heading both the lobbying for the abortion ban law - passed by the SD legislature and signed by the still-governor mike rounds - and the "vote yes for life" campaign that answered Planned Parenthood's campaign (the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families) challenging the law and leaving it up to the voters. she's pretty much pure evil.)




just last week, leslee's new campaign - Initiated Measure 11, which does the same thing as the 2006 law, with a couple important differences - gathered enough signatures to put the abortion ban back on the ballot for south dakotans to vote on in november.

in 2006, SDCHF's approach was thus: the abortion ban passed by the legislature was extreme and didn't even include exceptions for health of the woman or for rape or incest.
i took issue with this strategy, since it kind of avoided the whole abortion as a basic human right (i.e. abortion = choice = bodily autonomy) and kept abortion in that shame-full closet. and it opened up the door for exactly this:
the same measure, but with exceptions for health, life, and rape/incest.


we only won with 56% of the vote last time around.
i do not doubt that we'll lose those crucial 7% who will vote for this law to take effect because it has those exceptions. because, you know, it's ok to control women's bodies in general. just not in those few anomalous cases where the pregnancy is endangering her health or the even rarer occasion when she's willing to come forward about her assault.


i'm saddened. and angered. and disappointed. and disillusioned.
and:
catalyzed.
i may be going to south dakota again this year. i'd better start working on those long "o"s and my midwestern accent.

i'm trying to find hope here, an opportunity for some healing....but i've got nothin'.

for a while there, i was mostly avoiding the news. i'm still currently almost totally avoiding the primary election coverage, because it only breeds frustration. but for a while, i was avoiding it all - even most of the stories posted on my fav feminist blogs.
but recently, i've been sucked back in.
first, there was that story out of South Africa, about the "rape me" games children were playing on the playgrounds.

and now, there's this.
out of Maryland.
(out of Silver Spring, MD, actually, which is where I lived when I was in DC for the summer a couple years ago.)

Backstory:
A man with severe mental health issues drowned his three children in a bathtub.

This man, Mark Castillo, should have had a restraining order against him.
but he didn't.
his wife, Ann Castillo, tried to get one. she even had a hearing.
she was denied a restraining order, despite her husband's repeated threats to her and the children.
why?
because, according to this judge, she was still "having sex" with him.
read this, and tell me if it sounds like consensual sex to you:

After the hearing, Judge Joseph A. Dugan Jr. declined to issue a permanent order. Dugan noted that Amy Castillo said she had continued to have sex with her husband, including twice on the day he allegedly talked about killing the children. Amy Castillo testified that she had sex with her husband because she was frightened of him and was worried that if she didn't, he would "assume something was wrong" and suspect that she was trying to get a restraining order against him.

huh.
that's funny.
that sure sounds like rape to me.
apparently, it doesn't sound like anything out of the realm of typical marriage to Judge Joseph Dugan:

"I am not satisfied," Dugan said, "that indeed there is clear and convincing evidence of abuse in this case."

so Dugan didn't issue the restraining order.
no restraining order because Ann Castillo was "having sex with" (read: being repeatedly raped by) her husband.
and so Mark Castillo drowned each of his three children, Anthony, 6, Austin, 4, and Athena, 3.





it's these stories that make my heart break, over and over.
and over.
and over again.


it's these stories that make my belly ache. and my jaw clench. and my head pound.



and yet.
it's these stories that never, ever surprise me.

Rape is in the eye of the beholder. Or something.

Maybe, at some point in my life, I'll actually write for this on a regular basis. But until then, it'll have to be saved for when I'm procrastinating or I have something really! important! to share or when, like now, I'm bored out of my mind. (Currently, the source of my boredom is this borrrrrrrrrrring temp job where they have nothing for me to do. Sup, ennui.)


So, we'll start with one of the most fucked up stories in the past week, out of Nebraska.

A judge there, Jeffre Cheuvront, presiding over a sexual assault case has (again) banned the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial.
Doesn't make sense, right? You can't just bar a word that accurately describes a criminal act on the basis that it's allegedly "prejudicial."
More, this is actually the second trial for the same case; the first time around, the jury was hopelessly deadlocked at 7-5 after the judge had put in place the same language ban. Coincidence? I think not.

The best part: the word that both the defense and the prosecution are supposed to use? Sex. Because that, apparently, is an accurate term for rape. Same thing as consensual sex, you know.

As if there weren't enough hurdles to calling rape what it is to begin with. As if there wasn't enough victim-blaming as it is. As if victims don't blame themselves enough, don't minimize the attack enough themselves, don't feel quite enough shame about being raped. As if we needed something else like this.

More on the new SD abortion ban

An update to the news that South Dakota is re-introducing their abortion ban. Yes, again.


The initial press release said that there "would be exceptions" for rape, incest, and the health of the woman - the absence of which was the reason that we were able to defeat the ban last November.

However, its inclusion of "exceptions" is a bit of an overstatement.

It makes it look good, sure. And it will be easy to confuse SD citizens into believing that the exceptions are legitimate, the way they did with the original ban last year, claiming that there was a health exception where there was, in fact....not.

But putting aside the fact that even with these exceptions, the ban would still be bullshit (see this rant for why)...the exceptions aren't even exceptions.
(See the text of the legislation here -- a .pdf file)


From this story on MSNBC, I found out more about how these "exceptions" would actually work. Or, as the case may be, would not work.
Let's outline them, shall we?

The Rape "Exception"
How You Prove You Deserve It: 1) Rapes must be reported to the police within 50 days of the rape.
2) A doctor must confirm that you have, in fact, been raped. And tell the police about this confirmation.
3) A doctor must take blood from the aborted fetus and provide it to the police for DNA testing so they can pursue your case.

Why It's Bullshit: 1) Why would anyone want to report their rape to the police? Unless you're the "ideal" rape victim (stranger-raped in a dark alley, wearing frumpy clothing, completely sober, and with no past history of substance abuse or sexual promiscuity), the judicial system is most likely not going to do anything for you. So-called "date rapes" (which is a shitty term, and does nothing but minimize the seriousness by putting a qualifier on "rape") are rarely ever reported, not least because they would be laughed out of the courtroom. The judicial system cannot handle most rape cases - most rape cases being NOT stranger-rapes of "pure" women.
2) I'm still not sure what "criteria" must be met in order for this doctor to confirm that a woman has been raped. Is it left to the doctor's discretion? Because that could be pretty ugly. Or are there strict, narrow definitions of what must be experienced in order for it to be considered a "legitimate" rape? That, too, would almost definitely be pretty ugly, and exclude a good number of women who have, in fact, been raped but don't quite fit into that little "ideal rape victim" box.
3) You don't want to press charges against your rapist? Too bad. The DNA from the aborted fetus is going to be used by the police anyway. Once they have the DNA, they don't need you anymore anyway, really. You have no choice of whether or not to prosecute. All while having the facade of choosing whether or not to have the rapist's child.

You don't want to report the rape? You can see that the system is (maybe irreparably) broken and don't want to put yourself into it just to be retraumatized? That's too bad. Guess you weren't "really" raped anyway. Because any "real" rape victim would, of course, be more than willing to prosecute her assailant. If you're not willing to report it to the police, you're probably just lying anyway.


The Incest "Exception":
How You Prove You Deserve It: 1) You must agree to report this to the police.
2) You must reveal the identity of your abuser to the doctor, and then to the police.
3) A doctor must take blood from the aborted fetus and provide it to the police for DNA testing so they can pursue your case.

Why It's Bullshit: 1) Again with the problems of reporting it to the police. Why would you want to?
2) Revealing the identity of your abuser can be exceedingly dangerous, especially if the case is unsuccessful. If you're a minor, you either return to the home where your abuser probably still resides (due to lack of evidence that a crime occurred), or you're sent off to a foster home to get stuck in the system. Yet another broken system. Not to mention the shame associated with incest is often unbearable; telling a doctor who it is would be hard enough, and having to repeat it for the case that will be pursued? I know I'd just drop it. I'd try to find a way to get over to Minnesota, or Iowa, or North Dakota. I'd take some anti-ulcer medication or find a nice hanger or find someone to perform a DIY abortion in the style of the old Jane collective. I'd do whatever it took, so long as I didn't have to face the shame or the likelihood that my abuser would not be "brought to justice."


The Health "Exception":
How You Prove You Deserve It: Not one, but two doctors must concur that your health would be "seriously jeopardized" by continuing the pregnancy. These doctors may not be at the same practice.

Why It's Bullshit: This one isn't quite as vomit-inducing as the others. But it's hardly benign. Requiring two doctors to agree is logistically problematic. If you're in a very rural town (as is true throughout much of SD) where there's only one doctor nearby, this could pose a serious problem. If you're in a place where the number of doctors is insufficient for the number of people (also true throughout much of SD), it could take days, maybe more, to get an appointment with a first doctor, let alone a second one. They would, presumably, then need to confer. Adding more days. Then, maybe, after what might by that point be close to two weeks, you'll be given permission to have an abortion. That is, if you can get to the Sioux Falls Planned Parenthood clinic, the only place in the state that provides abortions.
Oh, and then there's the bullshit language in the bill that states that the condition, if a woman were to go through with the pregnancy, would have to be "irreversible." Which could easily rule out, oh, just about everything short of death. So really, the health exception is just a death exception, dressed up all fancy-like.


As Coat Hangers At Dawn put it:

Rape or incest victims get no help unless they are willing to turn themselves, their lives and their bodies over to the state.

So don't be fooled by the double talk, this one is no better than the other one.

Again? Seriously?

If you can ignore the clearly anti-Muslim connotations,
it actually makes a decent point. i.e. That we're not actually better than those Evil Terrorists who we're At War With, ostensibly in order to "free" the women under their rule. (click image to enlarge)

Oh, for christ's sake. Was that really necessary, South Dakota?

I swear, that state keeps breaking my heart. I fell in love, for a short stint, with the voters of South Dakota on election night this past November, because they'd come through for me, for women all over the country, and voted down the abortion ban. And then I fell out of love, when I realized that the strategy we had to employ, the one that alienated a good number of the women who may need abortions, was the only strategy that would have worked in that state.


But now, they've gone too far. Yet again.

Later today (at about 11am), South Dakota legislators are scheduled to announce the introduction of a new abortion ban. This time, with the exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the woman that the last one left out. The exceptions whose absence allowed us to win in South Dakota in November.
Mike Rounds, the governor who signed the ban last year and got re-elected in November, has already said that he likes the proposed legislation. As have a number of the co-sponsors and supporters of last year's ban. Including Bill Napoli, who, in one of the more depressing outcomes of the election, was unfortunately re-elected.


It's almost, sorta, vaguely uplifting that there is a little bit of resistance, even from past supporters of the ban. They think that South Dakota is suffering from "abortion fatigue," an interesting little term that I do hope holds out. That because of the immense pressure of the last election and ballot initiative, the people of South Dakota would want a break from abortion politics for a while. So these legislators are proposing that the new, more "viable" ban be tabled for a year or two. Which would be nice, since putting it off gives us more time to push it off the table entirely. So, here's hoping. (Even when there's seemingly little reason to hope.)

Le sigh.

classifying trauma

New York, being my home state, will always hold a place in my heart. Even though I hope to never ever return there after I graduate and move out into the "real world," the things that happen in New York, politically and socially, still concern me, and probably always will.
(Please note: By "New York," I do not mean the city. I have never been to the city, don't particularly want to go to the city, and don't particularly like the city. Contrary to what legislators in Albany or people residing in the city may think, the rest of New York State does exist, and the people in those areas deserve consideration by the state too. /rampage)

By reading pretty much any group of five posts on this blog, you will also realize that I am equally, if not more, concerned with the rape culture in our society and the lack of sufficient legal or other recourse and support for rape victims/survivors.


It follows, then, this potential repeal of the statute of limitations thing in New York strikes a rather resonant chord with me.
(Yes, I know this is about a month old. Sorry.)

It seems that the push to repeal the 5-year statute of limitations on the prosecution of rape has finally garnered some serious support.

The statute of limitations is, quite simply, stupid and, as the Women's eNews article puts it, an archaic remnant of a fucked-up, (more) misogynistic past.

Rape, at most, can be considered a Class B Felony. Other Class B felonies? Kidnapping and robbery that don't result in physical injury. Kidnapping and robbery that do result in physical harm are automatically bumped up to a Class A felony -- and Class A felonies cannot be subject to a statute of limitations, because they're seen as Very Serious crimes.
Rape?
Not so serious.

Thing is, this legislation doesn't address that part. This legislation simply repeals the statute of limitations for sexual assault cases in particular. This legislation is only symbolically acknowledging that rape is a (sort of) serious crime.
Even though the Manhattan DA, Robert Morgenthau, had the following to say: "After murder, the crime that causes the most permanent damage to the victim is a rape."
Sadly, this well-informed Manhattan DA cannot change the felony classification of the crime, even though he seems to understand it far better than those who do have that power.

I know, I know. Repealing the statute of limitations is a good thing, and it's more than we've been able to get accomplished in a long, long time. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it, because we absolutely should.
But it would just make more sense to make rape a Class A felony. Then we wouldn't have to go through this whole statute of limitations debate at all, and you'd have the added bonus of actually acknowledging the damage that rape causes.

Because I'd like to see a New York legislator try to make the case that rape Isn't Really That Serious and then try to get re-elected in the next election cycle.
(At least, I'd like to think that said scenario would be impossible...)