New Mexico Gov. Requires Women Seeking Childcare Assistance To Prove They Were ‘Forcibly Raped’

[cynatnite]

After Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) asserted his belief that “legitimate rape” doesn’t often lead to pregnancy, Republican lawmakers were quick to attempt to configure his radical stance on women’s health as an outlier in their party. However, increasing numbers of GOP politicians’ language about the nature of sexual assault actually echoes Akin’s — including New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R), whose state’s policies use language that effectively narrows the definition of rape.

Not only did Martinez refer to “forcible rape” in an announcement instating April as New Mexico’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month — as if some kinds of sexual assault need to be qualified as more or less “legitimate” than others — but, as RH Reality Check reports, the term also appears in the state’s proposed changes to its official applications for childcare assistance. If the proposed changes take effect, women in New Mexico will be required to prove that their sexual assault qualified as “forcible rape” if they are seeking childcare assistance for a child that resulted from rape:

If adopted, this policy will have numerous implications. It establishes in state law a narrow definition of rape that can and will be applied in other areas of law and policy. It puts a heavy burden on women who have been raped and are now struggling economically to support a child or children to prove the manner in which they were raped and to meet a test set up by the state to exclude many women in need of childcare assistance who would otherwise qualify.

It would force women who have left violent domestic partnerships, who were date-raped, who were impregnated as a result of incest, or through other “non-forcible” but nonetheless equally violent and denigrating means of sexual violation to first re-engage with their abusers to seek child support, putting control of their lives back into the hands of someone by whom they were violated in the most profound sense of the term.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/09/20/881971/new-mexico-gov-forcible-rape/

[FirstLight]

1. fuck that noise

I wish we could have a Defense of Women and Children ACT that would pass as a amendment and stop this bullshit of picking on those who have already been victimized...

[atreides1]

2. WTF is wrong with these republican women?

A self loathing group of gender traitors...who seem to want to put women down, even more then Joe Walsh!

But, I guess collaborators can be found anyplace... hopefully this will be her last term as governor, or maybe she'll get hit by a meteor...

[bluestate10]

7. Republicans hate people, some more than others.

I have yet to meet a calm republican. Their world view ultimately boils down to "I will live only if you die".

[hifiguy]

3. Ugh.

[siligut]

4. Keep it up morans

Hell hath no fury like a whole bunch of women fed up with idiocy. That shit-head Rmoney boo boo is making you all look like asses who have no idea on how to run things.

[Care Acutely]

5. Why are they asking about conception of the child IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Did you have wine that evening?
Were you on vacation?
Was it at a party?
1) Company Christmas party or
2) A drunken BBQ or
3) Boca Raton
Was it frozen or fresh sperm?
How many positions did you use?
Did your partner keep his socks on or take them off?

[exboyfil]

6. While the mother and child should not be involved in collecting child support

from rapists, should not the state collect it? Letting rapists out of an obligation that non-rapist fathers have seems unfair.