Crosscut: “Revictimizing Native Women for Political Purposes”

Here.

An excerpt:

Early this week, two U.S. House Representatives members and the Tacoma News Tribune took clear stands against protecting women from sexual assault.  Representatives Todd Akin, R-Missouri, and Steve King, R-Iowa, did so by promoting the concept of “legitimate rape.”  The News Tribune did so by attacking the only real hope for combating the national pandemic of violence against Native women.

As originally passed by the U.S. Senate, the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization legislation would allow tribes to exercise limited criminal jurisdiction over certain non-Indians who violate Native American women on Indian reservations. Tribes would be required to provide all rights accorded to defendants in state and federal court, and federal courts would have authority to review tribal court decisions that result in incarceration. The legislation would not raise the one-year maximum sentence that tribal courts can impose. The GOP-controlled House, however, omitted the protections for Indian women in its version of the bill.

Among those voting to omit the tribal protections were vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, U.S. Senate candidate Akin, and House Republican King. In an interview originally broadcast on Sunday, Akin suggested that an abortion would be unnecessary in the instance of a “legitimate rape” because apparently only non-legitimate rape leads to pregnancy — whatever that means. Chiming in agreement, fellow House Rep. King said that he’s never heard of a girl getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest. While Akin and King quickly recanted, they cannot as simply withdraw their votes against the Senate’s proposed protections for abused Native women.

One thought on “Crosscut: “Revictimizing Native Women for Political Purposes”

  1. Lisa Coppedge August 24, 2012 / 11:06 am

    Sometimes people are idiots. However sometimes even idiots have a valid point. That is that each and every case can and must be proven to assure true justice not only for the victium but for all society. We need to be certain that those who commit these awful crime pay. Most of the time a charge is legitimate because lets face it no one in their right mind wants to deal with the crap they throw when this accusation is made. However on the rare times it is made up the damage to the one accused is a forever thing. It will haunt them for their entire lives. So lets be honest here we owe everyone to ensure that the law is fair and even handed. While I want to hang the moron who dared consider rape as a lesser crime I do think that they are right in ensuring its handled in a fair unbiased way. Otherwise if we become careless true crimes go unpunished and the innocent suffer while making it harder to protect any women from this crime. We have to take a hard line but one that uses every method to ensure justice is done.That does not mean making the women suffer merely making sure any cases stick so the bastards rot and can not harm others again.

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