States' Rights takes the Stage

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

A number of state legislatures around the country with new and very conservative Republican majorities have been proposing legislation aimed squarely at what they see as an over-reaching, tyrannical federal government.  According to Kirk Johnson in today's New York Times legislators across the country are invoking “states rights” as their reason for proposed legislation to exempt themselves from federal laws and regulations they find objectionable.   Ranging from the absurd to the ridiculous the proposed legislation includes a bill in Georgia requiring banks to accept payment in gold or silver only to a bill in Arizona to exempt all products produced and consumed in their state from federal interstate commerce laws. 

Many of us will remember that the last time we saw such emphasis on "states' rights" was during the Civil Rights era when it was invoked in defense of segregationist policies and Jim Crow laws.  Although this invocation is marginally less offensive it still speaks to some pretty ugly political theater taking the stage around the country.

It remains to be seen how many of these laws will be enacted but even if passed they are likely to be in conflict with the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.  As the reporter points out, decades of legal precedent make clear that federal law almost always overrides state law.  At best these attempts seem designed to make a political statement and perhaps divert attention from what will be very painful budget cuts in state and local governments.  The "jobs, jobs, jobs" promises that swept many of these people into office in the mid-term elections are still nowhere to be found.

Redefining Rape

In 1973 I was a single mother living in Houston.  I had a decent job and lived in a modest but, I thought, safe neighborhood.  Late one night I left my little girl at home with a friend and went to the local Laundromat to do my laundry.  After a couple of hours I loaded my clean laundry in the car and was getting ready to leave when I saw something move across my rear view mirror in a flash.  Before I could register what I saw a man with a knife was in my passenger seat.  He told me to start driving and keep quiet, so I did.  In a few minutes we reached a heavily wooded park.  He led me to a secluded area.  Then he raped me. He fled immediately after and I staggered to my car and went home.  Aside from the degrading, terrifying non-consensual sex he did not hurt me.  The humiliation that followed was a second assault.  My doctor and my employer openly scoffed and even my soon to be ex-boyfriend was skeptical.  After all I was not bruised or bleeding or dead, how could it be rape.  Years of emotional trauma followed but I worked through it.  Although I can still see every minute of that night like a movie in my mind, in time I put it behind me and rarely thought about it. 

It came roaring back a couple of weeks ago when Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill) introduced HR 3, “The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”.  According to the bill’s co-sponsors the aim of the legislation is to put into law a permanent ban on any taxpayer funded abortions.  Currently taxpayer funding for abortions is prohibited by the Hyde Amendment.   First passed in 1976 as a rider to an appropriations bill it is named for the late Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois who first sponsored it.  It is not a permanent ban but must be renewed each year.  It is routinely attached to annual appropriation bills in Congress so that the ban remains in place. In its current form, the amendment exempts from the prohibition abortions performed as a result of rape, incest or to save the life of the woman.  In their zeal to restrict abortions, a legal and constitutionally protected medical procedure, the Congressmen changed the language in the exception from “rape” to “forcible rape”.   I wish I could ask Congressmen Smith and Lipinski and their 173 co-sponsors if believe there are categories of rape some more “rapish” than others.  I wonder if they truly believe that some women will falsely claim they have been raped in order to secure a “free” abortion.  I wonder if they have any notion at all the shame and humiliation that many rape victims feel after the assault.  I wonder why they felt it necessary to qualify the crime of rape.  With no visible injuries and no proof beyond my word the skepticism I faced after my assault was so daunting that I packed away the experience and did nothing.  While I have no proof that Congressmen Smith and Lipinski do not trust or even respect women and the choices we are supposedly free to make their actions speak volumes to me.  Right now I feel the same anger and humiliation I experienced all those years ago.  Memory is a powerful force. 

After much public outrage from around the country the Congressmen pledged to remove the language from the bill.  However, I searched the House of Representatives website, www.house.gov , as recently as February 22 and found the language still in the bill and no evidence of an amendment to remove it.