While the Texas House debated an anti-abortion omnibus bill for 15 hours Sunday night, Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D) called for an exemption for victims of rape and incest, the Associated Press reported. Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R) objected, saying "rape kits" make that exemption unneccessary:
"In the emergency room they have what's called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out," [Laubenberg] said, comparing the procedure to an abortion. "The woman had five months to make that decision, at this point we are looking at a baby that is very far along in its development."
Her apparent confusion about "rape kits" — a phrase generally used to describe the equipment used by medical personnel during forensic examinations to gather physical evidence following allegations of rape or sexual assault — sparked widespread ridicule on social media sites. Laubenberg then simply rejected all proposed changes to her bill without speaking until the end of the debate.Republicans in the Texas House passed the bill this morning, after hundreds flooded the state legislature to oppose the measure which would place new restrictions on how, when and where a woman could obtain an abortion in the state.
Rep. Thompson made her case for a rape and incest exemption while a wire hanger hung from her podium's microphone, a symbol of pro-choice protests like the one recently held in Wisconsin.
As we've said before, Todd Akin and all these other Republicans are not saying these crazy things because they think they know something about how the female body works or because they believe whatever bullshit they conjure up about rape kits. They say this stuff because it's a plank in their party platform that abortion should be illegal even in the case of rape, incest, and danger to the mother. They then have motive to minimize pregnancy by rape because most Americans recoil in horror at the notion of being forced to have a rapists baby.
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