State Rape

Trigger warning.

After a great deal of public outcry, Virginia legislators are delaying consideration of a bill that would mandate raping women who want an abortion. The bill specifically would require women seeking an abortion to obtain a medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasound, thus revealing to them that what's growing in their uterus is a fetus and not, say, a basketball.

Since most definitions of rape run something along the lines of "oral, vaginal, or anal penetration of a foreign object without the party's consent", and since here "consent" is manufactured by force of statute (cf., the old spousal rape exemption, where by statute a married women automatically consented to sexual intercourse), Virginia's law is perfectly accurately characterized as a law requiring the rape of women.

But you know what? Everyone's so focused on the negative; but I think that this is really an effort by Virginia legislators to be more pro-choice than they were before. Recall that even most anti-choice lawmakers purport to except from this principle cases where the woman was raped. Virginia is just trying to make that exception cover every woman seeking an abortion, by requiring that they all be raped first! This way, abortions can still be done, and the "consciences" of the men who generally can't tolerate abortion are assuaged. Sure, some women probably object to being subjected to a state-sponsored rape campaign, but hey, omelets, eggs, and all that.

You see? It all works out in the end.