Georgia Republican Bobby Franklin: You say you’re a rape victim? Uh-uh — not so fast. Prove it!

Fuck these people. Seriously.

Fresh off the heels of the Republican effort to redefine rape, Georgia Republicans have begun their latest assault on women¹: Representative Bobby Franklin (R-GA) has introduced a bill to change the state’s criminal and civil codes so that victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence can no longer be called “victims” but must be called “accusers” until the defendant has been convicted.

Let that sink in for a minute.  If your brain hasn’t exploded already, proceed with caution.  I make no guarantees about the intacted-ness of your grey matter upon reading the rest of this post.

The downgrading of “victim” to mere “accuser” applies only to rape, as far as I can tell.  If you’ve been mugged, or robbed, or defrauded, you’re still a victim.  (And poor you, by the way.)  If some person has violated you sexually without your consent, however, you’re just an accuser: we don’t quite believe you yet; we need to know how much you had to drink; we need to determine whether you were wearing slutty boots, fuck me heels, or booty shorts; we also need to know whether or not you’re just saying you were raped because he didn’t call you the next day.

According to the language of the bill, its purpose is:

To amend Titles 16 and 17 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to criminal law and criminal procedure, respectively, so as to change the term ‘victim’ to the term ‘accuser’ in the context of a number of statutes making reference to circumstances where there has not yet been a criminal conviction; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

The proposed bill screeches short of decriminalizing rape altogether:

“When evidence relating to an allegation of rape is collected in the course of a medical examination of the person who is the victim accuser of the alleged crime perpetrator, the law enforcement agency investigating the alleged crime shall be responsible for the cost of the medical examination to the extent that expense is incurred for the limited purpose of collecting evidence.”

So there you have it. Another offensive strike in the battle over the right of women to decide for themselves what may reside in their uterus, whether it be a baby or an unwanted penis. Republicans (and a handful of Democrats) don’t think women should be able to decide whether or not they should be forced to rent space in their body for nine months, whether they want to or not, and don’t have the wherewithal to determine whether or not they’ve been fucking raped.  The proposed bill forces victims of rape to undergo the painful process of pursuing criminal conviction even though they may not want to just so they have the fucking RIGHT to be called a victim.

Should such a bill pass, it would be the most shameless form of publicly-sanctioned victim-blaming in recent history.  It would also pave the way to further reduce women’s access to abortion, which is, in my view, the whole fucking point.

Let’s take another look at that stated purpose of the bill:

To amend Titles 16 and 17 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to criminal law and criminal procedure, respectively, so as to change the term ‘victim’ to the term ‘accuser’ in the context of a number of statutes making reference to circumstances where there has not yet been a criminal conviction; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

I wonder what those “other purposes” are, hmm?  Well, given the Republicans latest assault on abortion rights, and their attempt to redefine rape to include the term “forcible,” their goal must be to make sure that only Real Rape Victims have access to abortion.

“[A]nd for other purposes” must mean “for purposes of deciding who we deem worthy of the choice to decide whether or not to carry a baby to term.”  If abortions are available only to rape victims (whether “rape rape” victims or “rapish” victims), and in order to be deemed a rape victim, one’s rapist must be convicted, then you might as well just go ahead and decide to have that rape baby right now because chasing that Rape Victim status is probably more fucking trouble than it’s worth.

Think about it — once you’ve been raped, it becomes a race again the clock!  You gotta pick yourself up, shrug your shoulders — “Damn! Raped again!” — head over to the hospital to get checked out, talk to the police, help them find your rapist (er… “alleged perpetrator”), then keep the pressure on the police detectives and the D.A. to prosecute the motherfucker just so you can get your “I Got Raped And All I Got Was This Stupid Rape Certificate” certificate.

Only when you’ve accomplished all of these goals — chop chop!  You only have three to four months because you don’t want to have to deal with a late-term abortion, do ya? — can you even think about getting an abortion. And what of the appeals process?  Can you be a rape victim only after the “alleged perpetrator” has exhausted his appellate rights?  What about a mistrial?  A hung jury?  Do any of these impediments to a final judgment delay your ability to achieve meritorious Rape Victim status?

What the fuck?

I hate people.

To send this asshole Bobby Franklin a hearty fuck you, visit his Facebook page.  Thanks to commenter Denise for providing Franklin’s contact info:  bobby.franklin@house.ga.gov

¹ I say women because most rape victims (at least reported victims) are women.

[via Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee]

[cross-posted here at Balloon Juice]