It’s open season on women and doctors out there!


The economy sucks, so why are Republicans making such obnoxious noises over abortion and birth control lately? (That was an entirely rhetorical question, and it’s obvious why: they’ve got no solutions other than feeding the rich some more, so they’re carrying out a massive campaign of distraction.) Look what Nebraska is poised to do!

Last week, South Dakota’s legislature shelved a bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Phil Jensen, which would have allowed the use of the “justifiable homicide” defense for killings intended to prevent harm to a fetus. Now a nearly identical bill is being considered in neighboring Nebraska, where on Wednesday the state legislature held a hearing on the measure.

The legislation, LB 232, was introduced by state Sen. Mark Christensen, a devout Christian and die-hard abortion foe who is opposed to the prodedure even in the case of rape. Unlike its South Dakota counterpart, which would have allowed only a pregnant woman, her husband, her parents, or her children to commit “justifiable homicide” in defense of her fetus, the Nebraska bill would apply to any third party.

Nebraska: even more fundamentally deranged than South Dakota!

It’s probably not fair to pick on Nebraska, though. It seems women are fair game even in Canada. A judge just let a rapist off because the victim was asking for it, in the coded language that only rapists can read.

Judge Dewar listed several reasons for this misinterpretation [that the victim consented], including that the victim and her friend were wearing tube tops, high heels and makeup; that the two had implied they might want to go skinny-dipping in a lake nearby and that the circumstances of their encounter with Mr. Rhodes and his friend were “inviting.”

That’s it? That’s all it takes? Except for the skinny-dipping part, then women have been consenting to have sex with me surprisingly frequently, and I’ve been missing all the signals and all the opportunities.

I’m thinking that maybe women just need to move out of the middle of the continent altogether. It doesn’t seem to be a very friendly place.