“State Sen. Mike Moon, a Republican from Ash Grove who has filed legislation to impose criminal penalties on women who seek abortions, spent 12 minutes listing well-known people conceived through rape or incest after suggesting authorities shoot or castrate rapists.
State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Republican from Harrisonville, agreed.
“If you want to go after the rapist, let’s give him the death penalty. Absolutely, let’s do it, but not the innocent person caught in between,” he said. “That by God’s grace may even be the greatest healing agent you need in which to recover from such an atrocity.”’[1]
Oh, well do allow me, Mr. Senators, to introduce to you Coker v. Georgia[2] and Kennedy v. Louisiana.[3] Again, absolutely no due and responsible consideration whatsoever has been given to the whole myriad of social, legal, cultural, and even scientific/technological changes that have occurred over the last 50 years whenever enacting these laws.
I might also add here that- unlike as is portrayed by the media- this has nothing whatsoever to do with controlling women, nor “patriarchy.” This is just plain and pure political extremism- nothing more, nothing less. The history books are full of such extremism.
And might I also say that these “conservatives” are not traditional and they are not “conservative” by any conceivable definition of the word.[4] Apart from perhaps the color of their skin, they have nothing whatsoever in common with their ancestors.
[1] Anna Spoerre & Rudi Keller, Republicans block attempt to add rape, incest exemptions to Missouri’s abortion ban, Missouri Independent (February 8, 2024, 5:55 A.M.), https://missouriindependent.com/2024/02/08/missouri-abortion-legislation-defund-planned-parenthood-defund/
[2] 433 U.S. 584 (1977). (death penalty for rape of adult woman violates the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Notably, the American Civil Liberties Union, along with various women’s rights groups, filed an amicus brief in support of the rapist. Former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the brief:
In a brief written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who now sits on the Supreme Court, the groups argued that ‘[t]he death penalty for rape should be rejected as a vestige of an ancient, patriarchal system in which women were viewed both as the property of men and as entitled to a crippling ‘chivalric protection.’
Brief for American Civil Liberties Union et al. as Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioner, Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 97 (1977) (quoted in Joshua Dressler & Stephen P. Garvey, Criminal Law: Cases and Materials 79 (8th ed. 2019)). Feminists have always supported this viewpoint: “Within this ‘ancient, patriarchal system,’ rape was believed to be a crime against a man’s property, more specifically, ‘the theft of virginity, an embezzlement of…[the woman’s] fair price on the market.”’ Id. at 80 (quoting Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape 18 (1975)). Pretty much, valuing women’s sexuality props up the patriarchy. Women under this system are “ruined” on account of slights against their sexuality (rape, out-of-wedlock birth, sexual promiscuity outside of marriage). So, the theory goes, if women’s sexuality is devalued to be equal to and on par with that of men’s, then rape, illegitimate birth, etc.… no longer have the power to “ruin” women (because, hey, if female sexuality is already knocked off of its pedestal it can’t possibly fall any lower) and men can no longer control women or think they have some claim of exclusivity to some woman’s sexuality. Is this realistic? Does this actually benefit women? And I reject the notion that women were “property.” Women were under guardianship. A father or husband could never- under our laws- sell his daughter or wife. Women were never “owned” like chattel. They were protected under guardianship, even if under this guardianship they faced some legal incapacitations. But it also must be remembered that women consented to marriage. And many women- from my own personal perspective as well as all that I have been able to dig up over time- would have rather fallen under that protection.
Modern-day “conservatives” do not believe in the traditional values of our society that protected women’s sexuality. They do not believe in patriarchy where men must be responsible to guard women and protect and provide for them. They are simply a modern-day political party- and an increasingly extremist one, at that. Consider this:
[I]n interpreting the Equal Protection Clause, the Court has recognized that new insights and societal understandings can reveal unjustified inequality within our most fundamental institutions that once passed unnoticed and unchallenged. To take but one period, this occurred with respect to marriage in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Notwithstanding the gradual erosion of the doctrine of coverture…invidious sex-based classifications in marriage remained common through the mid-20th century…These classifications denied the equal dignity of men and women. One State’s law, for example, provided in 1971 that “the husband is the head of the family and the wife is subject to him; her legal civil existence is merged in the husband, except so far as the law recognizes her separately, either for her own protection, or for her benefit.” Ga.Code Ann. § 53-501 (1935).
Obergefell v. Hodges 135 S. Ct. 2584, 2604 (2015) (Kennedy, J.). Do “conservatives” and their army of empowered career women believe in this? Conceivably not. But if they seek to strip away abortion rights, they should. Women had protections before 1973 that they no longer have. A just and fair rule of law would seek to give back all that has been taken from the female sex over the past 50 years (or, for that matter, two centuries). The scales of justice can never weigh equally otherwise. The state should never strip from a woman the right and control over her body without seeking to protect her and her sexuality in return- and with real, substantial, and tangible protections. If they are truly “conservative” then, I’d say, prove it.
[3] 544 U.S. 407 (2008) (held: The Eighth Amendment bars Louisiana from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim’s death.)
[4] A simple Google search for “conservative definition” yields these results: Adj. 1. Averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values. 2. (in a political context) favoring free enterprise, private ownership and socially traditional values. 3. (of an estimate) purposely low for the sake of caution. 4. (of surgery or medical treatment) intended to control rather than eliminate a condition, with existing tissue preserved as far as possible. Noun: 1. A person who is averse to change and holds traditional values. 2. A person favoring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional values.
What “traditional values” do modern-day “conservatives” really hold? Perhaps the only definition on this list where modern-day Republicans- who love to masquerade as “conservative”- would actually meet that definition would be free enterprise and private ownership. But even that is somewhat questionable, especially since they have become the big-government welfare party all of a sudden after the enactment of their anti-abortion legislation. They also seek to regulate businesses in ways they would not have tried even a decade ago (e.g., social media censorship). And what about all of the anti-sex discrimination legislation that has only existed for roughly the past sixty years? Especially at the federal level? (Since “conservatives” are super fans of “state’s rights.”) The latter are not part of the “traditional social values” of our culture. Our ancestors would not have recognized them. As for the first issue, see e.g., Nadine El-Bawab, South Carolina bill would offer compensation to women denied abortions, ABC News (February 9, 2024, 1:38 P.M.), https://abcnews.go.com/US/south-carolina-bill-offer-compensation-women-denied-abortions/story?id=107036691. Well, if that’s not a “big-government welfare state” then what is? As for enterprise and private ownership, do modern-day “conservatives” really believe in full-blown laissez-faire values in accordance with the legal and social mores of our laissez-faire era (roughly late 19th to early 20th century) that they admire and refer to so much? Do they even hold 1950s values? I would say that all of this is doubtful.
B. A. Hunter 