Brace Yourself: There’s Going To Be Lots of Sex in 2014

And I don’t mean that in a good way. Today the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out one of its notorious fundraising emails, with the subject heading “Vote Alert.”

John —

On this 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the fight over women’s health care rights is far from over.

With rare exceptions, when a mother’s health actually is threatened by pregnancy, abortion cannot properly be described as health care. Virtually all abortions are done for convenience. But the liberals’ touting of abortion as a moral good is implausible unless abortion flies under the false flag of “health care.”

The “Republican Rape Audits” bill is set to hit the House floor next week. It could force rape survivors to face “abortion audits” from the IRS. Oh, and did we mention that it was introduced by an all-male panel?

Does anyone seriously believe that the Republicans have proposed a “Rape Audits” bill? Apparently the DCCC thinks its donors can be suckered into falling for this ludicrous claim. I wrote about the proposed legislation here; the Democrats are referring to the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act. What an “abortion audit” is, or how the proposed statute “could” result in “abortion audits” from the IRS, the DCCC has not explained.

It’s never been clearer what we need to do to put a stop to this War on Women: throw John Boehner and his Tea Party out of Washington.

So the Democrats’ War on Women is back. The Democrats’ focus on rape tells us that they are hoping the GOP will nominate more candidates with Todd Akin’s interview skills.

By the time the bill hits the floor, we want to have $200,000 in our Women’s Health Rapid Response Fund to expose the GOP’s anti-woman agenda. We need to show Republicans that their War on Women has consequences.

Contribute $3 to our Women’s Health Rapid Response Fund on today’s anniversary of Roe v. Wade and your donation will be matched >>

Thanks,

Democratic Headquarters

“Women’s Health Rapid Response Fund”–is that Orwellian, or what?

Earlier today, the Democrats opened another front in the sex wars with a press conference by President Obama: “Obama launches initiative to combat college rape.”

President Barack Obama shone a light Wednesday on a college sexual assault epidemic that is often shrouded in secrecy, with victims fearing stigma, police poorly trained to investigate and universities reluctant to disclose the violence.

The Associated Press is obviously on board with the program.

A White House report highlights a stunning prevalence of rape on college campuses, with 1 in 5 female students assaulted while only 1 in 8 student victims report it.

It takes the AP only two sentences to start getting the facts wrong. The White House Report in question says that one in five American women are raped at some point in their lives, not that one in five college students are raped–a claim that would be absurd on its face. “Sexual assault” means something else altogether; the people who design these studies nearly always do so for a political purpose, and they define terms like “sexual assault” so broadly as to be nearly meaningless.

Nearly 22 million American women and 1.6 million men have been raped in their lifetimes, according to the report.

The White House report lifts those numbers from this academic study; click to enlarge:

SexualAssaultStudy01

As you can see, the percentage of women who have been raped at some point in their lives, according to this study, is 12.3%. Another 5.2% are the victims of attempted rape, and the remaining 8% experienced sex that was “alcohol/drug facilitated.” My guess is that last number is low, but how many of these “facilitated” events are actually rapes is anyone’s guess.

Rape is a terrible thing, and certainly far too common. I fail to understand why activists persist in presenting statistics on the subject dishonestly. But today, Obama didn’t focus mostly on statistics:

Obama said he was speaking out as president and a father of two daughters, and that men must express outrage to stop the crime.

Actually, I think rape is viewed with plenty of outrage. The real question is, what does it have to do with the federal government? Rape is not a federal crime, it is a state crime, enforced by state law enforcement agencies. So one naturally wonders whether Obama has anything in mind other than politics.

Obama gave the task force, comprised of administration officials, 90 days to come up with recommendations for colleges to prevent and respond to the crime, increase public awareness of each school’s track record and enhance coordination among federal agencies to hold schools accountable if they don’t confront the problem.

So Obama wants to tighten the screws on colleges and universities; as we have noted, federal pressures have already caused schools to violate male students’ due process rights on many occasions. Obama now apparently wants to apply even more pressure in that direction. But again, it isn’t primarily the duty of colleges to “prevent” and “respond to” the crime of rape. If a student really has been raped (as opposed to succumbing to the excesses of an administration-sponsored “sex week”), the crime should be investigated and prosecuted by law enforcement authorities, and the perpetrator, if convicted, should be given a long prison sentence. (Sadly, capital punishment for rape is no longer an option.) Other than cooperating with law enforcement, colleges have nothing to do with this process. One suspects, therefore, that what Obama has in mind isn’t rape at all, but rather reinforcement of the mindless anti-male prejudice that is in vogue at most universities.

So this is what will happen: Obama’s task force will report in 90 days; that takes us to April. The task force’s report will be translated into some more or less meaningless legislative and regulatory proposals which will be offered in May or June. When Republicans point out that the proposals are silly, Democrats will have material for the campaign ads they will run from August through October. No one will pay any attention to the fact that when it comes to actual law enforcement regarding actual rape or sexual assault, it is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are tough on crime.

One last item: Barack Obama’s organization, OFA, sent out this tweet a little while ago:

OFATweet015

It’s really quite striking: the right to abortion on demand is now a “historic victory for women’s health.” Do you remember when Democrats used to ritually recite that they were “personally opposed” to abortion? Those days are long gone. Abortion is now presented as a moral ideal.

So batten down the hatches. The economy is awful, Obamacare is a disaster, Obama’s foreign policy is a mess, scandal and corruption beset the administration–what is a Democrat to do? Why, resurrect the “war on women,” what else? The Democrats desperately need a way to stir up their base, in spite of the across-the-board failures of their policies. So from now until November, expect to be bombarded with endless talk about rape, abortion and whatever other “women’s issues” the Democrats can drum up. These days, it’s the last refuge of a party of scoundrels.

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