Talking about imposing Sharia Law in America

The idea that the 'liberal' elements in America are hell bent on imposing Sharia law in America is so patently absurd yet it has taken hold in certain circles. The courageous citizens of Oklahoma voted to ban the imposition of Sharia Law in the state which had the unintended consequence of banning Indian law and customs as well.

In Utah, the state legislature passed a law that allows any woman who has, or seeks to have an abortion be charged with criminal homicide. Worse, the law applies the same charge to a woman who has a miscarriage due to 'reckless' behavior which could theoretically include drinking, smoking or doing drugs. The law was slightly watered down as the term 'negligence' was used in the place of 'reckless', reducing a pregnant woman to a 'fetus incubator' and little more. Any fan of Sharia law would be proud of such a law.

The annual ultra-conservative CPAC conference was boycotted by many because it included the gay conservative group Goproud.

A bigger threat to women is a new law that will pass the House and might even pass the Senate with the help of a few conservative Democrats. The bill is titled the 'No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act' but it should really be titled 'The Redefinition of Rape Act' as it narrows the definition of rape radically. Based on the original Hyde Amendment ("what will we tell our children") The law would exclude the following situations from coverage: women who say no but do not physically fight off the perpetrator, women who are drugged or verbally threatened and raped, and minors impregnated by adults. As the National Women’s Law Center’s Steph Sterling puts it, this new standard of force “takes us back to a time where just saying no was not enough.”

Read this to get an idea of the thinking behind the Bill

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls "convenience." He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother's life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.


BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

Here is Debbie Wasserman Schultz the Democratic congresswoman from Florida said about the bill:

“It is absolutely outrageous,” Wasserman Schultz said in an exclusive interview late Monday afternoon. “I consider the proposal of this bill a violent act against women.”[...]

“It really is — to suggest that there is some kind of rape that would be okay to force a woman to carry the resulting pregnancy to term, and abandon the principle that has been long held, an exception that has been settled for 30 years, is to me a violent act against women in and of itself,” Wasserman Schultz said.

“Rape is when a woman is forced to have sex against her will, and that is whether she is conscious, unconscious, mentally stable, not mentally stable,” the four-term congresswoman added.[...]

While there is no comparison to the excesses of Sharia Law in America, if the religious right had their way, stuff like this would be pervasive and commonplace.