It is a crime to have sex with someone who does not consent to it. Simple, right?

Not so much.

Over the years - hell, over the past few months - nuts have tried to argue that everything but agreeing to have sex is agreeing to have sex.

Among them: she was dressing slutty, she worked a dirty job, she thought she had rights, she dared to leave her home at night.

Real rape victims are beaten to a bloody pulp. They were virgins. There were religious and oh-so-pure. The real crime is that they were tainted by sex, not that it was against their will.

And they certainly aren’t married, says Phyllis Schlafly:

By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.

People - rape is rape. There isn’t one kind of victim, and there isn’t one kind of rapist.

The new post-abortion eCards provided by Exhale have gotten quite a few anti-choicers up in arms. The eCards have varying messages, from “my thoughts are with you,” to “I’m sorry for your loss,” to “I think you did the right thing.”

But there’s no “Jesus forgives you for murdering your tiny helpless baby” card, so pro-lifers take offense. After all, there’s only one “right” way to feel about an abortion, and that’s suicidally depressed. From the pro-life perspective there aren’t millions of individual women with unique lives, feelings, and reasons to abort; there are just lots of evil abortions taking place.

Maybe one woman just didn’t want to deal with the stigma attached to being pregnant out of wedlock. Maybe another woman desperately wanted to have a child, but her fetus developed anomalies that would have proven fatal soon after childbirth. Perhaps another woman was raped (and denied emergency contraception, as is common) and wanted an abortion. These are all different women in different situations, and there is no ‘one size fits all’ way to be supportive of them. Thanks, Exhale, for recognizing that.

You can never quite be sure what you’ll dig up when you do a news search on “abortion.” Oh, there’ll be the typical LifeNews garbage - apparently they’re now lashing out at Planned Parenthood for suggesting that their clients stop smoking. Because, you know, there’s no difference between cigarettes and sex… it will KILL you, and God will giggle uncontrollably (or so says Fred Phelps).

But sometimes - just sometimes - you find something worth reading:

If the Mississippi Legislature passes Senate Bill 2391 - which basically was written by the national Right to Life organization, one legislator says - it will be like trying to shove a Q-Tip into your brain and stopping at your eardrum.

It doesn’t go far enough.

First of all, there’s not a provision requiring a woman who receives an abortion to get a scarlet “A” tattooed on her forehead. But this was probably an oversight and, chances are, will be remedied soon.

(Stock tip: Buy red ink.)

The author points out some of the frightening potential effects of the bill’s terminology. A minor is only entitled to the right to choose when she is deemed “mature” enough, but with this “maturity” most pro-lifers contend that she is also capable of raising a child and should therefore be obligated to do so. As Pettus mentions, this is a real can of worms… an abortion may be allowed if it is deemed “in the girl’s best interest,” but is it in anyone’s best interest to be forced into childbirth or to be forced to abort? Choice, freedom, self-determination - those are in a person’s best interest.

The article’s closing hits home.

Finally, another July 1 provision says that, before anyone performs an abortion, he or she would have to do an ultrasound and allow the pregnant woman to hear the fetal heartbeat.

I have no problem with this requirement. In fact, lawmakers ought to expand it and apply it to themselves - before they publicly support a war or send someone else’s children to one, they should have to put on a stethoscope and listen to those heartbeats - which left the womb at least 18 years ago.

Maybe that’s another bill “Right to Life” could write.