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Democrats threaten to kill human trafficking bill over lack of abortion funding

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Seems like a weird bill in the first place though, no? It treats clients of prostitutes like sex traffickers if the prostitute has been trafficked, but not if she hasn't. But this is something that cannot reasonably be known by the client, and the bill makes clear that it doesn't matter if the person knows or not. I'm not keen on bills wherein the crime you have committed comes down to something over which you have no knowledge or control. If you want to "play it safe" then why not apply this to literally all prostitution?
 
I think you have having difficulties in seeing your own bias here.

Saying "this money can't be used for this very specific thing" is absolutely absurd.

Tangentially legal abortion is something we should be proud of. We shouldn't be involved in medical decisions made by women and doctors.

Not from my point of view.

I oppose abortion. Women can choose to get it, but this law doesn't say getting an abortion is illegal.
 

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
Seems like a weird bill in the first place though, no? It treats clients of prostitutes like sex traffickers if the prostitute has been trafficked, but not if she hasn't. But this is something that cannot reasonably be known by the client, and the bill makes clear that it doesn't matter if the person knows or not. I'm not keen on bills wherein the crime you have committed comes down to something over which you have no knowledge or control. If you want to "play it safe" then why not apply this to literally all prostitution?
Nuance? In our legislation? Only in Minnesota

(https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=609.344&year=2014)
 
Nuance? In our legislation? Only in Minnesota

(https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=609.344&year=2014)

I think age is sightly different though, because one can't fail to have a belief about someone's age. Maybe it's informed, maybe it's not, maybe it's plausible deniability or genuine mistake etc. But one can't fail to interpret the information before them, and it's up to lawmakers and courts to eke out nuance. With trafficked prostitutes there's no information that's readily available to tell you if they're victims of trafficking or not, so I'm not sure what behaviour this law is meant to alter.
 

benjipwns

Banned
(b) the complainant is at least 13 but less than 16 years of age and the actor is more than 24 months older than the complainant. In any such case if the actor is no more than 120 months older than the complainant, it shall be an affirmative defense, which must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence, that the actor reasonably believes the complainant to be 16 years of age or older. In all other cases, mistake as to the complainant's age shall not be a defense. Consent by the complainant is not a defense;
So you can be ten years older and claim you thought they were 16+.

So make sure that you're still 23 first.
 
I want funding to go to victims only. I don't want it going to fund public abortions, and i don't want it to fund fighter jets either. SO if they want to add more restrictions to the bill's spending i'd be in favor of it.


Out of curiosity, are you opposed to the fund paying for abortions for victims of human trafficking?

Keep in mind, human trafficking can take many forms. The exception is for rape, but there are some human trafficking situations that some would argue are not rape, and there are some where an argument would have to be made (with that burden falling on the victim). Do you think we should be making it onerous, and potentially denying funds to a human trafficking victim, when those funds came from fines against human traffickers (rather than from your taxes)?

I hate to break it to you, but that's what the restriction is about. They didn't add "no public abortions", "no fighter jets", "no fixing potholes", "no european vacations", etc, because they wanted the money to go to victims of trafficking instead of all those other things. They added "no abortions" specifically because they want to make it onerous or impossible for some human trafficking victims to get funds from the human trafficking fines in order to pay for an abortion.
 

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
a trafficked pregnant woman rescued from the lifestyle absolutely should be able to abort her child without being charged for it.

That amendment prevents it.
 
Out of curiosity, are you opposed to the fund paying for abortions for victims of human trafficking?

Keep in mind, human trafficking can take many forms. The exception is for rape, but there are some human trafficking situations that some would argue are not rape, and there are some where an argument would have to be made (with that burden falling on the victim). Do you think we should be making it onerous, and potentially denying funds to a human trafficking victim, when those funds came from fines against human traffickers (rather than from your taxes)?

I hate to break it to you, but that's what the restriction is about. They didn't add "no public abortions", "no fighter jets", "no fixing potholes", "no european vacations", etc, because they wanted the money to go to victims of trafficking instead of all those other things. They added "no abortions" specifically because they want to make it onerous or impossible for some human trafficking victims to get funds from the human trafficking fines in order to pay for an abortion.

Well, I don't look at it that way, and don't think funding will be held up for victims of sex trafficking. We would be adhering to federal laws anyway, and no one is arguing that sex traffickers aren't the victims of rape.

Of course, the alternative is to let no funding go into this program because of the obstructionists in the Democratic party who already agreed to this bill and knew about the language of the bill, but now they're backtracking claiming they didn't real the bill... which is equally detestable.

Democrats are in the wrong on this one, 100% in my book.
 
It's a terrible bill that only had victims of sex trafficking attached to it so people would gloss over all the other crap that it'd also facilitate, as a previous poster so wonderfully pointed out.

Regardless of the reasons why democrats blocked the bill, or why republicans decided to attach more abortion blockage, one shouldn't use victims of sex trafficking as an excuse to expand IP law, ffs.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Not from my point of view.

I oppose abortion. Women can choose to get it, but this law doesn't say getting an abortion is illegal.

Perhaps women rescued from enslavement and rape should have private health insurance, right?


And we have laws andcourts so that societies can function even when people have opposing points of view.

Such as Roe Vs Wade.
 
Perhaps women rescued from enslavement and rape should have private health insurance, right?


And we have laws andcourts so that societies can function even when people have opposing points of view.

Such as Roe Vs Wade.

Again, I personally oppose abortion, but women can choose to get one, as it is not illegal in the United States.

I don't believe this sex trafficking bill will bar victims from getting the treatment they need -- including abortions.
 

gohepcat

Banned
Again, I personally oppose abortion, but women can choose to get one, as it is not illegal in the United States.

I don't believe this sex trafficking bill will bar victims from getting the treatment they need -- including abortions.

I'm curious. Do you also believe that all of the laws recently passed that require abortion doctors have hospital admitting rights are really about women's safety?

Regardless of your stance on abortion it should be obvious what the laws are really intended to do. Do you think it's some sort of coincidence that all of its supporters happen to be antiabortionists? These aren't being proposed by healthcare professionals. These aren't being proposed by people concerned with women's safety. None of their supporters are passing other proposals to make abortions safer.

Can you not see that you're tying yourself an knots trying to make this seem logical? I'm not saying that you're doing this out of malice but it's obvious to everyone else in this thread that you are antiabortion. I mean saying "100% Democrat's fault" is really hard to understand. It's not 100% Republican's fault, but again it should be painfully obvious what the purpose of this is. You are really going out of your way to make it seem like we would be having the same discussion if it was about fighter jets rather than abortion.
 

Cronox

Banned
Trafficking needs to be fixed and seems to be getting even worse, especially in other parts of the world.

They seem to also be expanding criminal sentences and fines instead of fixing part of this situation by legalizing and regulating prostitution. And now they are making things worse.



Pretty much looks like the police can accuse you of all of this for soliciting any prostitute. If the police are luring you in with a fake online ad or a police person acting like a prostitute, and you neglect to ask their name, you are super fucked.

You need to fix the source not go after some dumb john who doesn't realize he's making a dumb decision, just so you can pad your police force's bank accounts and arrest statistics.

To the topic at hand, what are the chances the trafficked pregnant person didn't get pregnant through rape and coercion? Doesn't seem like it should even be a section in the bill, any victims need proper health care including abortion if requested.

This part is more fucked up than the abortion stuff. A bill can only fuck so many things up before it's worthless, this one sucks.
 
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