Intro and Abortions

I grew up in a family of scientists, with two Radiologists and a Physicist father, so discussing the intricacies of a young man's head injury by x-ray or arguing about string theory over dinner seems commonplace to me.  Although I've chosen English as my systematic groundwork, I still love science and medicine, especially when used in analysis of sociopolitical issues, which leads me to my argument.

I like to call myself a feminist, although I admit I am still exploring what feminism means in the context of my life.  To help in my search for understanding,  I recently started blogging for 'Feisty Femmes', a blog though The Women's Center (http://blog.lib.umn.edu/women/feistyfemmes/).  A new issue on my feminist radar is the legislation being proposed by the Republicans in the HoR to change abortion law.  To the best of my knowledge, the legislation currently allows for tax money to pay for abortions which result from rape or incest.  Now House Speaker John Boehner has proposed the "No Taxpayer Founding for Abortion Act", which even as a Catholic I am strongly opposed to.  This legislation would redefine rape so the only exception would be "forcible rape", so no money for abortions resulting from "non-forced" statutory rape.  I hate the idea of abortion as much as the next person, and feel it should be the very last option, but if my 12-year-old sister was impregnated by a 30-year-old man, I'd probably be more than a little upset if she didn't qualify for Medicaid.

Society, since when is "no" not enough? What do you think people?  I feel this new legislation is a huge, and sad, step back.

For more information, and to complicate my argument, here are some news articles-

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/republican-plan-redefine-rape-abortion

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2010/jul/10073010