About (Late) Last Night: 'The Daily Show' takes on House anti-abortion bill
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Last night on "The Daily Show," after two segments about the ongoing unrest in Egypt -- including Anderson Cooper's well-publicized dust-up with a gang of protesters -- Jon Stewart switched to matters domestic. Specifically, it was time to discuss a newly unveiled House bill, titled the "No Taxpayer Fundings for Abortion Act."
The proposed bill, Stewart explained, "seeks to undo a long-standing compromise that allows federal funding for abortions in extreme cases, like rape." If passed, the bill would allow federal funding only in cases of so-called "forcible rape." It's a distinction that, some critics believe, could alter the legal definition of rape by possibly excluding things such as statutory rape, or attacks that occur when a woman is under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Kristen Schaal, the show's "senior women's issues correspondent" -- and, in my opinion, easily its funniest female star -- was on the case. "You'd be surprised how many drugged, underage, or mentally handicapped young women have been gaming the system," she began. "Sorry ladies, the free abortion ride is over!"
Of course, Schaal was -- do I really need to point this out? -- being ironic. "In truth, there's a whole rainbow of rape," she argued, tongue planted firmly in cheek. "There's 'rape,' and there's 'rape-rape.'
"I don't think hard-earned tax dollars should go to women who are only 'raped-ish,'" she said.
Stewart, dutifully performing his role as the straight man, asked how much money was really on the line -- in other words, would this bill have a real financial impact, or was it largely a symbolic gesture?
Schaal responded that, in 2006, federal funds helped pay for 191 abortions for victims of rape or incest, or women whose health was at risk. Fiddling with an abacus, she declared, "That works out to two-tenths of a penny per taxpayer."
"Kristen, people's taxes go towards things they don't believe in all the time," Stewart argued, citing his own disagreement with the taxpayer-funded Iraq war.
"That's war," Schaal said matter-of-factly.
"Really, cause I really thought that might have just been 'war-ish,'" he replied.
Even for "The Daily Show," this was unusually brutal satire. Do you think it was effective?
--Meredith Blake
No... doesn't seem to have upset anybody
Posted by: Anthony | February 03, 2011 at 04:19 PM
Kristen & Jon were brilliant, but I am once again saddened that it seems to require a satirical comedy show to actually get the mainstream media to talk about these issues. Kudos to The Daily Show for using their brilliance for good getting the "forcible" language removed from the bill. Now if this bill would just die a terrible death, that would be even better.
Our country has bigger issues for our Congresspeople to concern themselves with than a cheap ploy to "save the taxpayers money." I will happily contribute my 2 tenths of one penny, thank you very much.
Posted by: Beth | February 03, 2011 at 04:40 PM
Leave it to Jon Stewart to highlight the most important issues of our time. The definition of 'rape' issue is only one of the most outrageous aspects of this bill. The others include closing Planned Parenthood, preventing any+all funding for family planning, including birth control, and banning PRIVATE insurance companies from covering abortion, in all but cases where 'forcible rape' can be proven! Most people are probably unaware of the blindsiding women's reproductive health could get, but it is horrifying that Congress is attempting to overturn the Supreme Court's decision, as well as turn this country into an extremely conservative religion-based government as any we are attempting to overthrow.
Posted by: susanna Dalton | February 03, 2011 at 05:24 PM
I don't think it's possible for anyone to be too brutal (verbally, not physically) when criticizing this issue. As a human being with an orifice which another individual can violate, I'm incredibly disappointed in the people who wrote up this bill. For a group of people constantly leaning on the "wants" and "needs" of their constituency they seem to have failed to understand what rape truly constitutes. If we were to base tax dollar funding on the number of lives taken then the government would have stopped fight in wars a long time ago. While over a million abortions were performed last year, only a handful of those were funded by tax dollars. Meanwhile, the money put in to pay for weapons and military compaigns have directly killed several times that amount.
Posted by: Lian | February 04, 2011 at 06:35 AM