A New Legislative Season Means A New Offensive in the GOP's War On Women
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A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.
House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for “tampering with evidence.”
So that's a new standard in barbarity, even for the GOP.
This is of course after the last two years saw a
record number of abortion measures in the states; the loss of the VAWA, which the VP is trying to get re-enacted; a continuing denial of the pay disparity that led to the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act; and numerous other offenses. I imagine there's significant griping about the women in combat decision from elected officials, though so far I've only seen the Family Research Council's protests.
So here's a thread to document the GOP's war on women. Again. Some more.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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How else is it possible to prove you were pregnant other than actually showing people your baby?
It's not like people keep records of stuff when you seek medical treatment.
Brain, spilling out of my skull here.
Choice quote:
http://www.nmtelegram.com/2013/01/24/bill-criminalizes-abortions-in-case-of-rape/
That's not an improvement.
It sounds like she said what she meant, got hit with a huge-ass backlash for it, and is now trying to backtrack. Either that, or she's too stupid to be a legislator.
whycan'titbeboth.jpg
You're saying that punishing rapists for procuring an abortion for the victim is equally as bad as punishing victims for having an abortion.
All it would do is punish rapists for using insufficient force when falcon-punching their victims in the gut.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I don't see how that wouldn't be punished as well, it isn't as if only abortions performed safely would be subject to the law. It's not particularly uncommon for victims of incest to be under the influence of their rapists.
I don't see much distinction here between the rapist forcing an abortion and a rapist forcing the baby to be carried to term. In either case, it's a further violation of the victim and it's reasonable to see additional charges brought.
"Yeah, we learned that the hard way."
"Well, what if we found a way to take away a woman's right to choose, and framed it so that anti-life people hated babies AND loved rape?"
"Awesome. Let's get lunch."
This incentivizes the sex abuser to pressure the victim into unsafe forms of abortion, away from the scrutiny of medical care providers. A big reason why we have abortion rights at all is to prevent back alley abortions.
In any case, if you really want to fight incest and spousal rape, passing more laws to bring more criminal charges to bear against the abusers isn't really going to help much. The problem isn't that we don't have a big enough book to throw at them; the problem is actually finding them, getting the victims into safe housing, and getting a conviction to stick.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I don't really see the penalty for this affecting the rapist's judgement in either case. I don't think it would even come to mind when they were considering how to prevent being caught. I agree with you though that the largest problem is finding them, and the book is large enough. The law is largely unnecessary and possibly harmful.
Le sigh.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Goddamnit.
(Wasn't sure whether to necropost or create a new thread, sorry.)
I'm pretty sure that testing for serious congenital disorders is not quite the same as eugenics, given that a lot of congenital disorders are kind of terrible and non-survivable, and maybe you don't want to deliver a baby just so you can watch it wriggle in anguish for a few hours before dying.
Anyway, I'm kinda sympathetic towards this sort of bill, even if I think it's a bad idea. Drugs like meth can do some pretty horrible things to a fetus in terms of birth defects, being born addicted, or outright death, so it's definitely a problem to be addressed. It's just that outright criminalizing it is not going to help matters, especially when the drugs themselves are already illegal. Around here, if a pregnant mom is verified to be using illegal drugs (say, the kid is born pos tox for meth), it just gets immediately reported to CPS so the family can work with social services and hopefully avert a shitty fate for the kid. That's going to work out a lot better than just throwing the mom in jail.
Edit - Oh hey guess who fell for the old news trap. D'oh.
It's a life until God "takes it home", then it becomes evidence.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
That depends, are you looking to punish a rapist or a slut?
Because, that law is going to do the opposite of what it's supposed to do. If anything it will just scare more women away from getting anywhere near a treatment program or a doctor for fear of being thrown in jail.
You know as well as the rest of us that for those assholes, it's just working as intended.
Oh my goodness.
get me off this planet