Post: #1

New Mexico Bill Would Criminalize Abortions After Rape As 'Tampering With Evidence'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/...41894.html


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 ®, would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence."
“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime," the bill says.
Third-degree felonies in New Mexico carry a sentence of up to three years in prison.
Pat Davis of ProgressNow New Mexico, a progressive nonprofit opposing the bill, called it "blatantly unconstitutional" on Thursday.
“The bill turns victims of rape and incest into felons and forces them to become incubators of evidence for the state,” he said. “According to Republican philosophy, victims who are ‘legitimately raped’ will now have to carry the fetus to term in order to prove their case.“
The bill is unlikely to pass, as Democrats have a majority in both chambers of New Mexico's state legislature.
UPDATE: 12:25 p.m. -- Brown said in a statement Thursday that she introduced the bill with the goal of punishing the person who commits incest or rape and then procures or facilitates an abortion to destroy the evidence of the crime.
“New Mexico needs to strengthen its laws to deter sex offenders,” said Brown. “By adding this law in New Mexico, we can help to protect women across our state.”

Post: #2

I'm starting to think these crazy Republicans are just master trolls.

Post: #3

Such ridiculous pretense.

DNA material could be extracted from the aborted fetus.

Post: #4

I am not really sure how I feel about abortion in general but I do think if a woman was raped she should have the right to terminate the pregnancy. I mean who would want to be reminded everyday after that what happened to her.

Post: #5

You can also rape a pregnant woman and get away with it under their bill. If a woman wants to claim rape she should do it while they can still get DNA evidence from a rape kit. Even that doesn't prove rape. Just proves sex occurred.

Post: #6

Since when did prosecutors need DNA evidence to convict for rape?

Post: #7

So, in case of stillbirth the accused gets to walk?

Post: #8

(Some of) The Republicans are giving us normal guys with red-pill views a bad name. I'm not a fan of abortion and I'll be the first to point out all the ways in which rape is rare and sometimes courted by the victims themselves, but this is just wrong. If a woman is raped, I'd be the first to recommend that she terminate the pregnancy. Even if she did not want to, legally barring her from choosing that is even worse.

Post: #9

If one accepts the premise that abortion, i.e. killing a fetus, constitutes murder of an unborn child, then, as distasteful as it may seem, the conclusion is inescapable that it still constitutes this even when the child is unwanted or a result of rape. A fetus is no more responsible for who his father is than than is the honest son of a lowlife, and there are plenty of men who have risen above their fathers. They have that chance because they were not killed for convenience' sake in-utero.

I find many pro-lifers to be obnoxious, narrow-minded, and hypocritical, and I do not generally associate with them, but I cannot refute their arguments when it comes to the morality of abortion in the case of rape/incest.

Whether a man is pro-life or pro-choice, he must at least admit that this legal initiative on the part of the pro-lifers is consistent with their principles and represents an 'innovative' attempt on their part to limit abortion.

Post: #10

Ovid has it right. The feminist paradigm see's the empowerment of women's sexuality to be the ultimate goodness. The hysteria is because they can not conceive the honest question that the Christian moralists ask: "Is rape a justification of terminating a fetus?"