They’re still going at it, and the latest effort in New Mexico will take your breath away with its sheer vindictive nastiness.
Should a recently introduced bill in New Mexico become law, rape victims will be required to carry their pregnancies to term during their sexual assault trials or face charges of “tampering with evidence.”
Under HB 206, if a woman ended her pregnancy after being raped, both she and her doctor would be charged with a felony punishable by up to 3 years in state prison:
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.
They really, really want you to keep that rape-baby, don’t they? Imagine finding yourself pregnant from a rape and then being told that because you were the victim of a heinous crime, your right to autonomy is being suspended. The victim is now the criminal.
This law is so absurd and extreme that it will never ever be passed, and its author’s political career has just been self-destructed, right? Right?
They really, really want you to keep that rape-baby, don’t they?
You forget the unspoken little footnote – “this law does not apply to our own precious wives or daughters, who truly deserve their abortions for good legitimate reasons unlike those other sluts”.
Shouldn’t they get at least 9 months off for time served?
What blows my mind is that there are actually women who vote republican. I don’t see how they can do that.
Is there a level beyond ‘insane’? Because this would qualify.
And what is this bullshit about “tampering with evidence”? Evidence only matters when there are prosecutions, and last time I checked, Republicans weren’t all that concerned with prosecuting rape.
What happens to the ‘evidence’ after it’s born?
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I don’t think that those sociopaths make such exception. female relatives are just cattle to them.
I’ve got nothing.
This is just… *horrified silence*
Nuking this whole place from orbit is starting to sound tempting.
Indoctrination has no limits. You can brainwash people to literally sign their own death sentences and march voluntarily, smiling, to the gallows.
Surely if the aborted material were retained, this should be sufficient for DNA paternity testing. So the “tampering with evidence” aspect is an outright lie.
This is just a thinly veiled attempt at anti-abortion law. I do hope there are enough people in New Mexico that see through this.
They are good women. Rape couldn’t possibly happen to them.
As far as caring about other women goes… well, one just has to face consequences of their actions.
/ew. I feel slimy.
One note: You have to carry the baby when you MIGHT have been the victim of a heinous crime. The baby wouldn’t be evidence if the trial was completed, and innocent until proven guilty and all that.
Truly Orwellian!
Beatrice:
All I have to add is that I feel sick. Deeply sick.
Oh, I have Dworkin quote ready just for this occasion!
[/is reading “Right-wing Women”]
Find a different word to mock this women-hating shit. Terrible =/ “insane”.
Yeah, and most of these folks think abortion should only be allowed in cases of rape or incest – which it has just been ruled out for! So, it’s basically your fault for being born a woman, right? If you wanted personal autonomy, you needed to be a man.
Can we send up a nuke-equipped probe to alter a giant meteor’s orbit so that it DOES hit earth? It seems like a better idea with every passing day.
Wow!
They’re not even pretending any more – are they?
Of course – the next step will be that any woman that don’t have an abortion after the rape face charges for withholding evidence. After all – if the foetus is evidence it should be handled by the police.
That should teach them.
— J. Random MRA.
That said, I can sort of see what the legislators are going for with this one. There have been a few cases in the UK of teenage girls being impregnated by abusers who subsequently forced them to abort the pregnancy (one of the cases involved physical coercion) – in that situation, assuming you author the law correctly, you add another charge to the rapist’s rap sheet and potentially a few years to his sentence.
If you don’t, you end up with a law that criminalises doctor and patient whilst ignoring the rapist completely. Now, if you don’t resist your abuser’s demand to get rid of the baby, you’re as guilty as he is.
Why does everyone hate rape victims so much?
The only moral abortion is their own abortion.
I think they release it into the wild to forage on its own.
No.
Beatrice:
No, you don’t see. At all.
The author of the bill is now claiming that its intent is to prevent rapists from forcing their victims to get an abortion in order to conceal a crime. Riiiiight. The bill as worded makes no such distinction, and I suspect that that isn’t a very likely event anyway.
The remains of the abortion would be evidence enough.
Anyone from New Mexico or points nearby? Who is this Brown woman and who in the hell voted for her?
This is really just plain sick by any normal standards.
Fred Salvador,
To explain:
I don’t think that you are agreeing with the legislators, but you are giving them way too much benefit of the doubt even just with that “sort of” paragraph. Even if they had a tiny little bit of a hundredth part of a good intention… ok really, the execution is so horrible I can’t force myself into believing they had any teeny tiny bits of good intentions.
mithrilbiscuit:
It’s not any kind of insane. It’s cold calculation to ruthlessly strip autonomy from women, to go back to punishing the actual criminal in rape, the woman.
Ignoring all that in favour of going for “holy shit, insanity” does not help. Yeah, I get you are shocked. So are we all.
#22:
Point taken.
I re-read what I wrote and it doesn’t make sense, because in this particular case the legislators seem to be ‘going for’ a further assault against women who are suffering as a result of gender violence, rather than another charge against the rapist.
I really should’ve read that properly before I posted it.
That is just evil.
But would they extend the principle to not tampering with evidence of, say, assault and battery (or whatever the equivalent charge in the US is)? If an attacker breaks my leg, do I have to forgo fracture reduction, surgery and/or a cast so as to preserve the full evidence of the crime?
I’m going to guess the answer would be no.
Caine, that wasn’t mine.
You might have a point…if we had any reason to think the Republican Party was collectively stupid instead of collectively malicious. This isn’t a sloppily-written law that ends up hurting the people it is trying to help. This is simply another attempt to find a back door into outlawing abortion.
This MAY put NM over the top in terms of the state level contest for most evil anti-abortion law. But we’ll have to see what Oklahoma and Arizona come up with.
PZ:
So that means that 100% of rapists hang about to find out if their victim becomes pregnant.
Yeah, that makes all kinds of sense.
Figures. You responded to my comment before I had even written it. You have a time machine, don’t you?
Beatrice, I’m sorry. That’s the second time I’ve done that today.
I had to see what a monster from New Mexico looks like.
Cathrynn Brown is a GOP, forced birther, and from Carlsbad, NM.
Caine, no problem.
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The author of this bill is a woman. How sane is that ?
I simply don’t understand. Cannot. Don’t want to. Ever.
The author of this bill is a woman. How sane is that ?
Her life was made miserable by having to bear children when she didn’t want to and she doesn’t want any younger woman to be let off the hook?
This is the key point here, really.
Write the law properly and the rapist (assuming he even ends up in court in the first place) has yet another crime to answer for.
Write it without reference to specific individuals and suddenly you give tendentious prosecutors all kinds of latitude to pursue all kinds of people through the courts, including rape victims, the families of rape victims, and medical professionals.
It doesn’t specifically mention the victim, but it might as well.
Wait, does or doesn’t the body just shut that whole thing down?
I’m getting some mixed messages from these people.
Because there’s surely no reason to have a law for something that can’t possibly occur.
frankensteinmonster:
How stupid are you? You might have a working understanding to the answer to your question if you had the slightest knowledge of the history of misogyny and patriarchal systems. It gets internalized. Jesus. Try educating yourself, read Misogyny: The Oldest Prejudice in the World, by Jack Holland. You might actually learn something.
Shorter Strewth: Bitchez lie.
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How sane is that ?
Aborted. Retroactively. And justly so.
Let us
praydream on.Think about it. If this passes, ANY forced birth asshole, whether an abusive ex or some random protestor, could accuse a woman seeking an abortion of raping them and getting pregnant. They could seek an injunction preventing the abortion until an “investigation” was competed.
That is the only way I see this law working. Tupperware exists, so it’s not preserving evidence. Without a criminal complaint, there’s no way to know which women MIGHT be terminating to conceal evidence. And after the fact, it would be impossible to link a fetus with a particular father, so the crime would be very difficult to prove. So what possible application could there be, besides empowering men to prevent women from aborting until it’s too late?
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Two words. Dunning Kruger.
frankensteinmonster
I used to react like that and the thought sometimes still comes when I notice a woman supporting something extremely misogynistic. But then again, why do we expect her to stick up for her gender? She obviously feels disconnected from “those women”, those who “let” themselves get raped and then don’t want to “face the consequences of their actions”.
I agree.
Wait, that WAS a “mea culpa” right?
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Yeah. being brainwwashed into searing hatred of your own kind = perfectly sane, nothing to see here, move along
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/snark
That WAS a “mea culpa” from you, right?
yes, diddums, you’re a good example of that.
Dismissing really common attitudes as “insanity” doesn’t actually help anyone at all.
Black people vote for laws that harm black people.
There is even a name for gay men who support gay haters (homocons, if I remember correctly).
And really, if you’re going to look at it this way:
We’re all the same kind and yet humans kill other humans without much trouble.
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because it is the sane thing to do ?
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disconnection from reality not exactly evidence of sanity methinks
IOW, bitches are kkkeeeeerrrraaaazzzyyyy, amirite bro?
frankensteinmonster,
You’re just baiting now and doing it quite obviously. Kindly fuck off.
I am not at all surprised that a woman wrote the bill. When I was growing up, even not paying attention to news and having no twenty four hour news cycles, it was hard to miss Phyllis Schlafly. And when I started to become conscience of feminist issues, talk of “Spartan Women”, women who enforced patriarchal standards, were never far behind.
Also, this idea that rapists are forcing their victims to get abortions to “get rid of the evidence” fits into their narrative of Planned Parenthood and abortion providers being part of a money making murder scheme that exploits women.
Disgusted but not at all surprised by this.
Words alone can not convey the depth of sadness and revulsion this evokes in me. This almost makes me want to quit the human species. It is only the likes of you folks here that keeps me from succumbing to such deep despair. The author of this vile piece of legislation is an enemy of life, a foe of the intellect, an odious abomination.
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hating and harming some members of the same group for unrelated reasons is quite something different from hating and intentionally harming your group as a whole
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And there are not many humans who hate their own species, and actively try to harm the entire humankind.
A baby conceived from rape is a gift from God in the eyes of Republicans, so no problemo. Of course, if the mother can’t afford to care for the baby, too bad with getting healthcare or food for it. Then the mother and baby are moochers living off the taxpayers.
No, that diagnosis excludes the possibility of self-awareness.
frankensteinmonster,
Ah! but she is not harming all women. She is just harming those sluts who get themselves raped.
Humans have an incredible (and sometimes horrifying) capability of rationalization.
@ resident trolls, here, a cake for you :
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evidence ? Oh yeah, I disagree with you. Q.E.D.
.
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You could also directly admit you ran out of arguments ;)
frankensteinmonster,
You can show that smiley where the sun don’t shine.
I thought it was bad when women were turned into cattle for breeding. Now they’re being turned into inanimate objects for storage, too.
You can shove that smiley where the sun don’t shine.
(FTFM)
“Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the foetus from conception to nine months; after that they don’t wanna know about you – if you’re pre-born, you’re fine; if you’re pre-school, you’re fucked!”
— George Carlin
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I have to repeat myself here :
.
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being completely absorbed in your from reality entirely divorced rationalizations is not a very sane thing to do. but, it is true, humans have an incredible capacity to lose their sanity that way..
Brown now says the bill was badly drafted and has language problems. I think in the legal profession that’s called a C.Y.A. motion.
http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/newmexico/2013/01/a-media-storm-for-rep-brown.html
You started out here as a fuckwit and remain a fuckwit. Women have been subjugated and oppressed for centuries. It has been taught, over and over and over and over, that if a woman is virtuous, she will be safe. If a good woman loses her virtue, she must be the one to pay for it and it must have been her doing, somehow, in the first place. We come from a history where it was legal for a husband or father to murder a woman for drinking wine or being seen in public. You really think that the legacy of all that crap has just up and disappeared? Because, if you want to see just how much it’s still with us, I suggest you look in the mirror.
frankensteinmonster,
Going by whatever vague definition of “sanity” I can glimpse from your words, I doubt any person alive would qualify. Except maybe you, right?
Lovely talking to you, but I’m done.
No, that doesn’t mean I don’t have arguments, they are nicely laid out in this thread, I just don’t feel like repeating myself so that you could answer with “Oh yeah? Well that’s insane!”
It seem you are the one who has no real argument except that.
So, her defence is that she’s an incompetent idiot? That explains her political affiliations, but doesn’t make it ok.
keep your anal fantasies for yourself. I am not interested.
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( verbal abuse in -> verbal abuse out )
When Frankie accuses regulars of trolling, he is giving prima facie evidence that he is trolling the regulars. Otherwise, he would just shut up.
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methinks that sanity is a continuous scale and 100 % sanity is as impossible as 100 % efficiency.
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then what about stopping justifying one crazy with another ? ;)
Aaaand yet another thread about violence against women turns into a thread all about yet another ignorant bigot and his need for attention.
For the first time ever, I’m going to say it: starve the useless bigot till it dies.
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and this whole process has a name. indoctrination a.k.a. brainwashing.
.
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You are putting words in my mouth that I did not say. Why ?
This is an obvious lie, or proof of staggering incompetence. Did she not read it before it went out, or did she seriously think everyone in NM is as misogynistic as she is?
Illuminata,
I’m skimming some articles about this, and I can’t find the one where I read it, but I think she said that it was a draft that got out without her checking the bill. She’s really thorough the rest of the time, she said.
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I did not say anything bigoted. ( if you claim I did, quote, where ). Neither I need the torrent of verbal abuse currently pouring at me. It is all you who turn this thread into just another stupid flame. So why you are attacking me ? Did you run out of real targets so you are attacking just any stranger that comes near ?
Beatrice:
So it’s staggering incompetence AND an obvious lie. Amazing what republicans can do!
“So, her defence is that she’s an incompetent idiot?”
That the excuse, but the truth is that given past Republican statements on the subject of abortion and rape she really does have to be an incompetent idiot to think that the bill she sponsored wouldn’t spark a firestorm in the media. Or maybe she wants the publicity, bad as it is, in order to further her political career. in New Mexico. I have a hard time believing anyone (especially someone who is a lawyer like Rep. Brown) could read that bill and NOT know it criminalizes a victim of rape for a transparently bogus reason.
frankensteinmonster,
Take your whining somewhere else. It has nothing to do with the topic.
“Meet my daughter, Exhibit A.”
That’s the most disgusting news I’ve read today. There seem to be no lows the anti-choicers won’t stoop to.
For all the uselessly ignorant bigots out there:
Ableism
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cathrynn-Brown-for-State-Representative/146704905361285?sk=info
She has a 92% rating, an “A,” from the NRA.
She has a big family, judging by the Christmas photo of her family on her website. I suspect mormonism.
She is a friend of Steve Pearce, a congress critter who will not vote to renew the Violence Against Women act.
Beatrice:
That would also be classic CYA.
Illuminata,
Found the article : http://www.currentargus.com/ci_22441980/carlsbads-cathrynn-brown-under-fire-bill-abortion-by
*googles CYA*
Ah. Yes it is.
Neither have your baseless, stupid attacks against me. So stop attacking and I will have no need to defend myself.
Whoops, guessed incorrectly when it comes to Cathrynn Brown’s religion. She is listed as “Nazarene.”
http://publicservantsprayer.org/leaders/rep-cathrynn-brown
Well, let’s see, if it really is just bad drafting (not that I believe that for a moment), how to fix this malodorous heap of rat shit?
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First, language clearly stating that under no circumstances will the victim ever be subject to prosecution.
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Second, language clearly stating that a rape crisis counselor will never be subject to prosecution.
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Third, language clearly stating that an abortion provider will never be subject to prosecution.
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Fourth, I’d want to see something beefing up the specific intent element. The law says that someone is guilty only if they act with specific intent of destroying evidence of the crime. As others have pointed out, this doesn’t make a lot of sense because the aborted fetus itself would still be evidence. However, if we assume for the sake of argument that this is something that needs to be addressed, I’d want it made clear so that friends or family members of the victim would not be subject to prosecution for simply talking with the victim about the pros and cons of the question. Perhaps it would be enough that the state be required to prove that anyone charged under this law was acting as an agent in some capacity for the rapist.
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Provide evidence that I actually committed the ‘crime’ of ableism, and I will apologize on the spot and never do it again. Where evidence of course does not mean ‘another round of frivolous insults’
This proposed bill is a GOP two-fer. A woman who reports a rape can’t get a legal abortion should she become impregnated by it so women will effectively stop reporting rapes since the cost will become that much higher. This essentially legalizes rape.
I find it encouraging that Brown feels the need to CHA on this one. Probably it was never expected to pass and its only real purpose was voter base service.
Nonetheless, when do you suppose the next NM election is? Women have ways of shutting these things down, you know. They can be quite effective against certain politicians (Akin.)
Comment by frankensteinmonster blocked. [unhush][show comment]
——
Well, that was… something.
Beatrice:
Yep. Now that there’s a media shitstorm, it’s all “I didn’t mean it that way!” going on, when of course she did mean it that way. She’s a religious right winger, out to do what she can to reinforce the power of the patriarchal system.
Using the term “insanity” as a synonym for “I think this person is wrong and hateful” is ableist bullshit and should not be tolerated. People who engage on ableist bullshit make a good case for being bigots, and also should be forced to walk barefoot over Legos until they cry for mercy and promise to not say bigoted things.
I feel ill. This is sick.
So, if the investigation and trial takes longer than 9 months, does the victim hand over the evidence so it can be put in the evidence locker? And in what other case would we tell the victim of a crime, “You have to hold this evidence until the trial”?
From Vote Smart:
From ballotpedia:
Oh, no, it’s just an accident that she didn’t edit “carefully” and “diligently” on this particular bill. /s
Third, language clearly stating that an abortion provider will never be subject to prosecution.
This is a major rewrite since, if I understand correctly, the current version explicitly states that providers WILL be prosecuted if they provide an abortion to a rape victim. Why isn’t ACOG all over this sort of crap?
Allegro:
Yes. As we all know, the way law enforcement handles cases of rape now is less than stellar, can you imagine their reaction if a woman waited 6 to 8 weeks to find out if she was pregnant or not before reporting? Yeah, that’s gonna happen.
All I want for Christmas is an iPad browser with greasemonkey capability…
Ogvorbis:
Yes, that question went through my mind too – so, do the cops get to keep the evidence, like in all other cases?
So, if the investigation and trial takes longer than 9 months, does the victim hand over the evidence so it can be put in the evidence locker?
Don’t be silly! She’s supposed to hand it over to the father, because fathers have rights too! (/MRA) Alternately, she’s supposed to hand it over to an “abortion alternatives” agency for sale to the highest straight, Christian bidder. Babies are commodities in the “pro-life” world, not people.
Fuck. TRIGGER WARNING! on my last comment. Sorry!
This is an example of why you should read to the end.
“…with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.”
In other words, this law is not saying you cannot abort rape babies because that would be destroying evidence. It’s saying that it’s a crime to force a woman to get an abortion for the purpose of covering up your rape. I dunno what PZ is talking about when he says the law as written makes no such distinction, but this is clearly yet another example of the people here going off half-cocked without finishing the reading first.
Nobody seems to have noticed yet that PZ is coming out AGAINST a law that makes it a crime to force a woman to get an abortion. Cuz you know, he’s totally against misogyny.
Oggie:
Well, it certainly would break the chain of custody for the “evidence”, wouldn’t it?
Sorry to make light, but every time I ask myself “how much more evil can the Republicans get??” they answer me in spades. And then I want to barf and move to a private island.
Dianne:
To an extent…much is dependent on the colour of the evidence.
Is it me or does the law also seem to say that if she doesn’t report the rape, she can get an abortion. It’s only a crime to abort ONLY IF you report the rape.
What a way to cut down on reported crimes, making it a crime to do so and exepct to be treated like a person.
.
I agree. However, this is not what I am saying. What I am saying, is, that this level and type of irrational (self)hatred is not just mere ‘wrong, hateful, or evil’, but a symptom of an actual pathology, just as is the
idea’s painfully obvious ( for us, anyway ) disconnect from the reality.
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There is nothing ‘ableist’ per se, about thinking that something is a sign of a disorder. ( provided you dont’ just label everything, included mundane evil as disorder, which I don’t ). It may be right, it may be wrong, but ableist it is not.
dianne @ 103, yes, it would be a major rewrite. But I think it would be a crucial requirement for two reasons. First, without it, any abortion provider could be subject to harassing prosecution from an abusive prosecutor. We don’t need any more disincentives for abortion providers. Second, I believe it is incredibly unlikely that any abortion provider would ever act in concert with a rapist to coerce a woman to get an abortion. If that’s accurate, the chilling effect of the mere chance of a frivolous prosecution is enough of a reason to keep out the possibility of prosecuting any abortion provider that might go bad.
bovarchist:
Considering your fuckwittedness, that’s not surprising. Gee, it’s odd, all the CYA going on in light of it being so crystal clear and distinct.
It’s very, very clear that this is nothing more than an anti-choice bill meant to be disguised as “protecting” women; otherwise it would actually use clear language to punish individuals coercing women into an abortion and would create/support safe & anonymous resources for rape victims who find themselves pregnant.
Issue about evidence
From palefury
From raven
There seems to be some confusion that most abortions would leave anything that would be remotely useful in DNA comparison. The vast majority of abortions are so early that they’re medical rather than surgical. I know through personal experience that there’s no discharge you can identify as fetal with your basic early abortion; aside from some different pain and extra clotting it bears a strong resemblance to a very heavy period.
Another potential issue is in the case of a medication abortion, you aren’t losing uterine contents at a doctor’s office but at home. Assuming you can find something that’s potentially fetal tissue, how do you preserve that for evidence?
bovarchist @ 109, ever heard of prosecutorial abuse of power? This bill needs considerable amending to protect a variety of people from the possibility of a harassing prosecutor.
bovarchist,
I’m pretty sure that forcing someone to undergo a medical procedure against their will is already illegal.
How would you determine intent without intimidating women and doctors? That’s what these laws do– they make it more and more difficult for women to have “legitimate” reasons for an abortion. And how long will docs continue to.practice if they never can tell if they’re breaking the law?
(I’m being charitable because three post rule and whatnot.)
Please let this law never be passed.
bovarchist,
Fetus is considered evidence of a crime of rape.
Woman wants to abort the fetus.
-> Woman wants to destroy evidence of a crime of rape.
That’s what this law says.
slignot:
We’re talking about women being prevented from obtaining an abortion.
Whoa, this bill is pretty god-damn evil. Is a complete and utter lack of compassion/empathy a prerequisite to joining the Republican Party, along with hatred of science and knowledge? My contempt for these fuckers gets bigger every time I read the news.
Beatrice @ 120, to be entirely accurate, that’s not what this bill says. This bill has a specific intent component. The state has to prove that the reason for the abortion is to destroy evidence of a crime. The mere fact of an abortion itself is insufficient to get a conviction. Now, the possibility for an abusive prosecution for chilling purposes is still there, which makes this bill trash. But the law is a bit more complicated than you indicate.
@109
You obviously don’t understand what the law proposed is saying if you think the last part gives women the right to abort rape babies. The law is written in a purposefully vague manner, so that if a woman wants an abortion after a rape, it will appear that she is intending to destroy evidence. Intent in a mental state. The prosecution would need only show that the elements of the crime were fulfilled; that is, a fetus that was the result of a rape was aborted, and that there was intent to destroy evidence. All the prosecution needs to do is show that she intended to destroy the fetus by aborting it. Since the fetus is being used as “evidence” of the rape, then she obviously intended to destroy the evidence.
You’re a fucking moron if you can’t understand that. This law is obviously a tactic to intimidate women and doctors into not having/performing abortions by making the laws muddy enough that people can’t be sure if they’ll be prosecuted or not for performing a procedure that should be legal.
Caine,
I think 1. I wasn’t clear here or 2. you read me totally wrong or 3. both. I completely understand this bill is to block women from getting access to reproductive medical care.
I was talking about people in this thread being confused that if women are allowed access to abortion, that there will be any tissue for analysis.
subbie @ 123
The phrase “intent” is subject to interpertation. For example if the persecution thinks the victim was offered money to decline to press charges, then the “intent” of her getting an abortion is to cover up the crime. Of course the persecution doesn’t have to have grounds for their suspicion. Or worse, the rapist could make the offer as a means to further intimidate and control his victim.
Alverant @ 126, you’re quite right. That’s why my first point was to make it clear that before anything like this can even be considered it has to include specific protection preventing prosecution of victims, abortion providers, rape crisis counselors and others.
Fixed.
@123
You’re missing the fact that the law is written in a purposefully vague manner. The intent part is unclear enough that if a woman seeks to abort a fetus resulting from rape, the prosecution can show that, because the fetus is evidence, she intended to destroy evidence simply because she intended to abort it. It’s not as if she can just say she didn’t intend to impede the investigation and get off the hook, because of the lack of clarity in the statute as presented.
subbie,
I tried to simplify it for bovarchist, but I apparently went too far. Thanks for the correction.
While my explanation was too simplified, women could at least easily be put on trial for “tampering with evidence”, if not convicted. It has a hell of an intimidation factor.
Slignot:
There’s PLENTY of tissue for analysis. It’s done all the damn time.
wytchy @ 129, no I’m not. My first point was that the law needs to clearly state that under no circumstances shall the victim be subject to prosecution. I do think this needs to be in there regardless of any ambiguities in the intent element of the crime.
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My point to Beatrice was to clarify what the specific intent element of the bill means, a relatively esoteric point in criminal law, not to suggest by any stretch of the imagination that that was sufficient protection against an abusive prosecution of victims.
C’mon people, this is just an anti-abortion bill,
Cathrynn Brown is a GOP member, a fundie death cult xian (Nazarene), and a member of the NM Right to Forced Births and Female Slavery organization.
No point in making the simple complicated.
@25
Brown is a rep. from Eddy County, which borders Texas.
That should explain a lot.
Beatrice @ 130, there’s no question that the bill as proposed could very easily be abused to harass rape victims. Absent the kind of broadly written protections I suggested, this crapload of fecal matter ought never see the light of day.
@129
“…not to suggest by any stretch of the imagination that that was sufficient protection against an abusive prosecution of victims.”
My bad, I thought that’s what you were proposing.
much is dependent on the colour of the evidence.
I disagree. Babies are always commodities to the “pro-life” advocate. It is simply their value that varies with color.
subbie:
This bill should never see the light of day under any circumstances. It is yet another anti-abortion bill in the unending war that Republicans are waging on women.
I was just thinking it was a few days since the last Republican rape fiasco.
Well, that is 24 carats of pure evil. This is nothing less than openly criminalising the victim – the only difference between this and the public stoning of rape vicitms is that the Republicans prefer to use nice, neat laws and tidy courtrooms to ruin women’s lives rather than making a mess on the street.
Years of watching one monstrous anti-woman Bill (that all too often become law) after another being spewed out by the American religious Right has long since taught me that there are no depths the Republicans won’t sink to in pursuit of their war on women, but being confronted with such calculated, public evil just goes to show how bold they have become – they don’t even bother trying to hide their bilious hatred of 50% of the species anymore.
———————————————————————————————————————-
allegro @ 96;
Exactly – they know full well that it will stop women who have been raped from coming forward. It allows them to punish women who do report their rapes by forcing them to bear the foetus, and thus scare many more women into never reporting their rape at all. It is practically a rapist’s charter, and it (not at all coincidentally) makes using rape and the threat of rape to enforce conformity with gender norms that much easier.
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Caine, Infuriated Invisible Pixel @ 104;
It will be the go-to defence tactic, in those cases where the police don’t simply refuse to action the case at all, or the District Attorney declines to prosecute (*Trigger Warning*) – why did you wait so long to come forward with your rape claim? There will be no physical evidence left so long after the fact, we can’t do a sexual assault kit, so even if you were raped it is too late now. Are you sure you were raped, and you aren’t just trying to get back at him? Are you absolutely sure of your version of events so long after the fact? Etc, etc.
It will quickly become another standard victim blaming trope wheeled out by MRAs and anti-choice arsehats alike. The new formula for the notional ‘culpable victim of rape’ will be “an-attractive-woman-wearing-revealing-clothes-walking-in-a-bad-neighbourhood-at-night-while-inebriated-who-is-raped-and-then-fails-to-come-forward-in-a-timely-fashion”.
Republicans really are numbered amongst the most disgusting creatures that crawl upon our Blue Planet. I would rather spend quality time with a nice, honest, intestinal parasite any day of the week.
If preservation of evidence is truly the issue, the bill should really be about allowing doctors to preserve DNA evidence from the aborted material. This bill is really no surprise, though; the depths to which these scumbags will fathom to try to spread their archaic and barbaric morality is immeasurable. What causes me pause is the amount of time these creeps put into plotting these nefarious laws. If they spent just a fraction of that time actually trying to figure out ways to really help people, this country would be a far better place. As it is, they just keep dragging the country down into the depths of their antiquated, despotic, superstitious beliefs in their frightening, but pathetic attempts to control all who disagree with them.
Hekuni Cat, MQG @ 138, as it is currently written, I can’t disagree with you. That’s not to say, however, that additional prosecutions for rapists who try to coerce victims to get abortions wouldn’t be a good idea. And, if you think it is, the suggestions I made upthread are the kinds of things that any such bill would need to have, at a minimum.
“You claim you were raped? You have obtained an abortion a week ago. How convenient. If you were really raped, why get rid of the evidence?”
/raising suspicion that fetus was from some other man which makes the victim a Slut and therefore unrapeable
Oh. No. Ahrg. I’m starting to imagine scenarios like that.
congaboy:
There’s no problem with doctors doing this in the first place. DNA from aborted fetuses have been used to convict rapists.
Bovarchist & Subbie (and other quasi-apologists for this bill whom I may have skipped over):
This bill, much like the ‘cannot abort for reasons of gender-selection’ bills pushed in various states, follows a very deliberate pattern:
1: Find an obscure, niche-case activity that is genuinely acceptable.
2: Write a law ostensibly meant to address that behavior.
3: Make the law vague, and ensure that it places responsibility for determining that the activity is not occurring on the abortion provider.
The end result is that doctors are deliberately pushed away from providing care to patients who may not wish to disclose the full circumstance of their pregnancy. A woman in an abusive relationship, for instance, may not feel she can safely report her abuser yet, and may even be aware that the doctor is a mandatory reporter, and thus not want to describe the relationship. If the doctor can’t be certain that the woman’s reticence is not an attempt to cover up rape or incest, then the doctor is at risk of prosecution if they perform the procedure.
Let me see if I’ve got this right:
A woman is raped. She becomes pregnant as a result.
If this bill passes, then:
(1) If she reports, she will be prevented from having an abortion.
(2) If she does not report, she can have an abortion (the other roadblocks for abortion in that area must be considered, of course).
So:
If (1), a woman is punished by either being imprisoned for having a legal medical procedure, or punished by being forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy. If (2), a rape victim is denied justice.
Women lose either way. Also, in the second, the state can claim that rape stats are dropping.
UGH.
Give it up, subbie. Even the bill’s author admits that it’s “poorly written” and could be used to prosecute rape victims.
Shouldn’t forcing a woman to have an abortion already be against the law? Just like forcing her to undergo any other kind of medical procedure against her will.
But then again, I would expect not allowing a woman to have an abortion should be against the law too.
I am not a lawyer. My only legal training is from television shows.
@bovarchist
No, it doesn’t. What’s illegal is “…procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion.”
A woman getting an abortion of her own free will would fall under that, since she’s procuring an abortion. The doctor performing the abortion would also be at risk, since he’s facilitating the abortion. Hell, the friend who drives the woman to the clinic could be charged.
Yes, this would make it illegal to force a woman into getting an abortion, but that’s already illegal. Surely, forcing a person to get a medical procedure against their will is illegal, right? There’s no need for a special law on this.
What he’s on about is the fact that it doesn’t make any such distinction.
For example, let’s say that a woman is raped, reports the rape to the police, then goes to have an abortion. Couldn’t the rapist claim that if a paternity test was done, it would have proven that he wasn’t the father and therefore not guilty of the rape? Wouldn’t that mean that the woman had tapered with the evidence? How is she going to prove that she didn’t intend to destroy evidence? Are we just going to take her word for it? Is that a reasonable legal standard?
And if it is, then what’s the point of the law? Let’s say that a man rapes his daughter and forces her to have an abortion to cover it up. When he’s accused of trying to destroy evidence, couldn’t he simply claim that he was only concerned for his daughter’s health and that’s why he made sure he got the abortion? If we’re going to trust the woman on her word that she didn’t intend to destroy evidence, then why shouldn’t we trust the man?
Both are accused of a crime, both give the same defense. If the woman can avoid prosecution simply by saying “no, I didn’t,” then so can the man. If he cant, then neither can she. In the first case, the law is having unintended (or maybe not, different discussion) consequences, in the second, it’s useless.
This is sloppy legislation and it opens up a minefield of possible prosecutions. Any benefit is already covered by the law and the possible problems are legion.
And this bit just proves that you’re another jackass here to pursue a vendetta against PZ. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were from the ‘pit. For the sake of anyone honest, here’s why you’re full of shit:
PZ’s against this bill not because it makes it a crime to force a woman to get an abortion (that’s already illegal), but because it could potentially be used to force a woman not to have an abortion or to jail her if she did.
There seems to be some confusion that most abortions would leave anything that would be remotely useful in DNA comparison. The vast majority of abortions are so early that they’re medical rather than surgical.
There’s a simple solution to this problem. When a woman presents for an early abortion which could be performed medically, the provider asks if the pregnancy is a result of a prosecutable offense such as rape or incest. If she says yes, the provider suggests a surgical rather than medical abortion to ensure the best collection of evidence. End of problem.
Actually, I seem to have flipped those around, but presumably the point was still clear.
Beatrice @ 148;
As far as I know, it is already against the law in most Western countries including the US, making this law a pointless legal tautology in addition to be a rapists charter-by-stealth.
That would require that society be just, equitable, and socially developed enough to recognise that a woman’s right to bodily autonomy is in all regards the equal of that of a man, and may not be abridged simply because she is bearing a de facto parasite in her uterus. It appears that many parts of the United States are still too backward and religion-infested as a culture to have reached this point yet.
American ‘exceptionalism’ in action…
There’s one point that needs to be addressed: This isn’t about New Mexico being batshit but rather about one batshit crazy Republican who represents one batshit part of the state.
As someone who has lived in New Mexico and may well live again in New Mexico, it should be mentioned that most of the eastern part of the state (with the exception of the extreme southeastern corner) might as well be Texas and is widely assumed by New Mexicans to be a cultural and political part of Texas. What happens in this one sliver of the state does not reflect the whole state. (At the same time, El Paso and most of extreme southwestern Texas might as well be part of New Mexico. Anyone living in these areas will tell you this.)
We should also remember that the ENTIRE I-25 corridor, from Las Cruces (near the border with Mexico) to Raton (right at the border with Colorado) has a democratic majority. This encompasses all of the major cities in New Mexico. Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Raton all have more than 50% registered Democrats. Some areas, such as Santa Fe, Las Vegas (yes there is a Las Vegas in New Mexico) Espanola and Taos, are 75% or more Democratic. New Mexico is a blue state for this reason. This is also why this bill doesn’t stand a snowflake’s chance in hell of passing.
I’m a lawyer. When I see a badly written bill, my first reaction it to redraft it. I’ll be the first to admit that others are far more qualified than I am in how to deal with the consequences of rape. If someone who has that expertise tells me that any law of this sort presents greater potential for abuse, no matter how drafted, than the benefit of leveling additional charges against a rapist, I’ll accept their judgment as better informed than mine. And, let me make it perfectly clear, I don’t consider the person who drafted this bill to be such a person.
What was that about how you could totally still get an abortion again?
Frankie, it’s not self-hatred. The likes of Brown don’t see themselves in the groups of people they oppress.
Caine, I was aware that it was done in cases of surgical abortion, but had no idea it was simple or commonplace for early abortions. I’ll happily admit I’m wrong if that’s the case, since I want more more rapists convicted and abortions for victims to be as easy and inexpensive as possible.
I will say that the language in the stories from your link don’t lead me to believe that these were medication abortions. For one thing, a medication abortion isn’t actually “perfomed” in a clinic in my experience. One medication is administered orally in the office and they send you out with a prescription of other pills to be inserted vaginally at home before going to bed. When there’s a warrant for tissue, do they have a woman stay in a medical facility somewhere overnight? I’m having a hard time understanding how that works with this type of abortion.
dianne, this doesn’t seem so simple to me. Surgical abortions are obviously possible during early pregnancy, but they are much more expensive and time consuming. Does the victim have to foot the cost of a much more expensive procedure to ensure they collect tissue samples in the office? This just seems like an expansion of the injustice of making victims pay for their own forensic examination, which is already a problem in many places.
They are also a significantly more painful and involved procedures even without the risk of further triggering and trauma. This hardly seems like the ideal way to treat a woman who’s been violated.
That’s the thing. The “procuring and facilitating” is separate from the “compelling or coercing”. As I read it, it’s pretty clear that a completely voluntary, uncoerced abortion would definitely still be covered by this bill.
Rachel:
I’ll be over there —-> banging my head into a wall.
*sigh*
Stop fucking equating horrible human beings and the horrible acts they commit with those who are mentally ill. Christ.
@LykeX
#158
Okay… let’s re-emphasize a different part of it.
“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,”
See that “or” there?
Remember how “or” work?
The law, if read exactly as is, would mean that JUST procuring or facilitating an abortion would be considered tampering with evidence.
The law would’ve just been fine if they leave out the “procuring or facilitating” phrase out of it! There’s no reason for it to be there if the goal is to stop rapist from forcing the victim to go get an abortion!
Caine:
Seriously?
@WharGarbl
Isn’t that what I just said? Unless I’m reading you wrong, we’re in agreement.
Can the twenty dead kids at Sandy Hook ES prove they were “forcibly murdered”? The nauseating obscenity of a construction like “forcible rape” beggars belief.
Rachel Kiernan
Calling someone ‘crazy’ just because you disagree with them is lazy.
You need to be more specific and detailed.
Otherwise how do the rest of us know if we really agree with you.
@slignot
#157
Details can change, but in general the focus should be on the women’s decision. If it comes to the more expensive procedure, I could see a few ways it can be covered.
1. Covered by insurance as part of the legal requirement.
2. Covered by the budget allocated for forensics.
Let her choose whether to provide the evidence or not might be the best option.
@LykeX
#162
Oops, my apology, I read that as you believe that the law allows for purely voluntary abortion.
Really need to slow down on the commenting when pissed off.
Rachel:
Yes, seriously. Did you happen to read the thread? The bits about a certain person insisting on using ‘insane’? No splash damage, please. That includes ableism.
From the rules:
@WharGarbl
No worries. Been there, done that.
Rob:
That’s a dog whistle. It means only a certain type of rape (a violent stranger rape) will be considered to be legitimate, which makes the majority of rapes (acquaintance, date or familial) to be “not rapes”.
WharGarbl, what you suggest would rely on the justice system being a thousand times more well…just than it is now.
The number of ways that insurance is protected and in many cases banned from covering abortion is enormous, well beyond the Hyde amendment and is just not reasonable.
The budget for forensics? Rape victims are frequently charged for processing their rape kits. Do you really think there is any circumstance in which funds would be allocated to shield victims from additional costs here?
yes
seriously
@Rachel Kiernan
There’s legitimate concern about using terms denoting mental disorder when what you’re really aiming for is disagreement, stupidity, lack of empathy or education, or an otherwise problematic, but entirely sane, position.
Not only does it function as “othering,” it also emphasizes the stigma of mental disorders. On top of that, it’s imprecise. It basically works as nothing more than an expletive. Just like we avoid words like “cunt”, we try to avoid the use of “crazy” when what we really mean is “dumbass”.
OK, so, if someone complains about the crazy drivers on the road, you’re hearing it as an insult against the mentally ill or mentally handicapped? I can honestly say I’ve never heard the word “batshit” used to be applied toward anyone who is mentally ill nor mentally handicapped though it is applied toward those who do crazy and stupid things – as it should be. This is why words such as “batshit” exist. In this case, one particular politician is using her personal relationship with an invisible friend to subjugate women, which does actually seem pretty darn crazy (or batshit) to me.
Now, I also need to point out that I have read far worse things on this site in regards to those who use their religion as a weapon. “Batshit” is pretty tame in comparison. At this moment, a new post on this site by the author refers to marines as being “psychologically delicate.”
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/24/why-shouldnt-women-serve-in-the-military/
Does that also get your ire? Is he slurring mentally handicapped people or is he making a valid point about the culture of our U.S. military?
Meanwhile… Batshit is as batshit does. I stand by my comment.
Oh, and a followup about fetal DNA evidence. Turns out my confusion about how you isolate fetal tissue from uterine discharge is potentially moot, per Blag Hag’s post on this; you can apparently collect fetal cells from the mother’s own blood samples.
Nifty and significantly less complicated.
LykeX,
Is “batshit” different from “dumbass”? I’ve used them interchangeably. I should also point out, “dumb” was once a term used almost exclusively for those who were “deaf and dumb” or otherwise mentally inferior and unable to learn. I have certainly never used either word to refer to someone who was truly mentally ill, nor have I heard these words used for the mentally ill nor mentally handicapped.
The word “dumb” certainly isn’t as politically correct as some might like. (From dictionary.com)
dumb
dumb [duhm] Show IPA adjective, dumb·er, dumb·est, verb
adjective
1.
lacking intelligence or good judgment; stupid; dull-witted.
2.
lacking the power of speech (often offensive when applied to humans): a dumb animal.
3.
temporarily unable to speak: dumb with astonishment.
4.
refraining from any or much speech; silent.
5.
made, done, etc., without speech.
Rachel:
Well good for you. It’s unfortunate that you don’t understand that batshit and crazy both mean mentally unsound or mentally unstable.
As for psychologically delicate, that was a stiletto strike against someone proclaiming the toughness of marines, unless, of course, they are forced to serve with women.
Rachel Kiernan
Sometimes PZ is wrong.
Here is the simple rule for you:
Don’t use ‘crazy’ here.
And no one knows what you are objecting to if you use ‘batshit’.
Rachel:
Why yes, they are different! And quoting the dictionary will not make you right. It’s just showing you to be someone who can’t handle their own biases and change them. Nothing you’re doing excuses your ableism.
The “reasoning” behind that “bill” is truly stupid.
Abortion is not tempering with evidence it would reveal the DNA evidence that could be used in court right away. In that sense this “bill” is countering the alleged purpose. They should pass a bill that allows for the use of DNA tests from abortions in rape cases.
Absolutely seriously.
Rachel.
The rules regarding insults here is very simple:
If an insult denigrates persons of a disadvantaged group (women, LGBT people, people with mental illness, disabled people, to name a few), then it is verboten.
We don’t host arguments like “but “cunt” totally doesn’t mean that in the UK!” or “but “dumb” hasn’t meant “unable to speak” in popular parlance for years!”
We don’t.
@Caine
#169
First its “legitimate rape”.
Then its “forcible rape”.
You know what? I’m waiting for the time when it became “no such thing as rape”…
No such thing as a rape victim
… oh look! Already there! That didn’t take long.
Let me get this straight: The comments section has now been hijacked because someone took offense at one word, though other words which mean the same or worse things are considered more politically correct and therefore OK to use. Objective proof about the actual meanings of these words are disregarded, because one person has no use for objective proof about what words in the English language truly mean. In the meantime, an intelligent post about the voting realities of a state are disregarded because someone took offense at a word – and wanted me to use more offensive words.
Duly noted.
Rachel, we have standards and rules here that are indeed different from other places.
Want to debate them? Hop on over to Thunderdome, where we debate stuff.
No, if people object or are offended, you don’t use it. What part of that don’t you understand, so we can explain it to you in words of one syllable or less? Your dictionary won’t override somebody feeling unnecessarily insulted…
@Rachel
1) The thread has not been hijacked.
2) The only reason this is a big deal is because you’re refusing to acknowledge the community standard. If you would simply go “Oh, okay. I’ll look out for that in the future” then we’d be done and moving on to something else.
We correct each other all the time around here. New visitors get it and old regulars get it. I’ve been corrected myself more than once. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.
Rachel, the basic idea that people shouldn’t use words that refer to groups of people as insults for specific people as insults is sound. Now, the use of the word “crazy” has A) never, to my knowledge, and certainly not within extended living memory been an official term of reference to any group and B) been considerably divorced from the concept of mental illness per se, such that usage to refer to a pathology of ideas, and specifically to behaviors or ideas that are at odds with reality, uncontrolled, frightening, and dangerous with or without accompanying psychiatric disorders seems to be significantly more common than reference to those with actual mental disorders, and one could argue that forbidding “crazy” on the same reasoning that, say, “retarded” is unaccepted, is an example of hypercorrection, but it is not worth fighting an upcliff battle over.
To continue the discussion about word use
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/20/thunderdome-15/comment-page-2/
Btw :
If you want to hear what the right-right-wing thinks about rape and abortion: tune in AFR right now.
WharGarbl:
Yeah, that was something. The religious right will do anything to disappear rape, because treating rape as a crime and punishing it does not fit within the religio-patriarchal foundation they believe in.
I’m sure they’d be happy to prosecute it as a property crime in some circumstances.
So women beaten senseless will be given whatever care they need, but if raped instead WOAH watch out!! Rescind that offer! Rethink everything! Don’t let those caregivers do anything too extreme–they’ll ruin the evidence. What utter steer manure!! If it somehow passes (and withstands court challenge), we should all chip in to buy billboards along the highways entering New Mexico to warn women. Maybe we should do that anyways–just for considering it.
Azkyroth:
All involving some male owner of said property. Widows and orphans don’t qualify.
Azkyroth:
Indeed. It’s to the point that the reason for much of this isn’t just putting women back in their “proper” place, it’s to do with how religion has traditionally dealt with rape (none of it good.) The idea that good, virtuous, modest women don’t get raped is still strong and if women would stop trying to act like men, there wouldn’t be a problem.
You might easily have a situation where a woman was simultaneously an assault victim and a rape accuser, all from the same incident with the same perpetrator.
@195
Which makes it all the more painful that arbitrary legal lines be drawn rather than simply giving victims the support & care they deserve.
Indeed. I think it neatly highlights the complete hypocrisy of it. It demonstrates the fact that rape victims are treated differently than victims of any other crime. In this case, we’ve got a politician who tried (If I understand this correctly, it never passed) to make that double standard a matter of law.
I’m surprised to learn the author of this bill is a Nazarene. The only Nazarene I’ve known was a pretty liberal person. Of course, a sample size of one is not much to go on, and Le Wikipedia says it’s a mainstream Protestant sect.
Pardon if someone has already pointed this out, but there’s another aspect to this legislation which is only implicit: it means that if a pregnant rape victim would rather abort the rape-conceived fetus, then they must avoid reporting their rape at all, or at least refrain from bringing charges. It is literally legally privileging a rapist over a victim.
Jesus fucking Christ on a mechanized dildo pogo stick, Rachel. The inverse is the case: this thread is being hijacked by people too stubborn to acknowledge that they’re using terms in an oppressive way (i.e. you and frankensteinmonster). I think the rest of us are well within the reasonable course of discussion to ask people not to stigmatize mental illness.
I read this differently. The key words are “with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.” In order for this law to be relevant a situation would have to be something like this: A father is caught/accused of raping his daughter and denies the charges. The daughter becomes pregnant and the father discovers this. The father then drives his daughter to a different county and forces her to get an abortion under an assumed name to hide his crime.
Take a different situation: A father is caught raping his daughter by his wife and denies the charges. He’s kicked out of the house/in jail/out of the picture, when it’s discovered the daughter is pregnant. They notify the authorities and the mother takes her daughter to get an abortion.
In this case the law would not apply because the mother and daughter are not destroying evidence of the crime. The tissue is still there and can be tested. I will agree that the law is poorly written in the sense that when you read it you’re so disgusted by what you think it’s saying, that it’s easy to overlook it’s actual meaning.
José P, why don’t you try reading all the comments so that you’ll understand what you just wrote is not correct, okay?
If Cathrynn Brown actually gave a shit about rape victims, she would work on getting rid of the rape kit backlog. All of that evidence, not being used and degrading over time.
Caine, that would mean that José P would have to understand the concept of a Trojan Horse. And also understand Cathrynn Brown’s past as an anti-abortion activist.
subbie wrote:
Bad idea. Abortion providers should not be given blanket immunity for anything. It’s not inconceivable that a doctor capable of the procedure perfomed it to cover up their own misdeeds, or is a willing participant in such a scheme.
However, I don’t think there’s any reason to give this law the benefit of a doubt. Is there even a need for a law to punish someone who attempting to coerce someone into concealing a rape? I have difficulty believing that there is not already a more general law that could be used for this purpose. Of course, the big difference is that those laws wouldn’t punish the person who is being subject to the coercion, would they?
Not only is this bill heinous beyond compare, it is also a crude display of their hypocrisy, when they declare the fertilization as “evidence”, when otherwise they are inclined to call it “person”. The pregnancy surely can be documented alongside with DNA, so there is no need to make “evidence” become a person first, or do they expect the child to appear in court as a witness!? I keep wondering how republicans manage to get through their day without getting themselves killed (and Darwin awarded) and more perplexing, how they manage to get voted.
I’m paraphrasing from another commenter on Jen’s blog, but I think this sets a precedent. Victims of gun violence should be forced to keep the bullets in their bodies while the trial is progressing, lest they be accused of tampering with the evidence.
And let’s call them gun violence accusers, while we’re at it. I mean, how can we be sure they didn’t really want to be shot and only changed their minds later?
Look, I don’t fully agree with the argument about “crazy,” but you know what? It costs me SO LITTLE to choose a different word instead.
What SallyStrange #207 said.
Janine:
All of which could be gained by reading the comments. I really wish people would read the damn comments.
It’s simple, really—every baby conceived must be carried to term, regardless of any so-called “extenuating circumstances”, which are really only thinly veiled excuses used to avoid paying for playing…
…unless it would in some way inconvenience them, or adversely affect their daughters, or sisters, or whatever. ‘Cause that’s different. That’s a righteous abortion.
–
Cultural Stockholm Syndrome.
They were asking for it. Did you SEE how soft their soft tissue was? They were practically begging for it to be damaged by a projectile.
José P,
Let’s try this on for size then:
A woman gets raped but does not report the crime immediately due to emotional trauma and reluctance to face what had happened. She later gets a legal, non-coerced abortion because she does not want the reminder of the rape. If she were then to try to report the rape, she would be charged with “tampering with evidence” because her intent at the time was to “eliminate the evidence of rape”. Even if she comes to court with lots of evidence that the rape had indeed occurred, she still gets charged as an accomplice to her own rape.
Laws already exist that would prosecute the rapist father in your first scenario, Brown’s law just adds a very specific charge to the laundry list. The mother in the second scenario might be charged under Brown’s law if a prosecutor is anti-abortion enough to try for it (would most likely fail, but after much yelling). The scenario I just gave? The woman will DEFINITELY be charged by any anti-abortion prosecutor because the language of Brown’s law does not exempt the victim at all from such prosecution.
Please, José P, try to tell me why this law of Brown’s, as it is written, would not make it harder for rape victims to seek abortions?
Cicely:
Now that’s accurate.
Say, has anyone ever tried writing a fiction story where all crime is treated the way we currently treat rape?
LykeX #215
It’s called “Atlas Shrugged.”
@215: I suggested that in another thread once…
With applications to the Chill Girls phenomenon.
–
“But I’m one of the Good Ones!”
–
Oh dear. Is there a short story version?
*trigger warning for victim blaming and stupid attempts at fiction*
“Your Honor,” Attorney Black’s voice quavered in passionate defense. “How can the so-called victim even prove that a murder took place? Just because Ms. Smith was found with gun-shot wounds at the time of her death doesn’t mean the gun shots killed her! And furthermore we don’t know what she did to provoke my client, the shooter. Why was she even at school that day? And why was she wearing a red shirt, an intentionally provocative color?”
He paused, his gaze scanning the assembled jurors, some of whom were nodding in agreement. “No, Your Honor and honorable members of this courtroom. The defense will argue that Ms. Smith knowingly and with malice trapped my client into shooting her so that she could claim to be a victim. She provoked my client into shooting her that day so she could shirk her responsibility to pass the fourth grade. She goaded my client into shooting her–and then she deliberately let herself die, knowing how it would make my client look! No! This evil girl cannot be permitted to ruin the life of my client, an upstanding citizen and father of two. NO!”
Silence in the courtroom. Many jurors dabbed their eyes. Many others cast sympathetic looks towards the defendant’s seat, noting his pressed suit. They eyed with distaste the 4’x4′ photo of Ms. Smith provided by the prosecution, which showed her unruly ringlets obscenely escaping her ponytail, her smile a little too bright, an impish gleam in her eye.
It was clear, then, that justice would be done.
@Janine
Caine, that would mean that José P would have to understand the concept of a Trojan Horse. And also understand Cathrynn Brown’s past as an anti-abortion activist.
If it was Cathrynn Brown’s intent to sneak in legislation making abortion illegal in the case of incest and rape, and I wouldn’t even be surprised, she fucked up, because the law in no way says that.
@monimonika
I didn’t think of that scenario.
José P
Which was what the bill’s author was betting on.
No, just that a woman who become pregnant because she was raped will be punished if she gets an abortion.
Great fucking way to punish a woman for getting raped.
Also, just fucking ignore that Cathrynn Brown is an anti-abortion activist.
Just in case you have not noticed, abortions have become more difficult to get in the US. Not because laws have been passed that outlaw abortions but that conditions to get one have been made more difficult. That coupled with the violence against and persecution of abortion providers have made abortions difficult without banning it.
Fine. Technically, the law does not ban abortion. But it sure as hell make it even more difficult.
And harms woman who already been victimized.
I’m not ignoring that Cathrynn Brown is an anti-abortion activist, but there’s a large proportion of anti-abortion activists that fall into the “except in the case of rape or incest” crowd. I have no clue where Cathrynn Brown falls.
Here’s was my thinking when I initially read the law. Imagine a mother catches a father raping her daughter and the daughter becomes pregnant. All the mother cares about is protecting the husband, so she takes her daughter to get an abortion, and the whole thing is kept hush, hush. Later the daughter goes to the police and wants her parents punished. Under current law is it likely that both parents would be prosecuted, or just the father?
Dismissing this as ‘internalized misogyny’ or ‘terrible’ isn’t any better, though.
Jose, under the law that was proposed, the doctor and the daughter in your situation would be prosecuted. Not the parents.
I have a modest proposal.
We castrate all men accuse of rape. Therefore, they can’t rape again. That way he’s forced to marry the woman he violated, because he won’t be able to have sex with anyone else. See, very modest.
(Hope my sarcasm and disgust doesn’t come off the wrong way. I shouldn’t write things when I’m tired.)
José P:
By “initially”, I hopefully take it that you have since changed your mind about how effective this law would be in prosecuting the actual wrongdoers?
José, I do believe a good case could be made for an accessory/collusion/whatever they call it in English (assisting in the commission of a crime – sorry, it’s early, no coffee yet) charge for the mother under the current laws as they stand. If this law we’re discussing is used, though, as Crissa said, neither of the parents would have been charged, only the daughter and the doctor.
gijoel @228
That “modest proposal” makes no sense at all. Not even in the horrible, insensitive way. Mostly, there’s no archaic rule/myth/urban legend/stereotype/folklore/biblical verse/old wives tale/foreign law/local law/etc. that even hints that a castrated person can only have sex with one particular other person. Go get some sleep and try again.
Gen and Crissa,
Actually, in the case outlined in comment# 226, I think the mother could also be charged if she “coerced” the daughter to get the abortion and/or made (or helped make) the abortion appointment for the daughter. Brown’s law, of course, does not apply to the rapist father in this case.
The law is clear.
PROCURING an abortion is punishable.
FACILITATING an abortion is punishable.
Who do you think is going to do the procuring and the facilitating?
gijoel:
I get your sarcasm and the twist on Swift, however, this doesn’t work. Castration does not stop men from raping. An erect penis is not strictly necessary for rape. The second problem is that one of the biblical “solutions” to rape was to force the victim to marry her rapist. I’m not so sure some of the religious right would have a major problem with that.
Now, if State Rep. Brown actually wanted to achieve what she claims she is after, all that would be needed would be a mandatory DNA “fingerprint” of the fetus and a requirement to keep record of abortions (I’m not saying someone should propose just that either, but it would at least do the thing, of course the DNA test would make the monetary cost of abortion higher). So obviously she’s after something else.
I seriously hope that that Brown and her ilk (anti-abortionists and rape apologists) shall have no success whatsoever in their quest to make the underprivileged more and more vulnerable and the privileged more dangerous and to make every choice a matter of life and death.
I see that José P could not be bothered to address the points that I or anyone else has raised. Instead, it seemed that he has no problem bringing more punishment to raped women as long as the hypothetical situation is the reason for the bill that does not outlaw abortion.
Yes. This would increase the cost for an abortion but when the intention of generating evidence is serious the legal system should provide funds for it and ensure recovery of useable material (in theory one cell).
I mean, the persecution usually pays for the documentation of evidence if I am not mistaken?
@monimonika @Janine @Caine
I think of myself as a pretty smart guy. A couple of months ago, I was paying for groceries at the supermarket with a credit card, and when it came time to sign my name on the receipt, I couldn’t figure out how to get the tip of the pen to come out so I could actually sign my name. Normally, you click on the thingy sticking out of one end of the pen, and the writing apparatus magically appears out of the other end. But this goddamn pen had no clicker thing. After fumbling around like an idiot for what seemed an eternity, I swallowed my pride, and asked the cashier how this pen worked. She took the pen from me… and pulled the cap off.
What I’m saying is that, I read the law, and I honestly didn’t see how it could be interpreted negatively. I’m sorry. I’m not a jackass MRA nut, I swear. I read Pharyngula often, but rarely have time to comment. Even though I’m mostly a lurker, Pharyngula is kind of a refuge for me. It may be the cold medicine speaking (it’s not*), but the thought of having bad blood with the regular commenters here doesn’t sit well, even if you are a bunch of goddamn hippies.
*If I made any grammaritical errors in this comment, it was definitely the cold medicine. I read it , like, two times, and it looked fucking awesome to me.
Jose P
If you can not see anything negative in this bill you are an idiot.
If the bill were indeed intended to stop forced abortions, then it should probably criminalize, well, forcing someone to abort.
Imagine claiming to want to stop assault robbery, and then writing a law that makes it a crime to give your wallet to a mugger. What the actual fuck.
José P, you read this bill and see the part where tampering with evidence is defined as:
Since a reasonable application of this would always leave rape victims safe from prosecution, you don’t see a problem with the law. The problem is that
A: force isn’t always applied in clear ways, so a judge may very well conclude that a rape victim that gets pressured into getting an abortion does this out of her own free will, in which case her intent was to prevent apprehension,prosecution or conciction of a person, making her liable to get punsihed under the law for procuring an abortion. So now we have a way for a rape victim to get punished for being raped forced to make a decision under pressure, which just hands rapists another tool to pressure with. Great succes….
B: Even if this didn’t happen/wasn’t plausible, which it is, why on earth would the part be put into law. What could motivate a person to make getting an abortion (facilitating I get, but that too is problematic) when the person in question was raped illegal? Any compassion for rape victims would go towards making the aftermath to their ordeal less horrifying, not more. People in general don’t tend to go through laws in detail. Just seeing that it’s possible to get prosecuted after being raped will make people less likely to get an abortion if they were raped out of fear of being prosecuted. Again, great success….
If you’re right and it serves no purpose, then it shouldn’t be in there. If you’re wrong and it does, it shouldn’t be in there. Either way, it shouldn’t be in there.
Surely if you freeze a tissue biopsy from the embryo that takes away the whole rationale for the law.
The representative who submitted the motion is backpedalling:
“House Bill 206 was never intended to punish or criminalize rape victims. Its intent is solely to deter rape and cases of incest. The rapist—not the victim—would be charged with tampering of evidence. I am submitting a substitute draft to make the intent of the legislation abundantly clear.”
All this talk of the law supposedly being aimed at a rapist who coerces the victim into having an abortion, and yet she (yes! “she”! Try to wrap your mind around that one) used the words “procuring”, which implies someone obtaining a service for themselves and thus could be used to target the victim, and “facilitating”, which could criminalise doctors and other healthcare professionals providing an abortion in cases where it was sought by the victim. The word “could” is very important here, considering how conservatives tend to view the issue of abortion.
‘No, you see, what I MEANT was…’ Even if you were as well-intentioned as you’re now claiming, about which I’m sceptical, if you don’t want people to take your statements as meaning a particular thing and respond accordingly, word them properly, you moron.
@226 – Imagine a mother catches a father raping her daughter and the daughter becomes pregnant. All the mother cares about is protecting the husband, so she takes her daughter to get an abortion, and the whole thing is kept hush, hush. Later the daughter goes to the police and wants her parents punished. Under current law is it likely that both parents would be prosecuted, or just the father?
Based on a recent case in AZ with a minor, both parents can be prosecuted: The father for rape and/or incest, the mother for conspiracy to commit rape and/or incest. They might wave a “evidence tampering” charge around too.
In college I put down Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale because I didn’t think much of the writing and thought she was over-reaching with her story line (this was just before I started to get an understanding of feminism). I would like to apologize to Ms. Atwood and recognize her prescience.
Today’s GOP is just as fecked up, god-soaked, crazy war on women misogynist as she had predicted.
At first I though Jesse Lee Peterson was a comedian……….
It goes into the evidence locker at the police station!
But seriously, the idiocy displayed in this bill is headache-inducing. I suspect it won’t pass, and if it does, it won’t pass a constitutionality test. Not saying we shouldn’t be outraged, though.
OK, we all knew that Republicans were religious whack jobs who want women to carry every pregnancy to term no matter the circumstances… what’s really pissing me off about this is the devious, slippery, downright dickish way they’ve tried to hide behind “preservation of evidence” (as if a doctor couldn’t take one look and go “Yep, she’s pregnant, write that down and let’s get on with the procedure”) in order to carry out their nefarious anti-woman campaign.
@Jose P #238
Judging from that meaningless spiel, I’d say you were mistaken.
I tried to read all the comments. But the entire shock of reading this story, this fucking story, has my brain shot. I cannot process this, as this is one of the more vile things I’ve read. Fuck. Just fuck. I’m sure someone has tried to defend this garbage. How anyone can see anything other than an attempt to force women to carry an unwanted pregnancy due to rape to term for the most spurious of reasons is beyond me.
Just how fucking far can these thugs go in their pursuit to end all abortion?
Hmm. Bets on the next one being in Texas, and it being, “You cannot receive medical treatment for being shot, or otherwise injured, because receiving such treatment would tamper with evidence.” I mean, its the logical extension to this sort of insane nonsense, right?
@251 I think Texas is good with the stripping of funding for Planned Parenthood. That seems to be our defacto way of eliminating legalized abortion in this state. Yes, this state’s government sucks.
Since when did logic have anything to do with it? Also, this and the following discussion on that matter.
mythbri @ 212;
*Snark*
They were clearly ‘bullet-sluts’:- wondering about a heavily armed school district in the middle of the day – thus offering ideal visibility for shooting – while being so provocatively unarmed and unarmoured and not even flitting furtively from one piece of cover to another, but rather brazenly striding about in the open, deliberately exposing themselves to fire from multiple possible angles of attack. It was downright careless and indeed imprudent of them to expose themsleves to fire like that. I mean, what did they think would happen? You can’t expect gun toting would-be mass murderers to exert self control – you see, it is their nature to shoot things; prefereably living things and ideally other people.
Just trigger-happy gun nuts being trigger-happy gun nuts. Anyone who incites gun nuts to shoot them like this really must bear part of the blame, and then they want to go and get the bullets removed from their flesh just like that? That clearly amounts to the irresponsible – no criminal – destruction of evidence in an ongoing prosecution…
*/Snark*
I never said **our** kind of logic, just their’s.
@bradleybetts
Fine. I’m stupid. But if you can’t find any meaning in my spiel, you’re not so sharp yourself. But thanks for taking the time to insult someone who was apologizing and admitting his error. Always appreciated!
@Jose
Don’t be stupid and then get mad at people thinking you’re stupid
Rachel:
As well you should, Rachel. This place has really gone far down the SJW rabbit hole. One might even call it fucking insane.
@Ing:Intellectual
I won’t. But when someone responds to my enthralling, Pulitzer worthy tale of my own stupidity with a lame “yer dumb” because they don’t get it, I feel it is my public duty to inform them they may be lacking as well. For their own safety, of course.
Another grotesque little lump of hypocrisy and misogyny from the GOP. Is anyone even slightly surprised any more?
Wonder how soon it will be that Ms. Brown decides to run for President. She’ll make a wonderful GOP candidate. She seems to understand that women don’t matter — just fetuses.
we should all chip in to buy billboards along the highways entering New Mexico to warn women.
soooo…did you mean the highways entering from TEXAS, or the ones from ARIZONA, or from OKLAHOMA, or the ones from UTAH, or the ones from COLORADO……?? goodness knows NM is surrounded by hotbeds of rationality and bastions of respect for women.
Oh, you meant the ones entering from CHIHUAHUA, where they respect women even more?
in fairness, NM is a comparatively reasonable place, Carlsbad area notwithstanding. the oil field lands of the east really are an philosophical extension of Texas, as someone correctly noted.
José P,
I took your comment at #238 to be an admission that you’ve previously been initially exceedingly ignorant in a situation and then was shown the error of your ways/thinking (your pen story) and that the same applies within this thread. To me, the references to being a smart guy and Pulitzer prize-worthy prose are just attempts at self-deprecating humor. I honestly don’t understand what apparently everyone else (who cared to reply to you) is missing here. Be assured that at least I believe that you now know that this law is badly written.
Thank you. That was what I intended.
Long time lurker, first time commener here. Seeing this story in the news lately has made me feel literally sick to my stomach. As a native of New Mexico it makes me very depressed to see this shit going on, and reminds me of the kind of bass ackwards conservatism and stupidity that seems to run rampant in that part of the country. That was a big part of why I left (I live near Seattle now) and why I’m reluctant to go back unless I absolutely have to, but these kinds of disgusting stories make me feel like it’s not possible to get far enough away. As a young person observing the current state of this country it doesn’t leave me much hope for the future. This more than anything else makes me want to move as far away from the States as possible, but that doesn’t fix the problem. Pharyngula et. al. give me hope that there are many people who are making a difference, speaking against bigotry and hatred, often very loudly and eloquently and overall working hard to change things for the better.
Thanks for being a refuge of rationality.
Hallo Neoclinus. Feel free to join us in our Lounge or the other open thread here at Pharyngula, Thunderdome. Or both. :)
It gives me hope when people delurk to make comments like these. Welcome to the hive-mind.
As well you should, Rachel. This place has really gone far down the SJW rabbit hole. One might even call it fucking insane.
Nothing says, “Just in case you were wondering, yeah I’m a bigot,” as much as doubling down using italics. One might even call it fucking stupid.
In other news, murder victims will be left on the street for years, as evidence, and the wounded will not be treated until the trial is over, because photographic evidence, physical or laboratory evidence, and sworn testimony of police officers and witnesses are no longer valid.
Buy more guns!
This dingbat has changed her bill claiming that it was inadvertently vague. She now has added that the mother will not be charged. The doctor, however, is still liable, so no doctors will do abortions if for nothing else, to avoid the legal hassle, which is the purpose of the bill. And she doesn’t mention the rape crisis centers who administer the morning after pill. They would also be liable.
Beatrice @55
I always use te term queersling for gays who support rules/laws/customs against thier own best interest.