Welp, now that the election and inauguration are over, it’s time to get back to the GOP’s number one priority: criminalizing abortion.
States are already gearing up for the War on Women 2013 — Oklahoma and Mississippi have introduced personhood bills (again) even though the Supreme Court smacked down Oklahoma’s personhood bill, and voters smacked down Mississippi’s. A handful of states have introduced gender-selection abortion bans, fetal heartbeat laws, informed consent laws, and ultrasound laws. Colorado, which leads the way in failed attempts to elevate eggs to personhood status, has introduced a wildly unconstitutional bill that would ban abortion entirely.
Such bills are to be expected.
New Mexico, on the other hand, is doing some seriously crazy shit by attempting to charge rape victims who terminate their pregnancies with a felony for — wait for it — tampering with evidence:
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.”
“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.
Robin Marty at RH Reality Check explains that while shocking, this bill actually has its roots in the Forced Birth community.
Remember Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin? I wrote a few months ago that Akin’s views come directly from the president of the National Right to Life Committee, Dr. John C. Willke:
Here is what this Dr. Willke (who is the source for Akin’s “female body shuts down pregnancy” hokum) has said about pregnancy and rape:
Dr. John C. Willke, a general practitioner with obstetric training and a former president of the National Right to Life Committee, was an early proponent of this view, articulating it in a book originally published in 1985 and again in a 1999 article. He reiterated it in an interview Monday.
“This is a traumatic thing — she’s, shall we say, she’s uptight,” Dr. Willke said of a woman being raped, adding, “She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic.”
Robin points out that Dr. Willke’s dangerous views about reproduction and sexual assault are behind New Mexico’s latest effort. Dr. Willke believes that pregnancy is proof of crime and that abortion makes it too easy to hide the crime:
How exactly does jailing someone who is a victim of sexual assault, especially younger victims such as incest victims, “protect” them? In some ways, the language heralds back to Dr. John Willke’s “Why Can’t We Love Them Both from the eighties, where he advised that no one should approve of abortions for victims of sexual assault because it made it too easy to hide the crime, and a pregnancy and subsequent child is proof of the attack. This is especially true for incest, where he believes pregnancy is a purposeful attempt to expose the crime.
[A]bortion is not only is an assault on the young mother, who may well be pregnant with a “love object,” but it may completely fail to solve the original problem. It is also unusual for wisdom to dictate anything but adoptive placement of the baby.
Love object?
When pregnancy does occur, it is often an attempt to end the relationship. In a twisted sort of way, however, the father is a love object. In one study, only 3 of 13 child-mothers had any negative feelings toward him. H. Maisch, Incest, New York: Stein & Day Publishers, 1972
In incest, is pregnancy common?
No. “Considering the prevalence of teenage pregnancies in general, incest treatment programs marvel at the low incidence of pregnancy from incest.” Several reports agree at 1% or less. G. Maloof, “The Consequences of Incest,” The Psychological Aspects of Abortion, University Publications of Amer., 1979, p. 74 245
How does the incest victim feel about being pregnant?
For her, it is a way to stop the incest; a way to unite mother and daughter, a way to get out of the house. Most incestuous pregnancies, if not pressured, will not get abortions.
So there you have it. As shocking as these sorts of bills may seem, they have roots in junk science dating back decades. And as the 2013 anti-choice bills pile up, it’s important to remember that Forced Birthers are never going to stop trying to control women’s bodies, and will enact outrageous legislation to do so.