Laura Bassett at HuffPo:—New Mexico Bill Would Criminalize Abortions after Rape as 'Tampering With Evidence':
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.In good news: "The bill is unlikely to pass, as Democrats have a majority in both chambers of New Mexico's state legislature."
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.
In bad news: Members of the Republican Party still think shit like this is a good and reasonable idea.
This is reproductive coercion, but when an intimate partner seeks to control a person's reproduction, it's a deeply unethical and often criminal act, and when the GOP does it, it's Moral Values.
[H/T to mal black.]
