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An Ohio MP proposing an almost complete ban on abortion received a hypothetical: a 13-year-old girl was raped and became pregnant as a result. Would the Republican bill force this teenage girl to give birth to her rapist’s baby?
Yes – and the resulting child would be an “opportunity”, said this week the US representative Jean Schmid.
“It’s unfortunate that this is happening, but there is an opportunity for this woman, no matter how young or old, to decide what she will do to help this life be a productive human being,” she said.
Schmidt commented as she testified before a committee on her legislation on Wednesday, Bill 598, which will ban abortions, except those needed to end a life-threatening pregnancy. Schmidt’s bill is part of a wave of anti-abortion legislation that is emerging in Republican-controlled state houses across the country as conservatives await a Supreme Court ruling that will overturn or weaken Rowe vs. Wade – an increasingly likely prospect, as the court with its 6-3 conservative majority is considering a case for a 15-week ban on abortions in Mississippi, reports The Washington Post.
“Lawmakers are waiting with bated breath,” Catherine Glenn Foster, president of Americans United For Life, the national anti-abortion organization, told The Post earlier this month. “Are we waiting to see? deer inverted or at least minimized? Yes. We expect a good to great result. “
Follow up on new actions on state abortion legislation
This includes Schmid. Her testimony before the Ohio House Government oversight committee remained collegial for most of Wednesday’s hearing, although lawmakers’ passions flared as they debated the absence of a rape exception in her bill. Her counterpart, Richard Brown (D ) began the discussion by proposing a hypothetical example of a 13-year-old girl pregnant by a rapist and giving her interpretation of Schmidt’s legislation: and caused.
“Is this true?” Brown asked.
“Rape is a difficult problem and emotionally marks an individual … for the rest of his life, just as violence against children is,” Schmid said. “But if a baby is born, it’s a human life, and whether that mother ends the pregnancy or not, the scars won’t go away, period.”
Schmidt’s answer did not satisfy Brown.
“I think this girl has rights, as much as this zygote has rights at your expense. This girl has rights and I don’t believe we can lose sight of the rights of the man who was raped. “
Schmid did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post early Friday.
Her bill will make abortion in Ohio a fourth-degree crime punishable by up to 1 year in prison. The bill will also criminalize the use of abortion drugs. In order for someone to have a legal abortion, two doctors who do not work together must agree that the procedure is necessary to prevent death or “a serious risk of significant and irreversible damage to the basic bodily function of the pregnant person”. But as Democratic lawmakers said during Wednesday’s hearing, following the letter of Schmid’s law will provide doctors with only “affirmative protection” that they could use to fight criminal charges once they have been filed.
Republicans are introducing a wave of new restrictions on abortion
Schmidt’s bill is one of 22 recently introduced in national legislatures, including five other “trigger bans” – pre-emptive strikes that will take effect immediately or soon after the Supreme Court’s decision is overturned. deer, according to The Post’s follow-up abortion law. At least a dozen states had already introduced such bans before this year’s legislature.
Other efforts to curb abortion include a ban on procedures after 15 weeks and the introduction of “Texas-style bans”, so called because lawmakers there have given private citizens the right to sue abortion providers – a legal strategy designed to avoid court action, who have historically destroyed such laws.
The candidate for governor of the Michigan Republican Party said that the victims of rape should not have abortions: “The baby in them may be the next president.”
Republican politicians have a history of making incitement to rape. Last month, Robert Regan, a Republican running for the Michigan Legislature, said he instructed his daughters to “just lie down and enjoy themselves” if they were raped. He was trying to draw an analogy with the abandonment of efforts to desert the results of the 2020 presidential election. In 2019, Missouri MP Barry Hovis spoke about how most sexual assaults are “consensual rapes” while discussing anti-abortion legislation , although he later told The Post he was wrong. And in 2012, Missouri Todd Akin’s campaign for the U.S. Senate shook after Akin, when asked about his opposition to abortion, said rape-induced pregnancies were “really rare,” adding that “If it’s legal rape, the woman’s body has ways of trying to shut this whole thing down.”
Twelve states have “laws” to trigger abortions. What are they?
At Wednesday’s hearing, Schmidt rejected her colleague’s suggestion that she add a rape exception to her legislation, saying they “fundamentally disagree.” She admitted that the hypothetical 13-year-old victim of Brown’s rape would be traumatized and would have rights. But, she added, “so is the baby in her.”
“Just because you have emotional traits doesn’t entitle you to take your own life.”
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