• RE: Well the good news is...,dabo, 02:01 PM, 01-24-13
  • RE: Well the good news is...,Estee, 02:23 PM, 01-24-13
    • RE: Well the good news is...,dabo, 09:20 PM, 01-24-13
• RE: Well the good news is...,AyaK, 06:21 PM, 01-24-13
  • RE: Well the good news is...,Snidget, 07:30 PM, 01-24-13
    • RE: Well the good news is...,AyaK, 01:19 PM, 01-25-13
      • RE: Well the good news is...,cahaya, 03:03 AM, 01-26-13
        • RE: Well the good news is...,Starshine, 08:59 AM, 01-26-13
          • RE: Well the good news is...,cahaya, 01:35 AM, 01-27-13
  • RE: Well the good news is...,dabo, 01:28 AM, 01-25-13
• Story is false,AyaK, 06:20 PM, 01-25-13
  • RE: Story is false,Snidget, 06:55 PM, 01-25-13
    • RE: Story is false,dabo, 08:00 PM, 01-25-13
      • RE: Story is false,dabo, 02:24 AM, 01-26-13
    • RE: Story is false,AyaK, 02:10 AM, 01-27-13
  • RE: Story is false,dabo, 08:12 PM, 01-25-13
    • RE: Story is false,AyaK, 02:07 AM, 01-27-13

LAST EDITED ON 01-24-13 AT 02:04 PM (EST)

What an insane piece of legislation. At first I thought this would be someone trying to make abortion illegal even in cases of rape. But, nope, just read the thing itself, it would make abortion illegal only in cases of rape or incest. By making it tampering with evidence of a crime.

In other words, ladies, you get raped in New Mexico, best wait until you find out if you get pregnant from it before reporting the rape.

I doubt this could get passed through a legislation composed entirely of hard-right social conservatives, it's that stupid.

ETA: Yep, illegal in cases of incest too.

LAST EDITED ON 01-24-13 AT 06:23 PM (EST)

There is no such thing as a law too stupid to pass. And if all else fails, argue it until three in the morning and once you're the only voter still awake, go for it. Works for Ireland.

But when you define this under terms of evidence destruction? Then there's a chance someone up the line, post-passage (in that state or some other), will decide this has a legal point and let it stand. In that sense, it's not 'crazy enough to work', it could wind up as a brilliant strike to set up a foundation for other states to follow. It just only works for cases of assault unless you define any form of sex as criminal, which would have to include marital to make sure there's no base left uncovered.

...

...that one's going to need a few days.

By the way, we are at the point where, after seeing Snidget's headline (and not yet knowing the bill's nature or that the creator was female), my mind automatically completed it with "...because he's the one who raped her and now he's demanding custody of the child."

After some thought, I revised that last to "and was just awarded custody of the child."

Some additional pondering threw in "plus support payments from the mother."

But I guess that was too far for New Mexico to go today. We'll see how Arizona does tomorrow.

ETA: Found the bureaucratic fun part: write the law properly and you might have to legally prove any pregnancy had not been the result of rape or incest and if you didn't have that proof, out the door you go so as not to interfere with any potential investigation.

I'm thinking stacks of affidavit forms next to the bed, neutral third-party witnesses, video recording with audio confirmation required from all parties every thirty seconds on the sweep, and a notary public on 24-hour call.

LAST EDITED ON 01-24-13 AT 10:13 PM (EST)

I'm not even going to get into the vast multitude of problems there would be with considering a fetus as evidence of a crime, just will point out that were it evidence it would be precisely the same evidence regardless of whether it were living or unliving.

Here's a LOL from the Peanut Gallery (comments section) of the cited article (going off on a tangent):

Pedoviejo2 (poster)

She says she has changed the language of the bill:

UPDATE: Carlsbad legislator says she will file substitute bill for one criminalizing abortion in rape cases

Posted at: 01/24/2013 10:28 AM | Updated at: 01/24/2013 1:40 PM
By: Tracy Dingmann, KOB.com

The Carlsbad legislator who filed a bill that could criminalize abortions for rape victims is now saying she will change the language of the bill to make it clear she is referring to a rapist who coerces the victim to have an abortion, not the victim.

Isn't it already not his decision, and would it not already be illegal for him to force his own decision upon her in any manner?

LAST EDITED ON 01-24-13 AT 06:23 PM (EST)

The bill has no chance of passing, even in a Republican legislature, but Weigel's column is interesting to me for one reason -- he continues the Democrats' front on the war on science.

Here is what Weigel wrote:

They talk about it because they deeply believe that life begins at the moment of conception. Most Republicans do.

Yes, and so do virtually all scientists. For Weigel to write this in this manner betrays a deep conviction that science must align itself with Weigel's political views. Watch out, Dave -- that way lies another group of science deniers called creationists, who are mostly Republicans! Your two groups won't get along very well!

There isn't any way to reconcile what Weigel wrote and what scientists believe -- it's not just a "typo" kind of error. But the widely-accepted idea that life begins at the moment of conception doesn't dictate the legal answer in the way that Weigel seems to believe -- unless you're a highly-politicized Democrat who wants to claim for purely partisan reasons that you follow scientific principles.

Why doesn't the idea that life begins at creation end the legal debate? Because the law has always recognized a right to end life in certain cases. In fact, the Supreme Court's approach to this matter is entirely consistent with that type of balancing of interests between two lives, whether or not Weigel wants to recognize it.

I do have a bit of a scientific problem giving full human rights to the fertilized egg. Just because the sperm hits doesn't mean it can actually develop into a human being. There are any number of early developmental mishaps and sometimes all you get is placenta or other random bits, but if you say anything that develops from a fertilized egg has equal or more rights to life than the mother...or do you then revoke those rights from that bit of chromosomal uniqueness later?

Part of the problem of knowing all the various assorted things that can go wrong and how they do so with startling regularity. Luckily most of these tissues with their own unique sets of chromosomes end it on their own, but I do worry that there are those who would, if allowed, prevent any medical intervention to save the life of the mother even when what is killing her will never have a heartbeat, will never take a breath. It came from a sperm and an egg touching, it must be a human being!

So I kinda do want to wait for the part that will be fetus rather than placenta to make it's appearance, but that is splitting the hair with a microtome.

I don't have your faith that these laws can't be passed. The only good thing is maybe they'd work a little harder to convict the rapist if they have to get that conviction before they can put the woman who they think probably deserved what she got in jail.

I do have a bit of a scientific problem giving full human rights to the fertilized egg. Just because the sperm hits doesn't mean it can actually develop into a human being. There are any number of early developmental mishaps and sometimes all you get is placenta or other random bits, but if you say anything that develops from a fertilized egg has equal or more rights to life than the mother...or do you then revoke those rights from that bit of chromosomal uniqueness later?

Both you and dabo correctly focus on the point that the question of when life begins and the question of what rights are associated with the beginning of life are two entirely separate questions -- which is a point that Weigel seems to miss.

If we gave "full human rights" to a fertilized egg, that would mean that we should try to make sure that every fertilized egg implants, and that we should try to prevent spontaneous miscarriages. Both ideas are as unscientific as the idea that life begins at some time other than conception.

As a person of both critically-minded science and open-minded spirit, I concur with the view that a new life begins upon conception with recombined DNA from two parents. Having said that, evolutionary nature is such that newly created life is subject to circumstance and not all newly created life is viable.

Whether and especially when to attribute "personhood" (or sentient humanness) to this new life has long been subject to scientific, religious and legal question with traditions dating back for millennia. Just when does this new life become a viable sentient being?

And what is at question here is: What are the rules of the society and culture in which it arises?

Capn's temple lions