Bill Requiring ‘Legitimate Rape’ And The Father’s Permission Almost Wins Abortion Bingo

brattinA new bill proposed by a Republican representative from Missouri includes both the phrase “legitimate rape” and requires women to get the permission of the man responsible for her pregnancy before she can get an abortion. Man, if he had just included something about being thankful for the creation of life even when due to incest, I would have had Bingo.

Rick Brattin was inspired to create the bill during his recent vasectomy. He says that since it is a requirement in Missouri that men get their partner’s consent before having a vasectomy (not true, by the way, but may have been a requirement of his provider) he thinks it’s was crazy that women don’t need to get the same consent before having an abortion.

That’s all well and good, but it’s small comfort to Charles, the sperm in Brattin’s testicles who was next in line to get an egg. He is currently writing a very small, very stern letter regarding hypocrisy to Rep. Brattin.

In Brattin’s bill, a woman would need written and notarized consent from the man who got her pregnant before she could have an abortion. This means, of course, that a man, any man, whether it is someone she knows well or not, could force a woman to have his child if he so wished. There are exceptions in cases of rape or incest, but you have to be able to prove it. Said Brattin to Mother Jones:

“Just like any rape, you have to report it, and you have to prove it. So you couldn’t just go and say, ‘Oh yeah, I was raped,’ and get an abortion. It has to be a legitimate rape…if there was a legitimate rape, you’re going to make a police report, just as if you were robbed. That’s just common sense…you have to take steps to show that you were raped”¦And I’d think you’d be able to prove that.”

I guess the next time a woman in Missouri wants to pretend she’s been raped to get an abortion or a free cup of coffee or her tires rotated, she’ll have to think twice about that, huh? The thing is, that as much as we women love to pretend we’ve been raped, it’s actually not as easy to prove it as Brattin seems to think it is. He has clearly never watched Law & Order. Or read a newspaper.

Brattin also allows exceptions in cases where continuing the pregnancy would endanger the life of the mother. But when Mother Jones asked him about women seeking abortions who are in abusive relationships, Brattin said:

“I haven’t really thought about that aspect of it.” But he adds, “What does that have to do with the child’s life? Just because it was an abusive relationship, does that mean the child should die?”

What does an abusive relationship between parents have to do with a child’s life? I’m becoming more and more convinced that this man has never talked to anyone who has bigger problems than forgetting to use their coupons at Wal-Mart.

There’s also the little matter of the Supreme Court ruling from 1992 in Casey v. Planned Parenthood, in which they ruled that a woman did not have to notify her husband if she chose to have an abortion. Brattin, however, doesn’t think this applies to his bill because, “…Missouri has laws requiring men to pay child support during a pregnancy, [so] a bill requiring a man’s involvement in an abortion should be constitutional.”

Oh, well if the guy has to pay for the kid then certainly he should be able to prevent a woman from aborting it…hm. I thought that would make more sense once I wrote it out, but nope. Surely Brattin doesn’t mean this in a retributive sense, right? This isn’t him saying, “Well if you’re going to make us pay for these kids then we’re going control whether or not you have them,” right? Because that would be a really dick move.

So, here is yet another abortion bill trying to infantilize women and take the responsibility for her life out of her hands and into the hands of a man. Another bill that paints women as lying, selfish whores who just love themselves an abortion. It’s insane and it’s insulting.

Brattin filed the bill on December 3rd for next year’s legislative session. If passed, the bill would affect the one abortion clinic still left in Missouri.

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