Friday, January 25, 2013

Fiction turns to fact when all else fails

Once upon a time in the land of Nod,  a Republican  lawmaker - oh, let's call her Cathrynn Brown -  came up with a unique proposal for women impregnated by a rapist.  She even went so far as to introduce a bill in the New Mexico legislature that would help identify the rapist.

As a duly elected state representative, Ms. Brown, as the tale goes,  believed it was her obligation as a public official to add a new dimension to the abortion issue.  So her strange  bill would make criminals of  the victims if they aborted in instances of rape or incest.    Her reasoning, or lack thereof, surprised many law abiding citizens.  She insisted that an abortion would destroy critical evidence that a woman had been raped.  And as any law officer knows,  destruction of evidence is,  well, a crime. 

Ms. Brown made all of the papers in New Mexico, which gave her the platform that legislators never fail to seek, and seasoned colleagues in the great lawmaking universe will tell you that the more perverse the plan, the easier it is to earn a platform.

Our lawmaker  remains steadfast in her pursuit of a just society even if her critics accuse the poor woman of  being nutty.  Alas, there is no moral for this story.

P.S.  I know that the details are wacky, but the event described above is  true - which I need not remind you  - is always stranger than fiction!  Particularly, these days, folks.



1 comment:

David Hess said...

When it comes to the long-running abortion debate, there is no end to the inventive schemes hatched by pro-Lifers to stand in the way of a woman's right to choose. In Indiana, one may recall, a Republican senatorial candidate last fall suggested that God meant for a rape victim to carry her fetus to full-term and birth. In Missouri, another Senate candidate suggested that victimized women had a secret biological mechanism to prevent unwanted conception. And then there's the guy who counseled women to put an aspirin between their knees to stop procreation. Now we have the proposal from New Mexico to criminalize the victim. What's next? How about cloistering all women of reproductive age in the Vatican.