Chris Walker
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The measure was blocked by a Louisiana state legislative committee by a vote of 7-4.
A state legislative committee in Louisiana has blocked the advancement of a bill that was designed to allow young people who are pregnant as the result of rape or incest to obtain abortions.
Louisiana has a near-total ban on abortion, only allowing the procedure in instances where a pregnant personās life is at risk ā exceptions that are rarely implemented in practice due to providersā fears of facing prosecution from the state. House Bill 164 sought to implement limited changes to the stateās law by allowing victims of rape or incest under the age of 17 to get abortions.
But the House Committee on Criminal Justice voted 7-4 against the measure, with all opposing votes coming from Republican lawmakers, some of whom tried to justify their votes by claiming they were protecting the āinnocenceā of fetuses.
āThat baby [in the womb] is innocent ā¦ We have to hang on to that,ā GOP state Rep. Dodie Horton said.
Other Republicans justified their votes by claiming that teenagers might lie about being sexually assaulted in order to get an abortion.
Democrats condemned their Republican colleagues for voting to further victimize children who have been sexually assaulted.
āThis bill now is focused on children,ā the legislationās author Rep. Delisha Boyd (D) said.
Rep. Alonzo Knox (D) lambasted Republicans for voting against the measure, saying:
Itās disgusting to me that we have a society where we canāt make exceptions in a situation where a young girlās innocence has been taken away in the most vile wayā¦ and now sheās impregnated and somebody, somewhere, wants to force a nine, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old child to have a baby for the monster that took away her innocence?
Witnesses who testified in favor of the bill, including health care providers, shared their horrifying experiences of having to force children to go through the birthing process after they became pregnant due to rape or incest. OB-GYN Neelima Sukhavasi testified that she and her colleagues have delivered numerous babies of children who have been the victims of sexual assault.
āOne of these teenagers delivered a baby while clutching a Teddy Bear ā and thatās an image that once you see that, you canāt unsee it,ā Sukhavasi said.
Twenty states in the U.S. are currently enforcing near-total abortion bans or early gestational limits on abortion. Of those states, 10 make no exceptions for rape or incest.
Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, which had upheld federal protections for abortion from 1973 to 2022, there have been an estimated 64,000 pregnancies resulting from rape or incest in states with abortion bans, according to one JAMA study.
Originally Published: 2024-05-09 11:25:30
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