Apparently, Republicans think women will lie about being raped or being the victim of incest, in order to get a “free abortion.” This claim is coming from a Republican in the Indiana Congress. His name is Eric Turner.
Mr. Turner introduced what is being considered the most restrictive abortion bill in the nation. The bill will make it illegal to have most abortions after 20 weeks. Present law makes certain abortions illegal after 24 weeks, or when the fetus is visible.
Realizing the implications of this bill, a Democratic congresswoman Mrs. Gail Dickens tried to introduce an amendment to the bill exempting “women who became pregnant due to rape or incest, or women for whom pregnancy threatens their life or could cause serious and irreversible physical harm.” But Mr. Turner would have none of it. He stepped to the podium and had this to say;
With all do respect to Rep. Riecken, I understand what she’s trying to do. But as you know that when the federal health care bill was going through Congress there was a lot of discussion whether this would allow for abortion coverage and of course we were all told it would not. And the bill, my house bill 1210, would prevent that for any insurance company to provide abortion coverage under federal health care bill. This [amendment] would open that window and I would ask you to oppose this amendment.
I just want you to think about this, in my view, giant loophole that could be created where someone who could — now i want to be careful, I don’t want to disparage in any way someone who has gone through the experience of a rape or incest — but someone who is desirous of an abortion could simply say that they’ve been raped or there’s incest.
Leave it up to a Republican male, to determine what’s right for the women of this country.
