Imagine you or someone you love is in New Mexico. Now imagine that a rape occurs. Now imagine the horror when you’re notified that you do not have the option of an abortion because you could be “tampering with evidence.
A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.
House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for “tampering with evidence.”
“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime,” the bill says.
If you were to “tamper” with that evidence you could wind up in prison for three years. Luckily…
The bill is unlikely to pass, as Democrats have a majority in both chambers of New Mexico’s state legislature.
