Louisiana Republicans Kill Rape, Incest Exceptions to Abortion Ban After Unhinged Hearing

A pastor who allegedly abused a 4-year-old said women will “clamor to put old boyfriends behind bars...to dispense with the inconvenience of giving birth.”

By Lorena O'Neil | May 10, 2023 | 6:00pm

Abortion Politics

Louisiana Republicans Kill Rape, Incest Exceptions to Abortion Ban After Unhinged Hearing

After a truly eyebrow-raising hearing on Wednesday, Louisiana’s House criminal justice committee voted against adding rape and incest exceptions to the state’s abortion ban, one of the strictest in the country.

Pastor John Raymond of Slidell, La., testified against the bill, saying that an abortion in the case of rape would make it so there are two victims instead of one–a talking point parroted by anti-abortion activists throughout the discussion. Women will “clamor to put old boyfriends behind bars in order to dispense with the inconvenience of giving birth,” he said.

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Raymond, mind you, currently faces numerous criminal charges for cruelty to juveniles, including multiple allegations of physically abusing a 4-year-old, once allegedly holding him upside down by the ankle and whipping his butt. The pastor has also been accused of taping three 13-year-old boys’ mouths shut after they refused to stop talking in class.

The rest of the hearing was equally disheartening. Democrat Delisha Boyd, who introduced the bill to add rape and incest exceptions, revealed that she was the product of rape after her mother was sexually assaulted when she was 15. “My mother never recovered,” said Boyd, adding that her mother died just before she was 28 years old.

Republicans, of course, were unmoved by this argument. Anti-abortion activist Debbie Melvin said abortion “can be like a second rape.”

“A baby is the only beautiful thing that can come from rape,” she said.

Most rape survivors who testified supported Boyd’s bill. One survivor wept as she said that if she hadn’t been able to have an abortion she may have died by suicide. Morgan Lamandre, the president and CEO of Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response (STAR), said that she used to be vice president of the anti-abortion club at her high school, but changed her mind after working with sexual assault survivors. She pointed out that forcing a person to carry a rapist’s baby is only further traumatizing them.

“By forcing survivors to give birth, you are forcing them to forever be connected to their rapist,” Lamandre said. “In Louisiana, men are allowed to choose the mother of their children regardless of what the mother wants.”

The House Criminal Justice Committee then killed the bill in a 10-5 vote. All of the Republicans on the committee voted against adding the exception. One Republican representative, Tony Bacala, said he was voting against it because its author, Rep. Boyd, is the product of rape, and she turned out to be a good person.

We’re living in hell.