West Virginia GOP Triples Down on Obsession With Removing Rape Exception From Abortion Ban
A third bill to remove the rape exception from West Virginia’s total abortion ban has hit the state’s legislature—all within a two-week period.
Photo: Wikicommons AbortionPolitics
Evil really doesn’t rest, huh? West Virginia Republicans have introduced a third bill, SB 608, in the state’s legislature to remove a rape exception from the state’s total abortion ban. This comes on the heels of a wildly offensive circus in the legislature last week, when one GOP state senator withdrew his version of the bill, the Unborn Child Protection Act, following intense, well-deserved backlash—only for a GOP state House delegate to immediately reintroduce an identical bill (HB 2712) 24 hours later, with the slightly more graphic name, the Unborn Child Protection From Dismemberment Act. Now, another state senator has followed suit, introducing the same bill this week.
Under West Virginia’s abortion ban, adult victims can access abortion up to eight weeks into their pregnancy (before many people know they’re pregnant) if they report their rape to law enforcement, and the same applies to underage victims for up to 14 weeks. They’re past doubling down and, as of this week, they’re tripling down on trying to force child rape victims to give birth.
State Sen. Patricia Rucker (R) introduced SB 608 on Wednesday. Rucker hasn’t shared public statements on her motivations for doing so, nor did she immediately respond to a request for comment from Jezebel. Earlier this month, Rucker also introduced a bill to criminalize health care workers who prescribe medication abortion via telehealth, which is highly safe— and Rucker’s comments on that bill were disturbing. She pushed absurd disinformation claiming that “chemicals” from medication abortions have made the water supply “impure… which means that even things like birth control are in our water.” I hope it goes without saying that this is nonsense, but I’ll say it anyway: This is nonsense.
On Monday, GOP state Del. Elias Coop-Gonzalez issued a lengthy statement expressing his support for HB 2712. He extensively cited the Bible and bemoans how fetuses and embryos conceived from rape “are not responsible for the sins of their fathers.” They aren’t responsible for anything, really, because they aren’t alive. “Removing the rape and incest exceptions in West Virginia’s abortion law is a moral decision rooted in justice, mercy, and compassion for the most vulnerable among us,” Coop-Gonzalez continued. “The most vulnerable among us,” to him, are literal embryos—not child rape victims.