Missouri lawmakers have revealed to the nation the depths of Republican cruelty in their never-ending crusade against women’s reproductive choices.
Democratic state senators recently tried to create an exception for rape and incest victims to Missouri’s draconian abortion ban. Sen. Sandy Crawford, who voted against the exception (along with every other Republican present), credited God for the pregnancies that result from rape and incest.
What an insult to God.
Sandy, many people don’t believe in a God who would want a raped 10-year-old girl to suffer even more — and risk death — giving birth to her rapist’s baby. Don’t impose your cruel understanding of God on the rest of us.
Republican Sen. Rick Brattin went even further, saying that forcing rape victims to carry a pregnancy and give birth “may be the greatest healing agent you need in which to recover from such an atrocity.”
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Save that twisted healing for yourself, Rick.
When a perpetrator rapes a person, they are robbing the victim of power and choice. Forcing a survivor to bear a child after a sexual assault again robs her of power and choice, replicating the same dynamic.
“Every survivor’s healing journey is unique and should only be decided by that survivor,” said Emily Stoinski, community education coordinator for Safe Connections, a nonprofit that provides services to survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Safe Connections CEO Cynthia Danley said the organization would gladly provide education and training for lawmakers about how to reduce the impact and incidence of sexual assault and support survivors in healing.
Missouri state legislators also need a science teacher to explain to them how babies are made. There’s apparent confusion among the ranks of those most eager to legislate women’s bodies.
For instance, GOP Sen. Bill Eigel objected to an amendment aiming to protect sexual assault victims 12 years old and younger from being forced to carry a rape pregnancy to term.
“A 1-year-old could get an abortion under this,” Eigel said. A Democratic colleague, Sen. Doug Beck, had to break it to Bill that a 1-year-old can’t get pregnant.
A man who lacks basic knowledge about human reproduction should not be making laws regulating it.
These ignorant comments may seem ridiculous, but the laws being debated impact millions of women and girls.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, 14 states enacted total or near-total abortion bans, like Missouri’s. Nine of those states lack an exception for rape and incest victims.
Researchers recently calculated the likely number of pregnancies resulting from rape in those 14 states since the Supreme Court’s decision.
The results were startling.
The paper, published by JAMA Internal Medicine, estimated that more than 64,000 pregnancies were caused by rape between July 1, 2022, and Jan. 1, 2024, in states with abortion bans.
The researchers analyzed national data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s survey on intimate partner sexual violence from 2016 to 2017, and also relied on a Bureau of Justice Statistics survey on criminal victimization. They used state-level crime data from FBI reports to help calculate the number of rapes per state, although rape is a highly underreported crime.
Texas is estimated to have had the highest rate of rape-related pregnancies at 26,313, and Missouri came in second with an estimated 5,825.
What a distinction — to be known as a place where rape victims are revictimized by the state.
There’s an effort to mitigate the harm from these laws.
A coalition of civil liberties and reproductive rights organizations, , is working to get signatures for a statewide ballot initiative to restore abortion access in the state up to the point of fetal viability. The coalition has until May 5 to collect signatures.
It’s an opportunity for women to reclaim our rights, safeguard our children and support sexual assault survivors.
We must stand up for survivors — and stand up to Republican efforts to “heal” them by ripping away their bodily autonomy.