Rep. Justin Harris Wants to Make It Harder for Teenage Rape Survivors to Get Abortions
The news out of Arkansas the last few weeks just keeps getting more horrifying. First it was revealed that state Rep. Justin Harris (R-West Fork) had once employed Eric Cameron Francis, a man accused of raping a 6-year-old girl last year, at Harris’ day care, Growing God’s Kingdom Preschool. Then it was discovered that Harris had actually given the little girl in question over to Francis, after having adopted and then “rehomed” her when Harris and his wife felt they couldn’t care for the girl or her little sister any longer. Then there were reports that Harris believed the girls, who had suffered abuse in their biological mother’s home, were possessed by demons and had subjected them to “exorcism.” Oh yeah, and while Harris loves bashing other people for getting government money, there are allegations that he continued to cash the checks he got for adopting the girls even after they were “rehomed.” And that’s on top of the dazzling stream of money he got—$4 million so far—from the government to run his day care, even though there are strong indications that the facility—which, again, is called Growing God’s Kingdom—was not following rules forbidding religious indoctrination.
Could this story get any worse? Of course! Now it’s been revealed that Harris is sponsoring a bill that could force underage rape victims to bear their rapist’s children. Despite his public statements expressing sadness over his adopted daughter being assaulted by the man he gave her over to, Harris appears not to have learned a single thing about compassion or empathy for rape survivors.
The bill in question, HB 1424, would change Arkansas’s current parental consent law to make it harder for underage rape victims to get abortions. Right now, the law requires minors who want abortions to either get parental consent to do so or subject themselves to the humiliating, arbitrary judicial bypass process. However, there is an exception for girls who have become pregnant through rape or incest. This new legislation would remove that exception. Apparently, Harris and his colleagues don’t think life is hard enough already for these individuals.
To make it worse, this kind of legislation might actually force teenagers to ask their own rapists for “permission” to abort, given, again, the parental consent clause. A lot of sexual abuse of minors happens in the home, often at the hands of people who are supposed to be the child’s guardians. Harris really should know this. After all, not only were the girls he adopted exposed to sexual abuse in their original home, but he handed them over to a man who raped one of them. If he had a lick of sense in him at all, he would know better than anyone how adolescents are sometimes abused at the hands of people who are supposed to be caring for them.
Read more: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/03/19/rep-justin-harris-wants-make-harder-teenage-rape-survivors-get-abortions/
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