A state legislative committee in Louisiana has blocked the advancement of a bill that was designed to allow young people who are pregnant as the result of rape or incest to obtain abortions.
Louisiana has a near-total ban on abortion, only allowing the procedure in instances where a pregnant person’s life is at risk — exceptions that are rarely implemented in practice due to providers’ fears of facing prosecution from the state. House Bill 164 sought to implement limited changes to the state’s law by allowing victims of rape or incest under the age of 17 to get abortions.
But the House Committee on Criminal Justice voted 7-4 against the measure, with all opposing votes coming from Republican lawmakers, some of whom tried to justify their votes by claiming they were protecting the “innocence” of fetuses.
“That baby [in the womb] is innocent … We have to hang on to that,” GOP state Rep. Dodie Horton said.
Other Republicans justified their votes by claiming that teenagers might lie about being sexually assaulted in order to get an abortion.
Democrats condemned their Republican colleagues for voting to further victimize children who have been sexually assaulted.
“This bill now is focused on children,” the legislation’s author Rep. Delisha Boyd (D) said.
Rep. Alonzo Knox (D) lambasted Republicans for voting against the measure, saying:
It’s disgusting to me that we have a society where we can’t make exceptions in a situation where a young girl’s innocence has been taken away in the most vile way… and now she’s impregnated and somebody, somewhere, wants to force a nine, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old child to have a baby for the monster that took away her innocence?
Witnesses who testified in favor of the bill, including health care providers, shared their horrifying experiences of having to force children to go through the birthing process after they became pregnant due to rape or incest. OB-GYN Neelima Sukhavasi testified that she and her colleagues have delivered numerous babies of children who have been the victims of sexual assault.
“One of these teenagers delivered a baby while clutching a Teddy Bear — and that’s an image that once you see that, you can’t unsee it,” Sukhavasi said.
Twenty states in the U.S. are currently enforcing near-total abortion bans or early gestational limits on abortion. Of those states, 10 make no exceptions for rape or incest.
Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, which had upheld federal protections for abortion from 1973 to 2022, there have been an estimated 64,000 pregnancies resulting from rape or incest in states with abortion bans, according to one JAMA study.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy