The Indiana House has approved one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, but not after a bizarre debate led by sponsor state Rep. Eric Turner (R). When Democratic legislators asked for an exception for rape and incest, Turner cried foul and warned that women would just fake rapes to get some of those free abortions. The Indiana House agreed and rejected the amendment.



State Rep. Gail Riecken (D) introduced an amendment to exempt “women who became pregnant due to rape or incest, or women for whom pregnancy threatens their life or could cause serious and irreversible physical harm.”

In the video below, Turner stepped forward to warn of legions of false rape victims clamoring for free abortions:

Turner then stepped to the podium and insisted that Riecken’s amendment would create a “giant loophole” for women. That loophole? Women “could simply say they’ve been raped”: With all do respect to Rep. Riecken, I understand what she’s trying to do. But as you know that when the federal health care bill was going through Congress there was a lot of discussion whether this would allow for abortion coverage and of course we were all told it would not. And the bill, my house bill 1210, would prevent that for any insurance company to provide abortion coverage under federal health care bill. This [amendment] would open that window and I would ask you to oppose this amendment. I just want you to think about this, in my view, giant loophole that could be created where someone who could — now i want to be careful, I don’t want to disparage in any way someone who has gone through the experience of a rape or incest — but someone who is desirous of an abortion could simply say that they’ve been raped or there’s incest.

The House voted down Riecken’s amendment 42 to 54. There appeared to be little consideration of the fact that it is a crime to falsely allege a crime.

Source: Think Progress and found first on Reddit.

Jonathan Turley

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