Let’s Victimize the Victim

What if there was a law that made it illegal to remove a bullet from the body of a gunshot victim, or a knife from the body of a stabbing victim, or flushing poison from the body of a poisoning victim, because such would amount to unlawful tampering with evidence?

The gunshot victim would be required by law to keep the bullet lodged in his body until after the trial of the shooter in order to “preserve” the evidence of the crime. Failure to abide by this law would render the victim a criminal felon himself just as much so as his assailant.

Likewise, the stabbing and poisoning victims would be equally obligated by statute to keep the knife sticking in his body, or the poison in his blood stream, until their assailants could be tried for the crime. “Tampering” with the evidence by pulling out the knife of flushing out the poison would make the victim a criminal.

What if the justification for such a law was to protect shooting, stabbing and poisoning victims from assailants by properly preserving the evidence of the crimes for trial? 

The very idea is absurd, isn’t it? No sane lawmaker would even dream of passing such a law right? It would be a law that victimizes the victim.

Well, there are a lot of insane lawmakers out there and one of them, a Republican statist from the State of New Mexico, has proposed just such a law. 

No, it doesn’t victimize gunshot, stabbing or poisoning victims, but it’s equally stupid, insane and egregious as it would victimize the victims of rape or incest.

That’s right. A law, proposed by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R) makes it illegal and criminal for the innocent victim of incest or a rapist to get an abortion on the grounds that doing so would constitute “tampering with evidence” in the suspect’s trial.

So the unfortunate victim of the crime of rape or incest who happened to get pregnant would be compelled by this law to carry her pregnancy to term. 

Failure on her part to do so would render her a criminal – guilty of a third degree felony. And anyone who assisted her in getting an abortion would also be guilty of a felony punishable by up to three years in prison.

“New Mexico needs to strengthen its laws to deter sex offenders,” explained Brown with a straight face. “By adding this law in New Mexico, we can help to protect women across our state.”

I don’t think Rep. Brown is as much concerned with protecting rape and incest victims, however, as she is with justifying the passage of an anti-abortion law. She obviously couldn’t care less about the lives of crime victims. 

So in her insane and dogged pursuit of a statist right wing religiously oriented anti-abortion agenda, she’s very quick to proclaim: 

“Let’s victimize the victim.”