Indiana Bill Would Threaten Abortion-Seeking Rape Victims With Perjury

Sick asshole

An Indiana Republican has proposed legislation that would ban abortion medication entirely in the state, and require rape victims to sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury before being allowed care. What’s more, SB 171 would criminalize abortion funds in the state, making it illegal for nonprofits to help with the cost of an “abortion-inducing drug.” (More on this phrase later in the newsletter.)

Remember, Indiana already has a near-total abortion ban, with exceptions for lethal fetal abnormalities and sexual violence victims who are early in their pregnancies. So this bill would mean that the few people who can obtain abortions in those very limited circumstances would have to get a procedural abortion.

Introduced by Sen. Mike Young, who resembles Nosferatu on a good day, the legislation would make it a crime to possess abortion medication, and would allow the state’s Attorney General to bring a case against someone even if a local prosecutor declined to. (When you remember who the Indiana AG is, it makes that mandate even worse.)

As is so often the case with Republican abortion bills, this one is very much about punishment and shame. Consider the additional requirement for rape victims: Mandating that a victim sign an affidavit is bad enough, but threatening her with perjury—which is punishable by up to two and a half years of prison—is beyond disgusting. Not to mention, who will determine whether a woman is ‘lying’ about being raped? Sen. Nosferatu?

Naturally, Young claims that his legislation is simply protecting women from abortion medication. In keeping with conservatives’ messaging about ‘coerced’ abortion, the lawmaker cited incidents where abusers have slipped the pills into women’s drinks.

We know, of course, that these men don’t give two shits about women. As OBGYN Dr. Caitlin Bernard told the Indiana Capital Chronicle, “This is a government intrusion into medicine and health care with no other purpose but to put extreme ideology into law and take medical options away from patients.”