Far Right's War on Women

From Brilliant at Breakfast:

The future for girls in George W. Bush's "culture of life"

[NY Times] When her newborn was found crying at the bottom of an air shaft earlier this week, the baby's teenage mother was charged with trying to kill the child.

But after the decaying body of a second infant was found in the same place, the authorities trying to unravel the gruesome story said it took an even more tragic turn: The teenager told them that her own father was the father of both babies....

Prosecutors said the girl would be tried in juvenile court on the murder charge because she was not 18 when the death took place. She was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation on Friday.

In adult court, the murder charge would carry a sentence of 30 years to life; Mr. Gregory said it would most likely be less for a conviction in juvenile court. The attempted murder charge carries a sentence of 10 to 20 years in prison.

The father was charged with aggravated sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child and child abuse. If convicted, he could face 10 to 20 years in prison on the most serious charge. He was being held in the Hudson County Correctional Center.

[Brilliant at Breakfast] Here we have a girl who has borne not one but two children through being raped by her own father. She's lucky she wasn't 18, or she might never see the light of day again.

This is what "parental consent" laws mean in real life. We'd all like to believe that all families are normal, and that parents want what's best for their children. But then we have families like this one, in which a father impregnates his own daughter twice -- and now SHE's the one who has to pay. Note the difference in the potential sentences between the two crimes. Imagine the consequences to this girl of having an abortion, when her own father was perfectly OK with seeing her walking around carrying HIS baby.

I'm sorry, folks...I know what she did is wrong, but if sexual assault (and no matter what the circumstances were, it's assault) by her father isn't a mitigating circumstance, I don't know what is.