(Rep. Brown)

A bill introduced in the New Mexico Legislature last week would imprison women who have been raped if they have an abortion.

The reason? The abortion amounts to tampering with
evidence.
Forbes.com is reporting that Republican Rep. Cathrynn
Brown, author of the legislation, proposes a penalty of up to three years in
prison for violators.
The legislation is fairly assured not to become law,
according to Forbes’ Rick Ungar, because New Mexico’s state House and Senate are
controlled by Democrats. Yet, the myriad of issues such a bill presents is
truly extraordinary — starting with the very notion of an unborn fetus being
classified as ‘evidence’.
UPDATE: After a big public backlash, including hate mail, Brown now says that she is “horrified” by the implications of her legislation. A lawyer and a lawmaker, Brown changed the language in the bill:

“A person who commits sexual penetration or incest and
who procures an abortion of a fetus resulting from the crime with the
intent to destroy evidence of the crime is guilty of tampering with
evidence, prohibiting prosecution of the mother of the fetus … In no
circumstance shall the mother of the fetus be charged.”

of addictinginfo.org offers this counterpoint:
“So, in other words, if the rapist sticks around to convince the rape victim to get an abortion, that’s the
crime: “tampering with evidence.” But if that’s the case, despite
Brown’s insistence that “the mother of the fetus would never be
charged,” if the rapee agrees to said abortion (and clearly she’d have
to be involved), wouldn’t she be a colluder? An accomplice? Dear God,
can you see how complicated this could get?“

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