There are seven states in the United States that allows a rapist to have parental rights to a child conceived during an attack. Maryland was so close to bringing that number down to six, but an all-male legislative negotiating group failed to make it happen. The Daily Beast reports:
The state’s current policy forces survivors to negotiate child custody and adoption issues with their attacker. In a bid to update the draconian policy, Maryland Delegate Kathleen Dumais introduced legislation that would allow a woman to cut her rapist’s parental rights.
But while the bill passed both Maryland’s House and Senate, the bill’s text varied between the two legislative bodies. On Monday, the last day of legislative session, a five-person negotiating group was set to decide on the bill’s final text, the Baltimore Sun reported. Instead, the five-man group let the bill fall by the wayside, running out the legislative session’s clock without finalizing the bill’s text.
They literally had one job. Now women raped in the state of Maryland have to wait until 2018 for the next legislative session to have this no-brainer of a law passed.
Happy Sexual Assault Awareness Month! </sarcasm>