2.27.17
Suggested lead: A big vote in Olympia Monday morning
could help close an almost unbelievable hole in state law. Dan Frizzell has that
story.
Wrap (:85 total): Strange but true: When a rape results in
pregnancy and the birth of a child in Washington state, the perpetrator is
presumed by law to enjoy parental rights unless he was actually convicted of the
rape. Because relatively few rapes
do lead to convictions, most women who have been victimized in this way are
victimized again and again throughout their child’s life by having to share
parental decisions with their rapist.
Lowering the bar for legally severing those rights is the goal of a bill
OK’d in the state House of Representatives Monday morning.
Representative Beth Doglio, a Democratic freshman from Olympia, sponsored
the bill, the first of her legislative career to reach the House floor.
DOGLIO:
“Women who become pregnant as the result of rape face tremendous legal hurdles
in terminating paternity rights.
Going through sexual assault is traumatic enough. Current law forces women to
have contact with their rapist. No
woman should be forced to co-parent with her rapist.” [:21]
Unless and until Doglio’s bill becomes law, rapists who
escape conviction for their attack can occupy the same legal territory as most
other fathers, giving them the ability to veto their victims’ decision to place
her baby for adoption, for example, and visitation rights, among others.
Doglio’s bipartisan bill passed 94-to-2, with a pair of Republican holdouts, and
will be taken up by the Senate next. In Olympia, I’m Dan Frizzell.