Two Democratic Senators have introduced a bill to ensure that sexual offenders would not have parental rights if their victims choose to keep or adopt out babies conceived in rapes.
The bill from Senators Nina Turner of Cleveland and Charleta Tavares of Columbus comes from the story of a woman who had to fight her rapist for custody of the child that resulted from the attack. And Turner says she was – using her word – “speechless”- when she learned that Ohio Right to Life had personally praised her and Senator Tavares – who both strongly support abortion rights.
NT: We should seize those opportunities when we can. I mean I think we are *all* unfortunately, in this climate of vitriol, you know, always fighting. It seems like we're always fighting. So it is refreshing in a way, although it's kind of strange, you know. Even I don’t know how to deal with this
Turner says the bill’s purpose got new meaning last week, when convicted kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro asked a judge about his parental rights during his sentencing for holding three Cleveland women hostage for a decade, fathering a child by one of them. It’s estimated that as many as 32-thousand pregnancies result each year from rapes, and only six states have laws to prevent rapists from securing parental rights to those children.