Mississippi House Speaker says 12-year-old incest victims should continue pregnancies to term

Mississippi Home Speaker Philip Gunn (R) told reporters Wednesday it’s his “private perception” that if a 12-year-old lady is a sufferer of incest she ought to nonetheless be made to hold a ensuing being pregnant to time period.

“I consider that life begins at conception and each life is efficacious. These are my private beliefs,” Gunn mentioned.

A reporter then requested, “In order that 12-year-old baby molested by her father or uncle ought to carry that baby to time period?” to which Gunn replied, “That’s my private perception.”

A problem to a Mississippi legislation banning abortion after 15 weeks of being pregnant made its option to the Supreme Court docket, the place it was upheld in a call that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that assured the correct to abortion.

A separate state legislation handed in 2007 bans abortions outright if Roe had been overturned, with exceptions for rape and situations when the moms life is in danger. The 15-week legislation doesn’t embrace a rape exception, and neither legislation makes exceptions for incest.

The Mississippi Free Press studies that a number of GOP lawmakers need the rape exception eradicated from the set off ban, which might imply abortions would solely be allowed to avoid wasting the lifetime of the mom.

Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group, which challenged the 15-week ban, filed a lawsuit on Monday in search of to forestall Mississippi from activating its extra expansive set off ban.

In its lawsuit, the group argues that abortions are nonetheless protected in Mississippi by the state’s personal structure by way of a 1998 determination by the Mississippi Supreme Court docket.

The set off ban was licensed by Mississippi Lawyer Common Lynn Fitch Monday. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) declared June “Sanctity of Life Month” on Wednesday in celebration of the Supreme Court docket overturning Roe v. Wade.

Mississippi presently has the nation’s highest toddler and fetal mortality charges, in line with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC), because the lowest life expectancy within the nation.