SALON

Monday, Apr 29, 2013 8:35 PM UTC

Rapists should not get custody

A shocking number of states allow custody rights to men who impregnate their victims. One state is saying "enough"

By

Topics: Rape, Rape Culture, Legitimate rape, Colorado,

Rapists should not get custody (Credit: JoKMedia via iStock)

Imagine that after one of the most harrowing experiences a person could endure, a woman not only found herself pregnant but also made the bold, difficult choice to raise the child. Imagine next that her decision would then give her rapist an opportunity to remain firmly in her life, in one of the most intimate of relationships.

Imagine he wanted – and legally had the right to be – that child’s father. It’s a very real scenario, all across America. But in one state, that may soon be changing.

As a riveting CNN story last summer, at the height of “legitimate rape” fever, illuminated, a stunning majority of states – 31 of them – offer some form of visitation and custody rights for men who impregnate their rape victims. And it’s not just the threat of having to co-parent with one’s assailant that’s a nightmare for many victims — it’s the ugly opportunism it inspires. As attorney Shauna Prewitt, whose daughter was the product of a sexual assault, wrote back then, “When no law prohibits a rapist from exercising these rights, a woman may feel forced to bargain away her legal rights to a criminal trial in exchange for the rapist dropping the bid to have access to her child.” A baby can become a bargaining chip.

But a new bill before Colorado lawmakers would block rapists from exerting parental rights. Republican state Rep. Lois Landgraf, the House sponsor of the bill, is seeking to end a system whereby victims must still “face some relationship with the rapist.”

A 2010 Georgetown report on “Giving Birth to a Rapist’s Child” put the estimate of the percentage of women who carry and keep the children conceived via rape at between 32.3 percent and as high as 64 percent. And though the bill, which has already passed unanimously out of the state Senate, would not change the game for women who are still struggling through the Colorado legal system with their children; it would apply to convictions after July 1 of this year.

Protection for victims would not be automatic, either. Victims would instead be able to “file a petition in juvenile court to prevent future contact with the parent who committed the sexual assault.” But it represents a move toward far greater protection all around – a firm stance that convicted rapists are “not relieved of any obligation to pay child support unless waived by the victim,” while also granting victims the right to “a no-contact protection” if they wish. And because justice doesn’t always take place in a courtroom, the bill also proposes a task force to investigate parental rights when there have been allegations of sexual assault without a conviction.

It’s not an all-purpose fix-all for the complex and often overlooked issues of the aftermath of rape. Life is not always clear-cut, the legal system isn’t always correct and individual stories are unique. But the bill offers all survivors and their children respect, and the acknowledgment that their protection matters. As Landgraf told Colorado Public Radio when it first appeared last month, the bill may be aimed at a small pool of individuals, “but the handful, or the dozens, or the hundreds it does help, I think it’s invaluable.”

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 31 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
256 points257 points | 24 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
175 points176 points | 78 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
50 points51 points | 18 comments
vote
"New evidence reveals big banks still illegally foreclosing on thousands of homes – and weak settlement allows it."
28 points29 points | comment
vote
Are millennials delusional? New research suggests that members of "Generation Me" are warped by a profound sense of entitlement
26 points27 points | 20 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations