Abortion: Why it needs to be available: From a Rape Victim and also a legislator

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a38273/teresa-feder-ohio-abortion-heartbeat-bill/

Ohio Legislator Shares Her Story of Needing an Abortion After She Was Raped

"What you're doing is so fundamentally inhuman, unconstitutional, and I've sat here too long," she told her anti-abortion colleagues.

Anti-abortion lawmakers in Ohio have been pushing a "heartbeat bill" to outlaw abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is as early as six weeks, before many women even know they're pregnant. On Wednesday, when the Ohio House voted on the bill along party lines and it passed for a second time, Rep. Teresa Feder stood up and, for the first time, said publicly that she had been raped and had an abortion.

"You don't respect my reason, my rape, my abortion, and I guarantee you there are other women who should stand up with me and be courageous enough to speak that voice," Feder said. "What you're doing is so fundamentally inhuman, unconstitutional, and I've sat here too long."

"I dare any one of you to judge me, because there's only one judge I'm going to face," she continued. "I dare you to walk in my shoes."

Supporters of the Ohio bill have allowed an exception to the law for women whose lives are threatened, but refused to add an exception for victims of rape or incest. Some Ohio pro-life groups are concerned about the bill because of its clear unconstitutionality, but others see it as a potential opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade. Rape and incest exceptions are not the in bill, supporters say, because an embryo's right to life shouldn't depend on how it was conceived.