All-Male Panel Fails to End Maryland Law that Forces Women to Share Custody with Their Rapists
Maryland is one of seven states without a law allowing women to terminate parental rights for their rapists, but for some inexplicable reason a panel of only men let the clock run out before doing something about it.
KELLY WEILL
04.16.17 5:43 PM ET
Five Maryland legislators could have ended a policy that forces women to share child custody with their rapists. Instead the five legislators, all men, buried the bill.
Maryland is one of seven states without a law allowing women to terminate parental rights for their rapists, if their child was conceived as a result of sexual assault, according to reproductive rights organization NARAL. The state’s current policy forces survivors to negotiate child custody and adoption issues with their attacker. In a bid to update the draconian policy, Maryland Delegate Kathleen Dumais introduced legislation that would allow a woman to cut her rapist’s parental rights.
But while the bill passed both Maryland’s House and Senate, the bill’s text varied between the two legislative bodies. On Monday, the last day of legislative session, a five-person negotiating group was set to decide on the bill’s final text, the Baltimore Sun reported. Instead, the five-man group let the bill fall by the wayside, running out the legislative session’s clock without finalizing the bill’s text.
The Maryland General Assembly’s is not scheduled to reconvene until its 2018 session begins on January 10. But for Maryland women with children conceived by rape, the state’s current law can mean situations of urgent danger.
more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/16/all-male-panel-fails-to-end-maryland-law-that-forces-women-to-share-custody-with-their-rapists.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
