31 states give parential rights to rapists

According to CNN, 31 US states sometimes allow rapists to have some parental rights, requiring victims to have regular interactions with their attackers. What the hell are these state governments thinking?

Ideally, no rapist should be out of prison in less than 18 years, so any resulting children should be grown adults by then.

 

It's stuff like this that makes me want to blow up this whole damn planet.

 

Did the source say how often this happens and in which states this is allowed?

I can't imagine many victims out there are willing to keep their pregnancies this day in age. I mean they have options of abortion, adoption, or flat-out keeping it to raise themselves. Also, what is the likelihood of a rapist giving a care about the offspring?

 

It didn't list the states, but did say that there are tens of thousands of pregnancies resulting from rape every year (nationally), and about a third are carried to term.

I think most of us have been assuming that a rapist gains no rights or privileges by committing a violent crime, in any state.

Well, Ariel Castro said in court this afternoon that he would like to stay in touch with his daughter. The judge said no, because she is classified as one of the victims of his crimes. Castro doesn't see it that way.

You can't reason with people who do stuff like this, or fully understand their thinking. If they thought rationally, they wouldn't commit the crimes in the first place.

The only case I can think of where an exception might be called for is in the case of statutory rape; consensual sex involving a minor. I see that as a completely different sort of crime from forcible rape.

 

I suppose that's true. But they still have the right to a trial at the very least. Especially if the accused's guilt is questionable.

Oh yeah that's true. I didn't think about it that way. I just assumed all rapists only cared for no one but themselves. But at the same time nobody can tell exactly what goes on in the mind of a psychopath. They are irrational like you said.

 

Yeah, I'm talking about convicted rapists.

I don't want to get too deep into the Castro case in this thread, but just a little while ago, he indicated that he plans to appeal the judge's ruling that he can't contact his daughter from prison. In his twisted mind, he has a moral right to maintain a relationship with the child, even though he never had any right to have sex with her mother. And he denied his daughter basic medical care for the first six years of her life. She didn't even have a birth certificate, or a legal name! He calls himself a father???

I'm sure other rapists have made similarly crazy statements.

Hopefully, most judges make the right rulings in these situations, but I'd rather it be automatic. We can't assume that every judge is going to get it right, every single time.

 

It's all about control.

 

You're absolutely right, and some of these state loopholes are giving those guys exactly what they want.

Everybody needs to find out what the relevant state laws are in their home state, and take action if needed. This is the time to take action, while this one big case is on everyone's mind.

 

I want to look into this more. On a similar related note, Karen, can you comment on the thread I made in the birth control section? It also hits upon the topic of crazy state governments and sexual health based rights.

 

The only CNN article I could find is this one:

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/01/us/rapist-child-custody


Each year, there are approximately 32,000 pregnancies resulting from rape, according to a 1996 study by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
While the majority of those pregnancies were terminated, as many as a third of the women give birth.

I don't think 31 states GIVE parental rights to rapists - they just don't take them away. It doesn't mention how many rapists actually have access to their children. It just mentions: "If we knew that this possibility loomed on the horizon, that we could spend the rest of lives tethered to our attackers because of our decision to have our children, would we have made the same choice?"

Which to me seems to suggest it's more of the mental distress of it being possible rather than it actually occurring that often, if at all.

If a new specific law saves time, money and stress it can only be a good thing...

Currently only 6 States have statutes allowing rape survivors to petition for the termination of parental rights of the rapist based on clear and convincing evidence that the child was conceived through rape.
A rapist pursuing parental or custody rights forces the survivor to have continued interaction with the rapist, which can have traumatic psychological effects on the survivor, making it more difficult for her to recover.
These traumatic effects on the mother can severely negatively impact her ability to raise a healthy child.
Rapists may use the threat of pursuing custody or parental rights to coerce survivors into not prosecuting rape, or otherwise harass, intimidate, or manipulate them.

http://beta.congress.gov/113/bills/hr2772/BILLS-113hr2772ih.pdf

 

It leaves the decision in the hands of the courts, as I said before.

That's a quote from an interview with a female lawyer, who has personally gone through the legal hassles that we're talking about. It aired on CNN early this morning.

 

Karen_J

I think we are on the same page.

It was just reading the thread the first time, and even if you read the article briefly - it might seem that rapists were 'gaining the right' to see their children (and where) rather than 'having the right' (but not being given the right) to see their children.
It might be just me, it just felt that was the way it was supposed to be interpreted.

But, yeah, with the benefit of sleep, I can see we are on the same page.