GOP lawmaker: Women need man's permission for abortion unless they can prove 'legitimate rape'

A Republican lawmaker in Missouri is introducing a bill that will require women to receive consent from the man who impregnated them before getting an abortion, Mother Jones's Molly Redden reports.

State Representative Rick Brattin filed the bill, which states that "[n]o abortion shall be performed or induced unless and until the father of the unborn child provides written, notarized consent to the abortion."

The two exceptions to the requirement are "in cases where the woman upon whom the abortion is to be performed or induced was the victim of rape or incest," or if the woman has "a notarized affidavit attesting to the fact" that the man who impregnated her is deceased.

Brattin told Mother Jones that while the bill allows for an exception in the case of rape, the woman seeking an abortion will have to prove that she has been raped.

"Just like any rape, you have to report it, and you have to prove it," he said. "So you couldn't just go and say, 'Oh yeah, I was raped,' and get an abortion. It has to be a legitimate rape."

He insisted that he was using the phrase "legitimate rape" differently from former Missouri representative Todd Akin, who claimed that women cannot become pregnant from a "legitimate rape" because her body will "shut the whole thing down."

"I'm just saying if there was a legitimate rape, you're going to make a police report, just as if you were robbed," he said by way of clarification. "That's just common sense."