Apparently, in the good ol’ boy state of Georgia in the United States of America, it’s not enough that their female citizens are not to be trusted to make their own medical and health decisions without government intrusion. Now, according to Reproductive Health Reality Check‘s managing editor Amie Newman, women in Georgia are not to be trusted when it comes to reporting crimes, either.

Republican State Representative Bobby Franklin of Georgia has introduced H.B. 14 which mandates that rape victims, victims of stalking or harassment, under-age victims of obscene telephone contact, or victims of family violence in his state may no longer be classified as “victims”, but instead as “accusers”. The pundits at Politicus USA recently ran Bobby’s head shot (which looks alarmingly creepy, by the way) online above the caption:

“Bobby Franklin: Proudly Protecting the Rights of Rapists in Georgia”

They also remind us about the late comedian George Carlin‘s wry predictions about political correctness – that a rape victim could one day become known as just an “unwilling sperm recipient”. Well, if Bobby gets his way, that unwilling sperm recipient would also be referred to as merely an “accuser”, not as a real victim.

Good ol’ Bobby (a proud graduate of Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia with a degree in Biblical Studies) has no issue at all with fraud victims still being called victims.  Assault victims can still be victims. Burglary victims can be victims. It seems it’s mostly women reporting the crimes of rape, domestic violence, or stalking that get ol’ Bobby bowed up like a banty rooster.  According to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, Bobby Franklin’s bill would:

“…change the state’s criminal codes so that in ‘criminal law and criminal procedure’ (read: in court), victims of rape, stalking, and family violence could only be referred to as ‘accusers’ until the defendant has been convicted.”

Newman believes that Bobby Franklin’s “utterly misogynistic, hateful bill” tells victims that, regardless of what they’ve experienced, those experiences are not valid and they are not to be believed until the justice system deems it so.

“To diminish a victim’s ordeal by branding him/her an accuser essentially questions whether the crime committed against the victim is a crime at all.”

This isn’t Bobby’s first foray into proposing whackadoodle legislation. (By the way, he’s “Bobby” – not Robert or Bob; apparently adult men in Georgia prefer to be called little boys’ names like Jerry Lee, Billy Ray, Joe Earl, Tommy Lee or just plain ol’ Bobby).

He also thinks that driver’s licenses impose undue restrictions on the freedom of Georgia citizens to travel. So he’s proposed legislation to stop the state from issuing them.

Bobby also wants abortion classified as murder, and so according to his latest bill, the police will have to investigate all miscarriages to ensure that they were indeed  “spontaneous” – and if police investigators can’t be assured that they were, women could be charged with murder, which only tells you how slow the po-lice business must be in Georgia.

Maybe Bobby’s eyeing enviously what’s going on in Iowa, where last year Christine Taylor, a pregnant mother of two, was arrested, charged with attempted feticide and jailed for two days after she fell down the stairs during her second trimester – and then made the mistake of going immediately to hospital to make sure her unborn child was okay. She was accused of deliberately throwing herself down the stairs. At least 37 other American states actually have similar attempted feticide legislation.

So be very, very careful walking down stairs in Iowa if you’re pregnant…

Bobby has also proposed other state bills that would:

• require the exclusive use of gold and silver as tender in payment of debts by or to the state
• ban forced vaccinations
• stop the collection of the Georgia income tax
• stop all property taxes
• abolish the State Road and Tollway Authority, the Department of Health and Human Services, and any social services Georgia provides

Learn more from the Domestic Violence Prevention Fund about the alarming statistics  on domestic, dating and sexual violence and its victims – Oops! Sorry, Bobby, make that accusers!