'The Daily Show's Samantha Bee did an eye-opening report about rapists and parental rights.
It's kind of shocking in how many states it's totally legal for a rapist to sue for parental rights.Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault.
It's really rare for a politician to have a slam-dunk piece of legislation with support from all sides of the political spectrum. But Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz thinks she's got one.
Her bill is based on a simple, widely supported concept:
Seems reasonable enough, right? There's no way a rape victim should have to see their attacker over and over.
Plus, it's not like this is all that common, right? I mean, take it from former Rep. Todd Akin. Here's what he had to say about women becoming pregnant as the result of rape:
(I'm leaving out the nonsense about women being able to "shut that whole thing down.")
Wrong! It's actually surprisingly common.
Here's what Shauna Prewitt — who went through a two-year custody battle with her attacker — has to say about that:
And some rapists will use the threat of a custody battle to get the survivor to drop charges against them.
But how is this legal?
Well, in a number of states (highlighted in red), even convicted rapists can sue for custody or visitation rights for children born as the result of their crime.
It's beyond messed up.
Since parental rights are handled at a state level, Wasserman Schultz's bill ("The Rape Survivor Child Custody Act") wouldn't actually change existing laws.
It would just offer incentives to states to revamp their own custody laws.
Prewitt supports Florida's law, which requires that a rapist either be found guilty or plead guilty in order for parental rights to be terminated.
"The court determines by clear and convincing evidence that the child was conceived as a result of an act of sexual battery. ... It is presumed that termination of parental rights is in the best interest of the child if the child was conceived as a result of the unlawful sexual battery."
— Florida's 2013 parental rights law
But what's horrifying is that in many other states, someone can be convicted of rape and still fight for custody of the child.
The Rape Survivor Child Custody Act is just the first step in ending the nightmare that so many of these survivors are forced to relive over and over.



A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
Gif of baby being baptized
Woman gives toddler a bath Canva


An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.