EDITOR’S NOTE: Timothy Faber serves as the legislative liaison for the Missouri Baptist Convention.
A lot of attention has been given to the attempt to make abortion a constitutional right in Missouri. And that is as it should be. We must continue to fight this effort with much prayer and every other legal means available. However that is not the only issue of importance in our state.
Representative Wendy Hausman filed HJR132 back in February and it eventually passed the House on April 22 by a vote of 131 to 7. It has now had it’s first hearing in the Senate. But time is running out for this legislative session and it remains to be seen whether this bill will make it to passage in the upper chamber.
So what is HJR132 and why it is so important? This House Joint Resolution proposes an amendment to the Missouri Constitution to provide that the penalty for sexual trafficking of a child in the first degree is life imprisonment without eligibility for probation or parole. For the purposes of this provision, life imprisonment means for the duration of the person’s natural life.
This bill is important for two reasons. First, it attempts to deter trafficking a child for sex. This is a serious crime, and those who are convicted of it are currently sentenced to life in prison but then have a possibility for parole after being incarcerated for 25 years (RSMO 566.210). This bill would merely remove that possibility of parole. Losing that possibility of parole may be a deterrent to some potential offenders. Second, and perhaps more importantly, is that it provides a greater sense of justice to the victims. Those who have experienced the evil of being trafficked for sex carry those hurts and scars for their entire life. Knowing that the person responsible for them being trafficked could be free in only 25 years does not provide a sense of justice to the victims. Micah 6.8 reminds us to “do justice”. This bill is an attempt to fulfill that.
As mentioned above this is a constitutional amendment, not simply a statute. So even if (or when) the Senate passes it, Missouri voters would still have to approve it in order for it to take effect. Unlike a constitutional amendment proposed by initiative petition process, one proposed by the state legislature does not need signatures of Missouri voters to get it on the ballot. HJR132 could go directly to the voters, and it could do so as early as the August election.
Missouri is the most pro-life state in the nation. Any abortion that may occur in Missouri is an illegal abortion. But Missouri also has one the highest rates of human trafficking in the nation and a significant portion of those are children who are being trafficked for sex. If we are going to congratulate ourselves on being so “pro-life”, shouldn’t we work to make the lives of our children free from trafficking, and mete out true justice to those who would destroy our children’s innocence?
He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble. Luke 17:1-2 (NASB).