Steven Brill, Reuters: How would a woman "prove" rape to qualify for Romney's abortion exception?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/28/us-column-woman-idUSBRE87R0FD20120828

In the wake of the Todd Akin firestorm, Mitt Romney and a flip-flopping Paul Ryan have emphasized that their anti-choice stance excludes rape. In a Romney administration, abortions would be outlawed except in the case of women who have been raped, the Republican ticket has promised.

So here's an idea, first suggested by my daughter and one of her friends: Who's going to be the first reporter to ask Romney or Ryan how that would work? How would they implement that exception?

Would a woman's rapist have to be convicted in court? How would that work, given that in most criminal cases it takes longer than nine months from when the crime is committed to catch the criminal (assuming the criminal is caught), prepare charges and reach a verdict. In fact, the window would be significantly less than nine months; it would start from when the pregnancy is discovered and end somewhere around the 16 to 20 weeks left during which abortions can be performed most safely.

-snipping paragraph about just taking the woman's word that she was raped-

Or would there be some kind of new quasi-judicial process falling somewhere between a full-fledged trial and a simple statement of victimization? Would each state have to set up a new tribunal to handle these "cases"? Who would be the judges or juries? What evidence would be admissible? Would there be an adversary engaged to challenge the woman's claim and whatever evidence she offers? Who would that be? Could those challenges include references to her prior sexual history? Would there be criminal penalties for perjury? And, if as the Republican platform decrees, the outlawing of abortion should be implemented via a "human life" amendment to the Constitution, would Romney suggest that language defining rape and how it would qualify for the exception also be written into the Constitution? How would he craft language establishing that a fetus that is the product of rape is not a human life?

-snip-

Brill's right. Reporters should ask Romney and Ryan exactly how the rape exception would work.