Opinion Dynamics Corp conducted a poll for Fox News to get a feel for the nation’s reaction to South Dakota’s abortion ban (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,187083,00.html). ODC found that only 35% of Americans would support the same legislation in their own state, whereas 59% would oppose it. Why? Three out of four people (74%) oppose it because it does not make an exception for abortion in cases of rape and incest (political breakdown: 82%=independents, 79%=democrats, 67%=republicans), and 62% oppose it because it does not make an exception for the mother’s health (not to be confused with an exception to save the mother’s life, which the law does have).
I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss the issue of abortion as it pertains to rape and incest. It has been my experience—and these polls show—that many who generally consider themselves pro-life and oppose abortion on demand, allow for abortion in cases of rape and incest.
While I understand the emotional appeal of this position, it is not a rational position for pro-lifers to take because it is inconsistent with the pro-life logic. If it is wrong to take the life of the unborn because they are human beings, and the unborn “thing” produced by the rape or incest is a human being, then it is wrong to purposely take its life. A human being is what it is regardless of the circumstances surrounding its conception.
When someone says they are opposed to abortion except in cases of rape and incest, ask them why they believe abortion is morally wrong in all other cases. They will probably say something to the effect that they are opposed to abortion in those cases because it unjustly takes the life of an innocent human being. At that point ask them, “Does abortion do something different to those children conceived through rape or incest?” The circumstances under which the child was conceived is morally irrelevant to the question of their worth as members of the human race.
There is no question that rape is a violent assault against an innocent women, and entirely unjust, but abortion is a violent assault against an innocent child. Why decry the one injustice, but allow the other? Would we allow a woman to kill her three month old because he was conceived by rape? If it is not morally acceptable to kill the child once it is outside of the womb because of the circumstances surrounding his/her conception, why is it permissible for her to kill her child so long as it is still in the womb for the same reason? Certainly the 8” travel down the birth canal does nothing to change what the unborn is.
Most pro-lifers who allow for abortion in cases of rape and incest do so for emotional reasons. They say, “It’s not fair to require a woman to carry a baby that was conceived through incest or rape to term because of the emotional pain it will cause the mother.” There is no question that it can be an extremely difficult emotional issue, but it is not a difficult moral issue. The most important question is not, Will this cause me emotional pain?, but, “What is the unborn?” Clearly it is a human being, and human beings are the kinds of things that are worthy of our respect and protection.
Furthermore, aborting the baby will do nothing to “unrape” the mother. It will do nothing to make her forget the horror of being raped, and will do nothing to take away her emotional pain. If anything, it will compound her pain, because she will have to deal with both the pain of rape and the pain of aborting her child.
To help someone to see the lunacy of their logic ask them if it’s morally acceptable to kill the rapist/pedophile who committed the crime against the woman. If it is not morally proper to take the life of the human being guilty of committing the moral evil against the girl, why would it be morally proper to take the life of the innocent human being in the womb?” Since when do we force another human being to give up their life so someone else can feel better? Hardship and emotional pain never justifies homicide.
For additional reading see my article entitled Pro-Life with a Footnote.
Thinking to Believe 
March 14, 2006 at 10:30 am
Okay, Jason. Are you sitting down? Don’t have a heart attack; I agree with you! 🙂
This came up often in my classes in undergrad, and more so in law school. Because of the serious emotions involved in dealing with the outrageous crime of rape, the issue has to be addressed with sensitivity. I always started off saying that I have utmost sympathy and compassion for victims of rape (and sometimes say what I think should be done to the rapist as well).
However, I explained that I think an abortion would only add to the victim’s trauma. Because the overwhelming majority of people I spoke with didn’t believe that an unborn child is a human being, I focused on my concern for the pregnant rape victim first, without yet bringing up the innocent life. Pro-choicers make abortion sound like your just getting a tooth pulled, when in fact it’s a very painful and traumatic experience. Whether the woman keeps the baby or not, she will live with the decision for the rest of her life.
I often tell pro-choice friends that it’s not even a choice, if the woman isn’t fully informed about the emotional and physical risks involved in abortion. Why do they try to hide and deny evidence that abortion leads to depression, infertility, and breast cancer?
Emotional feelings are difficult to dismiss. My niece started menstruating and 9 years old. She’s a beautiful, innocent little girl, her eyes looking younger than the rest of her body. I just shutter to think of her pregnant at such a young age due to no fault of her own. This is such a heavy topic.
However, the focus in such cases turns to aborting the result of rape, and I don’t see how that will bring about change. There needs to be greater enforcement of penalties against rapists. America has seemed to forget the power of consequences.
Jason, I was just starting an apostolic sub-chapter of the National Right to Life, before 9-11. I lost contact with the religious liason after that, and I was graduating college, and getting ready for law school. I ended up just letting it go because I didn’t have the time. But I’ve been thinking about starting it up again. If you and Lysa are interested, come to talk to me or email me. I definitely can’t do it alone.
Finally, there’s a good, ficitional, Christian book called Atonement Child, by Francine Rivers, that deals with this very issue. A young Christian girl is raped, and her Christian parents and Christian fiance urge her to get an abortion. Andy says it’s a “chick book” but I don’t think it is entirely.
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March 14, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Even a broken clock gets the time right twice a day. Ha!!!
I agree that when dealing with this issue in public, or dealing with an actual case one-ono-one we need to start with our sympathies for the victim, and our outrage over the hideousness of the crime. Only then do we get into the biological and moral status of the unborn, and the question of what we do with “it.”
Yeah, we are interested in getting involved with a National Right to Life chapter. We’ll have to talk to you Wednesday or Sunday about what it would involve.
Jason
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