This week, Alabama’s legislature passed an abortion ban that would outlaw the murder of undocumented infants in almost all cases. It allows for exceptions to protect the life of the mother, but considering that abortion is never truly necessary to protect the life of the mother, this loophole shouldn’t amount to much. The bill does not allow exceptions in cases of rape and incest, and this detail in particular has sent the Left into hysterics (though, in fairness, any abortion restriction sends them into hysterics).
Here are some things to keep in mind as the Left panics and the media fear-monger:
(1) Abortions due to rape are very rare. The vast majority of abortions have nothing at all to do with rape. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute surveyed post-abortion women and found that the top six reasons for getting an abortion, accounting for over 85% of all cases, were: “Not ready for a child,” “can’t afford a baby,” “have completed my childbearing,” “don’t want to be a single mother,” “don’t feel mature enough,” and “would interfere with education or career plans.” In other words, most women get abortions for lifestyle reasons. They are getting rid of the baby because the baby would interfere with the kind of lives they want to live. Less than one percent of respondents said they were rape victims.
Considering how often rape comes up in abortion discussions, you’d think that something like half of the women who walk into a Planned Parenthood on a given day are rape victims. That is clearly not the case. Instead of half, it’s more like half of one percent. So why do we focus disproportionately on these rare and difficult cases? Because pro-aborts would much rather talk about a 15-year-old girl who gets an abortion because she was raped by her father (an extraordinary hypothetical that probably accounts for half of half of one percent, if the number is even that large) than a grown woman who gets an abortion because she doesn’t want a baby to mess up her career plans. The latter case is many times more common than the former, but the latter makes abortion seems cruel and self-centered. In other words, it gives an accurate impression of abortion, and advocates of the procedure do not want anyone to have an accurate impression of it.
(2) No group is more upset about abortion restrictions than rapists. Rapists love abortion because it helps them cover up their crime. If that hypothetical 15-year-old victim does have her baby, the rapist father could be conclusively proven guilty with a DNA test. But if the incestuous abuser can enlist Planned Parenthood to destroy the evidence for him, he will walk away scot-free and continue molesting his daughter for years to come. This indeed is exactly what rapists do, and Planned Parenthood has historically oftentimes been more than happy to assist.
(3) We’ve established that pro-aborts focus on hard cases in order to distract from their real position, and that abortion restrictions will actually protect rape victims and help assist in bringing rapists to justice. Once we’ve qualified this discussion with those two crucial points, we can move on to addressing the specific question at hand: Should there be exceptions to allow raped women to get abortions? The answer is no.
The pro-life case is rather simple. We believe that abortion should be outlawed because unborn humans are people and all people are endowed with inherent rights and dignities. There is no other reason to be pro-life. And if we’re wrong on either point — that unborn humans are people or that all people are endowed with inherent rights — then there is no reason to be pro-life at all. But if that’s the case, then we need not get into rape and incest exceptions. Abortion should simply be legal across the board, and probably infanticide and involuntary mercy killing should be legal, too. If personhood lies on a spectrum, contingent on a human being’s ability to care for himself, forget about limiting abortion to rape cases. We shouldn’t even limit it to the womb.
On the other hand, if we’re right, if it’s true that unborn humans are people and thus intrinsically deserving of the same legal protections you and I enjoy, then again, there is no reason to discuss exceptions. A baby conceived in rape is not any less a person than one conceived consensually. If we believe they are people, and people have rights, it would be incoherent and contradictory to say, “Well, except for…” Our whole point is that there is no “except for.” People are people are people. To pretend that a baby conceived in rape is not a person is nonsensical. To admit that he is a person but still execute him for his father’s sins is morally abominable. We cannot remain consistently pro-life while supporting exceptions because the exceptions must either be based on the belief that not all unborn people are people or that sometimes it is actually okay to murder an innocent and defenseless human being. Either claim contradicts and ultimately destroys our whole case. Pro-abortion people know this. That’s why they want the exceptions in the first place.