It’s one of the most common objections raised
by abortion advocates, yet it accounts for only one percent of abortions.
“What about rape?”
I have never struggled with the morality of abortion
even in the hardest cases. But I have struggled for several years about how to
write this article. The experience I had is hardly worthy of comparison to a
woman being pregnant from rape, and I do not claim otherwise. But I hope that
the principle behind it can be applied to situations more difficult.
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| In case you don't believe me |
Several years ago, when I was a student at
Northern Kentucky, I visited Xavier University to watch our volleyball team
play theirs. I tried to make it to close away games for the various sports, but
this was before I had a car. If any reader is unfamiliar with public
transportation in the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana tristate, Northern Kentucky has a
bus system that has stops every 40 to 60 minutes. Those buses will bring
someone to Cincinnati, and then Cincinnati’s buses run to Xavier. It was
probably about an hour-long trip for me altogether.
For those that know me well, I am into urban
exploration and keep abandoned places with which I’m familiar marked on the map
on my phone. If I’m close and have time, I may check one out. There happened to
be a place I knew of close to Xavier’s campus that I had never been to. It was
about 8 pm, still light but providing some cover of darkness, so I decided to
attempt a visit. There was a lengthy walk back to it down a gravel lot and a
trail. As soon as I got to the lot, I noticed a wallet. I thought that maybe
someone would retrace his steps, so I didn’t pick it up.
Unfortunately, the way back to the place was
blocked after a long walk, so I walked back and checked for the wallet. It was
still there. I decided to pick it up, and called the local police station. They
told me to bring it in. I am notoriously bad with directions, so it took me a
good half hour to find the police station that wasn’t that far away. After
having to ask for directions several times, I finally located the station. I
knew that this was pushing me close against the bus schedule. If I were to miss
the next bus to downtown, I would miss the last bus back into Northern
Kentucky. By the time I gave the station the information, I wasn’t sure I would
make it. It turns out that I got to the stop just as the bus was pulling up.
However, even if I would have missed the bus
and had to call a friend or a cab, it would have been worth it to me. I knew
that I needed to do what was right, even if it required sacrifice. As I said
before, a night of running around Xavier’s campus (as unpleasant as the thought
is) and running the risk of being stuck there is not worthy of comparison with
being raped and going through a pregnancy. But it is that principle—doing what
is right even if it requires sacrifice—that is why a pro-life person believes
abortion is wrong even in the circumstance of rape.
In my experience in pro-life activism, there
are two reasons why people will bring up this objection. I write with the
second in mind.
The first reason is because abortion advocates
use this as a loaded question. They will bring up the most difficult circumstance
of pregnancy to demonize people that are against abortion. The problem with
this is that it doesn’t actually defend abortion. According to the Guttmacher
Institute, one percent of abortions are due to rape. Yet abortion advocates use it to attempt to justify the other 99.
Even if abortion were permissible after rape, that only covers the one percent.
Abortion advocates use—yes, use—rape victims to silence their opposition and
further their agenda. I am unafraid to call someone on that when speaking to
them, because it (1) is an enemy to honest conversation and debate and (2) is
cruel in its use of victims—something the Hellish, blood-drunken beast that is
the abortion industry feeds upon.
The other reason, though, is that there are
people that legitimately care about rape victims and think it unfair that they
should have to go through a pregnancy. There are a lot of Americans that are
neither totally for nor totally against abortion, but think it should be
allowed in certain circumstances. Number one on that list is rape.
And I would have to agree. It is completely
unfair that a woman should have to go through a pregnancy that she did nothing
to cause. (I do not use “did not want” because the natural consequence of sex
is pregnancy, so if someone consents to sex, he or she consents to its
consequences.) It was completely unfair, to understate it, that she was raped.
Abortion is wrong because it takes an innocent
human life, and it doesn’t matter how developed that human life is or where he
or she is located. Human life is intrinsically valuable, and nothing more than
being human is necessary to have that value. That is the pro-life view. So,
applied consistently, there is no reason great enough to warrant the
intentional taking of an innocent human life, which is what abortion is.
When a woman is raped, she is victimized. When
she has an abortion, she is also victimized. Abortion is not a compassionate
option with which to present a woman who has been raped and has become
pregnant. There can be many problems surrounding abortion. There can be long-term
health complications. More frequently, there are long-term psychological and emotional complications, including attempting suicide. Some
abortion advocates don’t care. Others do, but are criminal in their ignorance
of the effects an abortion can have on a woman.
Within this circumstance of pregnancy from rape,
there are three people. The rapist/father of the child, the victim/mother of
the child, and the child. Count the guilty parties. There is a rapist, a
victim, and a child who did nothing to find herself in this situation and is
totally innocent. There is one person in the wrong. The rapist, and the rapist
alone, should be punished. It is unfair to kill a child because of the crime of
her father.
And I do realize that this does not relieve the
unfair situation of the rape victim. Regardless of whether or not she has an
abortion, though, it will be unfair to her. There is no cure to that. Abortion
only adds to the violence. Ripping apart a child in the womb is as violent a
crime as rape. What the victim needs is vindication and compassion, and help
from those around her to get through this difficult situation.
I’ve never known a person conceived in rape,
that I know of, but I do know someone who was scheduled to be aborted and someone who survived several abortion attempts. I’m thankful to know them (one of them is one of my best friends)
and they are thankful to be alive. I’ve been to the March for Life three times,
and each time I have seen a solid contingent of people who were conceived in
rape and whose mothers chose to deliver them. That is a courageous choice, and
these individuals are the living fruit of that. They are “people, not hard cases.” They
are human beings, and they have been since they were conceived under such a
horrific circumstance.
There is no denying that rape is a terrible
thing, and pregnancy resulting from this is unfair. These women need not only
our sympathy, but also our practical help.
But the truly consistent and sympathetic position is to recognize that all
human life has value, and that all innocent humans have the right to life. That
extends to circumstances which they could not help. Though it is unfair, and
though it is not easy, the right thing to do is to choose life for a child
conceived in rape.
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