Abortion in the case of rape

[Shaolen]

What’s are some points I can bring up to defend the prolife position in the case of rape?

 

[pensmama87]

The child is innocent and we do not punish innocents for the crimes of others.

Abortion will not make it as if the rape never happened.

Abortion procedures can re-traumatize the rape victim, especially if done surgically.

 

[Cricket2]

Though pregnancy can occur, it is rare due to the trauma usually associated with the rape and resulting medical care if that has been sought. (I am not speaking of the “day after pill” on this either. Just general exam and care.)

If pregnancy does occur the victim of this crime needs to remember that the child is not the one that raped her. The child is also a victim of sorts in this crime and certainly innocent in all aspects. The child deserves a chance at life and to be loved.

The pregnant woman can always give the child up for adoption should she find it impossible to keep the child herself due to the trauma of the assault. And everyone should keep in mind that rape is a violent form of assault and is not about sex. It uses a sex act to assault someone, but is not about sex.

To perform an abortion is an act of murder. It takes an innocent life. And in this case it takes the innocent life for a crime that someone else committed. The victim of such a crime does not need the added burden of abortion on their conscience. It has been proven that women who have abortions have higher suicide rapes. Moreover, aborting the child so conceived does not remove the rape or the trauma from the woman. It only adds to her turmoil and increases the chances of worse depression and self loathing.

Sound counseling and care should be provided to such women throughout their pregnancy and after, so they can have the best chance at recovery possible.

 

[Ophelia23]

The child is innocent and we do not punish innocents for the crimes of others.

Abortion will not make it as if the rape never happened.

Abortion procedures can re-traumatize the rape victim, especially if done surgically.

All of these. And, a person can not logically be “pro-life” and have an “except if”. Either the child conceived is a child, or it isn’t. The method of conception has absolutely no bearing on the value of the life created.

 

[_Abyssinia]

A response I have seen is that the baby, which is innocent, if aborted, is given more of a punishment than the rapist is, because the rapist may get a prison sentence, or may not even be reported to the police for his crime by the victim, and gets to live his live, yet the baby dies.

Watch this video of MCRTV talking to some people at the March for life:

MRCTV spoke to just such individuals at the 2014 March For Life: two people conceived through rape and a woman who was impregnated by a rapist and decided to go through with the pregnancy - and is glad she did.

cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/dan-joseph/children-rape-rally-life

David C Reardon interviewed more than 200 women who became pregnant as a result of rape for his book Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About their Pregnancies, Abortions and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault Of those who chose to give birth to their child, nearly all of them felt it was the right thing to do, and many felt that having had something good out of their terrible ordeal helped them to find healing and meaning for what had been done to them. Conversely, more than 80% of those who chose to abort felt that the abortion had only compounded their pain, exposed their bodies to further invasion, and led others to dismiss their need for comfort and support.

blog.secularprolife.org/2012/04/arguing-against-rape-exception.html

 

[FrenzyJen]

That by having an abortion, the woman is committing a more heinous act than rape. Don’t we teach children from day one that 2 wrongs don’t make a right?

 

[St_Francis]

Most people who support abortion’s being legal oppose the death penalty and more would oppose it for rape. Thus they would impose upon the other innocent victim of the crime a penalty they would be unwilling to impose on the actual perpetrator.

 

[tawny]

The child is innocent and we do not punish innocents for the crimes of others.

Abortion will not make it as if the rape never happened.

Abortion procedures can re-traumatize the rape victim, especially if done surgically.

Well stated.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

Abortion Cures*Rape

Pregant by a Rapist?

Feminists For Life keyword search

 

[R_C]

What’s are some points I can bring up to defend the prolife position in the case of rape?

Start by reminding the speaker that of over 1 million abortion performed every year in the US, about 1% are a consequence of rape or incest. Therefore this is generally a red herring brought forth to poison the well, two fallacious ways of argument which nevertheless work like a charm in favor of pro-abortion speakers.

The issue is not how the child was conceived in the womb, but whether the fruit of conception has human dignity.

To shift attention away from the unborn to the mother is to entirely miss the point of “pro life” and to fall into the category of “anti-abortion”. To do so means to enter into a clash with those who claim abortion is the right of the woman, and more so when her pregnancy was totally unwanted.

We are not arguing on their ground, but on ours. We are arguing about life, and about the dignity of the unborn, and his right to be born and to live a life.

Ah of course, a great resource would be videos or interviews of men and women who were conceived from rape. The argument of abortion in case of rape sounds reasonable to some, until they find themselves face to face with someone conceived by rape and be forced to tell them in their eyes that they are unworthy of being brought to life because of he who carried their seed, and the way it was planted. See for instance www.savethe1.com

http://www.savethe1.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Savethe11.png

 

[Bruised_Reed]

Sometimes I think that those who want an exception for rape want it because their own discomfort, society’s discomfort, facing a victim of rape. If you see a guy at your work place with a black eye he got in a bar room brawl you don’t avoid him but most would avoid looking a a woman they know was raped and is pregnant. A stigma remains as though the victim/survivor did something wrong, that the child was conceived in a “private moment” or an illicit act in which she was complicit.

We can look at countries where women are punished as adulterers for being raped or that politician who suggested that women can’t become pregnant from “legitimate rape.”

I think we add to the victims shame by encouraging or supporting abortion after rape as though she did something shameful that she needs to hide it.

 

[runningdude]

Though pregnancy can occur, it is rare due to the trauma usually associated with the rape and resulting medical care if that has been sought. (I am not speaking of the “day after pill” on this either. Just general exam and care.)…

That is not, strictly speaking, correct. Coerced intercourse (rape)* is just as likely as voluntary intercourse to produce a child. Women are only fertile one to three days a month on average, so there is perhaps a 10% chance of pregnancy without intervention. Anti-ovulates may be licitly given to further reduce this risk, if tests show ovulation has not already occurred.

*As opposed to non-vaginal rape

 

[pensmama87]

That is not, strictly speaking, correct. Coerced intercourse (rape)* is just as likely as voluntary intercourse to produce a child. Women are only fertile one to three days a month on average, so there is perhaps a 10% chance of pregnancy without intervention. Anti-ovulates may be licitly given to further reduce this risk, if tests show ovulation has not already occurred.

*As opposed to non-vaginal rape

I think this is often said because trauma can (not that it always does) delay ovulation if the woman is not currently ovulating or has not ovulated yet that cycle, thus making conception less likely. I know I’ve had unexpected delays before due to other stressors (even something like a test coming up.) But this is not the case for all women, nor should it be used to make a woman feel like what she experienced could not be rape if she becomes pregnant.

(name removed by moderator), thank you for your story. I am so sorry your wife had to experience that. I am a victim of sexual assault myself and I can understand wanting to completely forget what happened. In my case, it was not violent but definitely coerced, and I was a minor. There was little chance I could have become pregnant, but it did weigh on my mind for a while. I considered myself pro-choice then, but even then I knew that while I was partially blaming myself, I could never hold the baby responsible if a baby resulted (it didn’t).

Rape victims definitely deserve compassion. But telling them it’s OK to murder their children because they’re hurting is not compassionate.

 

[JMKC]

I like presenting the following scenario when talking to people about abortion in the case of rape:

A husband and wife have sexual relations. The next day, she is raped. A few weeks after, she discovers that she is pregnant. She decides to go through with the pregnancy because there’s a good chance she conceived while she was with her husband. She carries the child to term and gives birth. When the child is born, they do a paternity test. It turns out that the rapist is in fact the child’s father.

Is it okay to kill the child?

People will say, “of course not.” To which you reply, “why is it okay to kill a child who’s father is a rapist before birth but not after?”

The point of this story and the questions that follow is to point out that the way in which a child is conceived does not change his or her right to life. From here the conversation can move to the heart of the matter: the humanity of the unborn child.

Hope this helps!

 

[Auntie_A]

I like presenting the following scenario when talking to people about abortion in the case of rape:

A husband and wife have sexual relations. The next day, she is raped. A few weeks after, she discovers that she is pregnant. She decides to go through with the pregnancy because there’s a good chance she conceived while she was with her husband. She carries the child to term and gives birth. When the child is born, they do a paternity test. It turns out that the rapist is in fact the child’s father.

Is it okay to kill the child?

People will say, “of course not.” To which you reply, “why is it okay to kill a child who’s father is a rapist before birth but not after?”

The point of this story and the questions that follow is to point out that the way in which a child is conceived does not change his or her right to life. From here the conversation can move to the heart of the matter: the humanity of the unborn child.

Hope this helps!

Brilliant!

 

[Auntie_A]

Sometimes I think that those who want an exception for rape want it because their own discomfort, society’s discomfort, facing a victim of rape. If you see a guy at your work place with a black eye he got in a bar room brawl you don’t avoid him but most would avoid looking a a woman they know was raped and is pregnant. A stigma remains as though the victim/survivor did something wrong, that the child was conceived in a “private moment” or an illicit act in which she was complicit.

We can look at countries where women are punished as adulterers for being raped or that politician who suggested that women can’t become pregnant from “legitimate rape.”

I think we add to the victims shame by encouraging or supporting abortion after rape as though she did something shameful that she needs to hide it.

Also brilliant and insightful!

Very good posts on this thread. I am impressed with you all for your good ideas, arguments, and insights on this topic.

 

[manualman]

The reason abortion exists in the first place is because people are much more prone to sympathize with someone they can see, hear, touch than somebody they can’t. Most of us do nothing about the 40,000 or so kids that die globally every day of starvation/malnutrition, but I daresay that none of us would step over and ignore a dying child on our walk home from work. People we interact with seem more real than people we don’t.

This is also why in the slavery era it was prohibited to teach slaves to read and why slave families were often broken up at sales. It made it easier for the slave owner to believe his own rhetoric that the slave wasn’t really, fully human like us. He was something less than us, so it was OK to treat him as chattle property.

Abortion works on the same basis. You cant’ talk to an unborn child, can’t hold her, can’t hear her cries. But you can do those things with a woman in a crisis pregnancy and people do. They want to help and they are often willing to ignore the person they can’t see in trying to “help” the person they can. It’s a form of false compassion. Bringing rape into the matter just puts the emotional imbalance on steroids.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

That by having an abortion, the woman is committing a more heinous act than rape. Don’t we teach children from day one that 2 wrongs don’t make a right?

Some people just don’t get it.

 

[Rick09]

What’s are some points I can bring up to defend the prolife position in the case of rape?

There have been a lot of good suggestions here. But I would make sure to lead people to these to websites:

Famous People Conceived in Rape

Stories of Those Conceived in Rape

You could also point out that there is no evidence that women who have an abortion after rape fare any better than those who do not have an abortion. In fact, there’s evidence of the opposite.

Also, two major studies show that 3/4 of women who were raped and become pregnant did not choose abortion. So, there are some incorrect assumptions out there regarding how desperate women are to have abortion when they are raped and become pregnant.

See: Prolife Action

 

[ccmnxc]

I generally have two objections to instances of rape. For the first example, let’s assume that they have already been refuted when it comes to personhood (so they cannot appeal to that as a refutation). For the second one, let’s assume you have both refuted them on personhood and on normal bodily autonomy arguments that don’t deal with rape:

1. Suppose a mad scientists captures two people, Mary and Martha, and manages to operate upon them so that they are permanently attached to each other (like conjoined twins). The thing is, Mary can live if Martha is killed, but Martha cannot live if Mary is killed. If Mary has Martha killed, she would be able t have better use of her organs and be able to live an easier, less burdened life. In this instance, can Mary kill Martha, whom she was unjustly combined with, so as to make her life easier? If she cannot, then it would seem that a mother cannot abort her child simply on account of the fact that the child came to be there through rape. Additionally, the child would only be there for nine months (or less if a C-section took place), and parents still have more responsibility to their child than to a stranger. It would seem to me then, that if Mary cannot kill Martha, a woman cannot kill her unborn child.
2. Many often say that the child will remind the woman of the horrible trauma she went through, so she should be able to get rid of it. For example, say a woman lives in a remote part of Alaska, where social services like adoption don’t exist. Also, due to her circumstances, it would be nearly impossible for the woman to travel to or contact an adoption center. However, she does own drugs that would be able to induce an abortion and expulsion of a child should she get pregnant. One day, a hunter who has been out looking for caribou comes upon her cabin, and being the kind gentleman that he is, proceeds to break into her home, rape her, and then leave. The woman later finds out she is pregnant, and is deeply troubled. However, say the woman, despite her suffering, goes through with the birth. But once her child is born, the mere sight of him forces her to relive her trauma over and over again. Due to her suffering, does she have the right to kill her child? No. Some might object that the child has already been born, which is true, but then the problem really has nothing to do with the trauma of the mother, and more to do with simple bodily autonomy or personhood. However, working under the assumption that these have already been addressed, the pro-choicer doesn’t really have anywhere meaningful left to go.