Dear pro-life advocate…
The other day I posted a plea to abortion rights supporters to consider how the claim that abortion restrictions infringe on a woman’s right to control her body is one that intentionally misrepresents the facts. Today I want to make a plea to those who champion life but make exceptions for rape or incest to consider how that accommodation may compromise your position.
Before I make my case, let me make it clear that though, thank God, I have never experienced it, I believe rape is a truly heinous crime and rapists should be punished more severely than they usually are. My guttural reaction on hearing of one is usually that the perpetrator deserves an immediate and painful death. And incest is certainly in most every case a rape in itself. They are despicable acts for which there are no excuses. That being said, it should have no bearing on the right to life of a child conceived in this way.
I believe that when we allow for this exception, we are in essence agreeing with abortion supporters in basing our view on the welfare of the mother alone to the exclusion of the rights and welfare of the new life she bears. And in the process 
nullifying our position that abortion is wrong because it kills the life of an innocent child. The child conceived in a violent act by a hateful and violent man is nevertheless innocent itself and undeserving of the same punishment deserved by its father.
How can we with integrity argue that a woman’s economic status, emotional well-being, or any other hardship, though real and tragic, are inadmissible in the court of inalienable rights, yet stand with abortion supporters when the tragedy is rape or incest? And it is a tragedy, an incredibly unjust and life-altering invasion of a woman’s body and soul. I get that. But my personal suffering never gives me the right to take it out on someone else.
This life is not fair. Aborting the child conceived in rape or incest is an attempt to try and make right or at least minimize the injustice visited on the child’s mother. But in our compassion for the woman, as warranted and necessary as that is, we are making her child pay for that injustice. In the most extreme way.
Am I missing something? Is there a truth I’m overlooking regarding this? I welcome your input.
Dear Caroline
I saw this post while I was digging for an older post of you, you gave me two day back and I’m glad I found it.
I myself am an atheist but I’m pro-life and against abortion. Why? My wife for reasons that I won’t discuss here could not conceive naturally and we had to refer to science and have our first baby girl conceived artificially (artificial insemination in vitro). The joy this baby brought to us cannot be described by words no matter how much I write.
So to me, (personally), just the idea of throwing away a fertilized egg of even 4 or 8 cells is something I won’t even think of, so figure out how do I think about abortion.
Throwing a fertilized egg to me is like looking at my kid now in her eyes and think that in the past we could have thrown her in the bin. And when I think about it, I think of my unborn kid being thrown in a dust bin and my brain fails.
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Mike, I am so glad to know that you identify yourself as pro-life. But I’m curious about how you would defend your position without a belief in God. You obviously love your daughter, but what would you say to someone who doesn’t want children, if they were choosing to abort? I’m not saying you can’t have a defense without faith, but I don’t understand how you can argue for the value of all human life if we only exist by “chance.”
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