Defending Life, Even In The Case Of Rape

Todd Akin, the Republican party candidate from Missouri for the US Senate, embarrassed himself, and the pro-life movement, by supplying the worst possible defense for outlawing abortion, even in the case of rape.  The proper defense has nothing to do with how common it is for women to become pregnant as a result of rape.  The fact that it is not common would appear to be a more likely reason to enact an exception.  Let us try to make a proper defense.

The argument in favor of an exception in the case of rape comes down to this: A woman who has been raped is an innocent victim, put in a situation not of her choosing, so how can you force the woman to carry the baby to term?  But, if we are to defend life, this is the wrong question.  The proper question is, Are we really not going to defend this child because the father raped the mother?  Is this life, thus conceived, not worth saving?  We can further ask, do we actually help the mother if we allow her to have an abortion?

The thinking for those who have never been in this situation is, "Of course, I would not want to carry the child of my rapist!"  But, if you take the time to actually talk to women who have born the child of their rapist, you rarely find that they regret the choice.  Make no mistake, it is a horrible choice to have to make, but the better choice, if you take the time to talk to people in this situation, appears to be to have the child.  What you find, if you investigate it, is that most women who bear the child of their rapist find something good coming out of a tragic situation.  Because the child is innocent of the crimes of the father, just as innocent as the mother.  And, abortion does not make the rape go away.  It only complicates the mother's grief with the added guilt of having taken the life of an innocent.

To say that it is right for a woman to have an abortion in the case of rape is to say that the child conceived in rape has no right to life.  Consider the testimony of a woman I heard on the radio.  She had been adopted, and once she had grown up wanted to find her birth mother.  In the process, she discovered that she had been conceived as a result of rape.  In talking to her mother, she discovered that if abortion had been legal, her mother would have aborted her.  Her mother had actually gone to two back-alley abortionists, but could not go through with it, considering the unsanitary conditions.  This child now thanks the pro-life advocates, who helped keep abortion illegal, for her life, as well as her mother, with whom she has renewed a loving relationship.  It seems that the gift of life, even when given grudgingly, may bear good fruit.  Do any of us have the wisdom to assert, "This one does not deserve to live?"

When advocates of abortion can look this woman, conceived as a result of rape, in the eye, and say to her that she should not have been allowed to live, that's when they will have earned the right to advise women to have an abortion in the case of rape.  Life is worth defending, no matter the circumstances of conception.