My experience has led me to the conclusion that abortion advocates and defenders are some of the most intellectually dishonest debaters of any issue. The arguments they make span the spectrum from vile, to wholly uninformed, to downright asinine, and everything in between. The strategy is if they can get someone who morally opposes abortion to find at least one justification, for rape and incest for example, then they feel justified in supporting abortion.
This is where I find them intellectual dishonesty for two reasons. According to the Guttmacher Institute — an ardent pro-choice institute — the number of abortions performed as a result of rape or incest accounts for less than 2% (Page 4) of all abortions. Less than 2%, but with the frequency this defense is introduced you’d think it were significantly higher. I have yet to have an abortion defender who offers rape and incest as a justification for abortion be willing to ban all abortions performed for other reasons. I say, “OK, fine. Let’s ban all abortions save for life of the mother and rape and incest. Would you support that?” “No, it’s a woman’s right…” is the reply. Why envoke rape and incest if it’s not really why you believe abortion should be legal?
They say: “Women shouldn’t be forced to carry a baby to term when they’ve been raped because the baby will be a daily reminder of the rape”. Well, that the child will be a daily reminder of the rape is probably true. However, this doesn’t solve the “problem” of daily reminders (nor does it address the fact that it is wrong to kill a child because their parent is a criminal). All an abortion does is end the resulting pregnancy, it doesn’t end the emotional and psychological trauma that will persist because of being raped.
It’s not the case for everyone, but the women I know who have had an abortion regret it deeply and have not forgotten it. You can see their demeanor visibly change when the topic comes up, and this is nearly two decades after the fact. My point is that there are persistent social reminders of abortion, whether it is in the news, woven into the plot of a television show, or just being discussed or debated — it is not going away.
So now we have a woman who will never forget she has been raped and who has had an abortion associated with rape. She will be reminded of her rape every time she sees a pregnant woman, every time she hears about a rape (in the news, on a show, etc.), every time the topic of abortion comes up. I don’t know anyone who has been raped, but I don’t think it is an event that is forgotten or easily suppressed.
Having an abortion because pregnancy has resulted from a rape or incest does not erase the memory of the experience — which is supposed to be the point. If anything, it adds another trigger to relive the traumatic event. Defending abortion in the cases of rape and incest is a vacuous and unloving offering.
Sifting Reality 
Another thing to consider is how abortion actually HELPS rapists get away with their crime. When people think of rape, they probably picture something like a shady stranger yanking her into some dark alley to have his way with her. But the reality is the VAST MAJORITY of rapes are committed by someone the women knows. The rapist may threaten her to keep her quiet. But if she gets pregnant? That would be incriminating evidence against him, so he has every reason in the world to drag her into the local Planned Parenthood to…er, “take care” of the problem. And PP is more than willing to accommodate. This point REALLY needs to be brought to the forefront more often when someone asks, “well what about rape?” ABORTION IS A RAPIST’S BEST FRIEND, NOT A WOMAN’S.
One of the things that gets me is people who are “pro-choice” because they view the baby as an “it” but yet the look down on, criticize or even roll their eyes at a pregnant woman who smokes or drinks. If “it’s” not really a baby, then what does it matter?
Eugene
Ive brought that up before too. The same people who say it’s OK to kill because it isnt a human being, say it’s unconscionable to, say, clip its fingers or arms off while it’s in the womb because it will eventually become a human being. But if it’s OK to kill because of what it is now and irrelevant what it will become, then it should be irrelevant what it will become when you want to main it now.
John, Did you ever understand the arguments against maiming a fetus made by those who support killing one? Usually, I can at least understand their arguments, but they didn’t make sense to me on that one.
Neither make sense to me. In fact I think it defies any rationality. It is wholly irrational.
Agreed.
I remember joining in on the conversation when you did that post.
Have you been raped? I have. I was raped before Plan B and home pregnancy tests and Roe v Wade. All one could do about the fear of rape pregnancy was wait.
But in my waiting, one thing I learned about myself was that, if I were pregnant via that rape, if I could not get a legal abortion in my state, or any other US state, and could not afford to go get one in another country, and could not find a way to get an illegal abortion, I would certainly commit suicide.
In fact, I carefully planned a successful suicide in case I was pregnant. I was determined that no one would be able, in the event that I failed and was comatose, to force my body to go on supplying my blood oxygen and my blood nutrients to give life to a combination of my chromosomes with those of the rapist.
The memory of that rape faded and ultimately became nothing but a dark phantom world I escaped.
But I can still remember planning that suicide, the spiritual joy I knew when I realized that I always had a choice, even if there was only a choice of suicide, that the Spirit of the Lord gives the gift of liberty which is more precious than all worldly life.
I can still remember the joy when I knew I wasn’t pregnant, the gratitude to God.
I can still remember praying to God that no woman in my country would ever again have to take joy in the possibility of suicide because a bunch of government bullies abused the law to help rapists forcibly control women’s sex organs against their own will.
And I still remember when the Supreme Court Roe v Wade decision came down. I still remember how it seemed as if the whole world became visibly brighter, as if the sun had banished that dark phantom world forever.
I still remember dancing in the streets in gratitude to the God that loves His daughters as equal persons with souls and conscious minds. The God that answered my prayer for all the women in my country.
Am I understanding you correctly that you think God answered a prayer by allowing legal abortion? You danced in the streets in gratitude for being legally allowed to kill your baby?
As sick as rape is, the thought of joyfully dancing in the street in gratitude to God that you can kill your own child is probably the sickest thing I’ve ever heard. Frankly, that’s even more evil than the rape, in my opinion.
And killing yourself because you’re not allowed to kill your child? Stupid, disgusting, and selfish.