Rather, a 10-year-old child abuse victim was forced to commit murder in Indiana after her home state of Ohio barred it, and she rejected adoption. If someone throws a child in your house or vehicle, then you are still obligated to care for it and find safety for it. “It’s my house/vehicle” will not justify murder of an innocent person. But here a few months of discomfort is rejected for a lifetime and eternity of guilt, unless she finds repentant faith in the Lord Jesus.
“Rather, a 10-year-old child abuse victim was forced to commit murder in Indiana after her home state of Ohio barred it, and she rejected adoption.”
That’s a reasonable emotional and moral response, but I would be wary of legislating on the basis of such an oversimplification. Hard cases make bad laws, but reinforcing one societal problem to eliminate another isn’t a great solution either.
A middle-aged man - an establishment straight-up pillar of the community - was raping my mom. She was only 13. Eventually my grandfather found out- because he got her pregnant. Rather than report that pedo to the police, he bussed my mom out of the county, to a “home for Wayward girls” (basically, a borstal, or juvie). She endured months of education in effect telling her she was a whore for having “loose morals”, before eventually having her newborn forcibly taken off her. I thrown into a really crappy orphanage system, and finally got adopted at the age of 7 after having nine different foster families.
Neither my mom nor me got out of that situation intact.
I have a disassociative personality disorder. Between ages 4 and 7, I maintained a packed suitcase, on the assumption that no matter how much I liked a foster family, at any time on any day a social worker could turn up and take me away.
My mom, by all accounts, was fine until she was being molested, she had a complete breakdown when she found out she was pregnant, but what REALLY sent her doolally was months in a detention center PURELY for being pregnant, followed by a forced adoption.
Coerced abortion for a pre-teen who’s been raped is pro-murder, can scar the girl mentally for life, and it can benefit the rapist. That goes without saying.
Coerced adoption under the exact same circumstances really is no better for the girl, and it also is an ideal get-out for the rapist.
Ideally the best solution is to give the girl all the moral and financial support, counselling and love that she needs to bring the baby up - but unfortunately in some cases the girl is simply far too young and far too underdeveloped to be able to carry the baby to term.
In such circumstances, there is no guaranteed right solution. The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness you have in America are just as inalienable to a child victim as they are to an unborn fetus in her. It may be the case that there is no way the unborn child can live, and forcing her to carry it will jeopardise her own life.
Only a sick society would ever trade one life off against the other over a point of principle.
If you’re going to outlaw abortion, you have to massively improve access to education, counselling, mental and physical health services, AND start prosecuting rapists instead of protecting them.