OK, let's consider the three "exceptions" one at a time.
1) Rape. Rape is usually devastating for the woman. But there's no evidence that aborting the child will make her feel better. On the contrary, abortion usually leaves a mother feeling depressed and guilty. So it's not unreasonable to say that if, as is probably, the mother prefers not to bring up a child that reminds her of being raped, then she should give it up for adoption. This isn't easy, either, but it's no more damaging than having an abortion. In addition, as has already been pointed out, rape isn't the baby's fault, and there's no reason why he should be killed for the rapist's fault.
2) Incest. This too is always unpleasant. But the same arguments apply. Abortion will not make the mother feel better about it, and the baby is guiltless. There is an added factor that incest is not desirable for the gene pool, but I don't think that justifies killing an innocent child.
3) Life of the mother. This is often used as a pretext for getting an abortion. The traditional moral teaching is that if having the baby will certainly kill the mother, although the baby will probably live, then that is a decision for the mother to make. If carrying the baby will certainly kill the baby and the mother, as is the case in a tubal pregnancy, then the only choice is to abort the baby as a side effect of saving the mother's life. The primary intention is not to kill the baby but to save the mother, and the baby's death is a regretable but necessary side effect of saving her.
As for the contention that letting raped women have children will encourage rapists, that's plain nonsense. A child of rape is no likelier to be more evil than other children, and most rapists are not interested in whether they have children or not. We are not talking about Genghis Kahn here, or marauding Muslims. We are talking about sick people who want sex and power over others, and could care less about whether the mother has a child.
The solution to rape is to punish rapists. In spite of decades of feminism, for the most part rapists are NOT punished nearly as often or severely as they were in the past. That's what we need to deal with.
Cicero has answered most of you.
What gives any of you the idea that protests, or "draconian" laws are the only way that abortion has been countered?
Care for pregnant women has always been a concern for those of us who oppose abortion
We have attempted to reason on the basis that whatever the embryo is -- it is the same entity that we were at that stage of life and, using scientific proof, have shown that there is no logical dividing line between the individual and "personhood" after fertilization.
Further, holeinch mentions "plebecite" votes. The founding fathers wrote the Constitution which set out the representative democracy form of government, with direct votes and votes by our representatives intended to be the mechanism by which laws are made. Unfortunately, a group of elitists have decided that the important issues must be decided by judges and only the unimportant, unsubstantial issues decided by the People.
The idea that men and women can not decide to act correctly - in the case of sex or otherwise or that rape is a "survival" technique reduces human beings to the basest instinctual animals. We learn, we pass on that knowledge, but beyond instruction, most of know that it is wrong to hurt someone else. People who are not sociopaths notice before kindergarten that what hurts self hurts the other.
holeinchilada, you strike me as very immature and not very knowledgeable about the history of the subject you chose for your vanity.
The solution for rape is to punish rapists.
Gosh - what a novel concept ! Severe punishment usually deters the "casual" offender, and very little deters the truly criminal except a long jail sentence or a box 6 feet under.