Please don't set yourselves up as radical abolitionists. A raped woman should be allowed to have an abortion, early.
The Constitution requires that every person be secure in their person from seizure. A rapist's spawn seizes a woman. She has a right to stop the seizure. This is not just a matter of the unborn's life. It is also a matter of the woman's 4th Amendment liberty to be secure in her person. If the government stops her from disconnecting herself from the person who sucks nourishment from her body and will cause her tremendous pain 9 months later, the government is party to an unreasonable seizure. The unborn's total dependency on the woman's person makes its right to life inferior to the woman's equal right to liberty. It is a conservative principle that dependency creates inferiority - both in welfare recipients, and in umbilical cord recipients.
In the case of rape, the woman must be allowed to detach and stop the seizure of her person.
A radical abolition of abortion can not be tolerated constitutionally - it violates liberty. (Just as radical abolition of slavery, i.e. uncompensated emancipation, violated property.)
Schwarz, Chapter 10: "Abortion in Cases of Rape, Incest, Health and Life of the Woman?" "The child conceived in rape is one of us, merely smaller and less developed and more dependent, and not in full view, but equally a person. Killing her is wrong, just as killing any child is wrong. We must remember that the child is absolutely innocent of the crime of her father. She is not a part of her mother's body, and she is not a part of her father's character. She inherits character traits from both her parents, but in her individual being as a person, she is absolutely distinct from both of them. Even the character traits that are received from a parent are now her own traits. The child is totally her own person. She is not responsible for the crime that led to her conception, and she is untainted by it.1 Seeing her in these negative ways is sheer prejudice, not based on reality, but at odds with it." www.ohiolife.org/mqa/10-0.asp
Russell E. Saltzman, is pastor of Ruskin Heights Lutheran Church, Kansas City, Missouri, and editor of the independent Lutheran publication Forum Letter. This is reprinted with permission from the August 2002 Forum Letter, and is copyright 2002 by the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau. "Everything Personal: Children Born of Rape or Incest," Touchstone Magazine, Jan/Feb 2003. "I belong to an on-line support group (me, in a sup- port group, there's a picture) composed of adult children born of rape or incest. There are more of us in the former category than the latter. Jennifer is our webmistress, organizer, facilitator, coach, head nanny, chief nag (though very nice about it), and the child of a violent rape. Mostly, I lurk. But for some in the group, I am a kind of unofficial chaplain and sometime pastoral advisor. There are children born before Roe v. Wade as well as children born after Roe v. Wade. The handles adopted by some in the group are evocative: "former fetus," "unawares angel," names like that." www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/16.1docs/16-1pg19.html
Robert Hart, "Her Mother's Glory: The Hardest Abortion Case," Touchstone Magazine, Jan/Feb 2003. " She is a young lady who spreads joy wherever she goes. She has a place in the lives of many, not only her new husband, her parents, and her brothers, but many who know her well, and many who have met her in passing-a unique place that no one else could fill. She is happy by nature at 23, married, an avid reader, a good friend, a serious Christian. This is the person that these well-meaning people were willing to sentence to death. Oh, not now, not when they can see her; but when she was in danger the first time, in the womb and hidden from view." Her Mother's Glory by Robert Hart
Pamela Pearson Wong, "Abortion's House of Cards," Concerned Women for America, Family Voice, January/February 2001. "I, having lived through rape and also having raised a child 'conceived in rape,' feel personally assaulted and insulted every time I hear that abortion should be legal because of rape and incest," says Kathleen DeZeeuw in Victims and Victors. "I feel we're being used to further the abortion issue, even though we've not been asked to tell our side of the story." We can begin by educating the public and legislators on what the women themselves-the victims of rape and incest-say about abortion. "Get Victims and Victors to legislators. Ask them to call for congressional hearings," says Dr. Reardon. "Urge them not to provide money for abortions resulting from rape or incest until they hear what the women say." Concerned Women for America - Family Voice
David C. Reardon, Julie Makimaa and Amy Sobie (Editors), Victims and Victors (San Francisco, CA 94109: Acorn Books, 2000). "In Victims and Victors, 20 women like the ones quoted above share what it is like to face a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. They speak bravely and candidly of the pain of sexual assault, of the sadness and trauma of abortion, and of the joy and healing of giving birth." Victims and Victors:Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies ...
Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke, Why Can't We Love Them Both, (Snowflake, AZ 85937: Heritage House 76, Inc., 1998) Chapter 29, Rape. States that 170 to 340 assault rape pregnancies occur per year in the United States. Why Can't We Love Them Both? On Line Book by Dr. and Mrs. Willke.