The Constitution says it best: we secure liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Our posterity is yet unborn. They are the Unborn.
Legitimate life of mother concerns are the only situations that will leave either the mother or the child dead. It is absolutely a matter of life unavoidably conflicting with life.
Forced rape is a terrorist attack that gives the appearance of being a true conflict of life with life. The violent rape is unavoidable.
Any taking of human life must be by due process of law according to the Constitution.
Our new Governor, Bob McDonnell, is one of those pro-life politicians who pushes for only a “life of the mother” exception.
Frankly, of the 3 semi-pro-life positions, “rape and incest” exception is the hardest for me to comprehend. I can make a logical argument for birth control, by asserting that the woman has a right to choose whether to “accept” the care of the unborn by allowing it to attach to her body.
I can even understand the logic of being “pro-life” but only after the baby has a beating heart; and less so but still there is an internal logic to the idea of banning abortion only after viability.
(by logic there I mean an internal consistancy in the argument, not that I agree with it).
But Rape and Incest exceptions make NO SENSE AT ALL for a pro-lifer. If the unborn is alive, and therefore has a right to life, how can that right be conditioned on the action of the father? How can a baby be more or less a “person” based on parentage?
No, “rape and incest exception” is actually a perverse suggestion that we really are banning abortion to punish women, because it “forgives” the woman if it wasn’t her fault she got pregnant. So I think the exception, which pretends to be politically expedient, greatly weakens the pro-life argument, and allows pro-abortionists to argue that pro-lifers are really anti-women.