What about the women who are raped, and the children victims of incest?
paulat asks: "What about the women who are raped, and the children victims of incest?"
That's like when someone by-passes your security, distracts the dog with a chunk of raw meat, kicks down the door, and deposits a child who will die if you evict him/her before nine months are up. Then it sucks to be you, but women just have to put up with it, according to Rush's interpretation of the Constitution.
Even these women created the uterine environment and the oocyte which was fertilized.
There's an old law that someone who digs a hole is responsible for harm to anyone who falls into the hole. Even if the hole is out of the way, if someone is harmed, the hole-digger is responsible.
In the case of sexual assault, the assaulter is the one at fault, but there is still a responsibility on the part of the woman not to cause further harm. The loss to the woman of continuing the pregnancy is temporary, part of her natural functioning as a human woman. The loss to the child of being removed from her body is permanent, irreversible and ultimate - "death." The only exception is to save the woman's life or prevent significant permanent harm to her life.
What about the women who are raped, and the children victims of incest?
Do you believe in blaming -- and killing-- the victims of rape/incest? Neither do I. Therefore I can't justify killing the woman (as, I understand, often happens under Shari'a law) and I can't justify killing the baby, either.
The baby, like his mother, is a victim, too, who paradoxically has the gift of life but also has been victimized by being brought into existence in a shameful and degrading way, untimely, unprepared-for and unsupported.
Having a baby in your womb as a result of a felony is like having an innocent hostage brought into you house by a terrorist. Even after you get rid of the terrorist, you find the hostage is still there. May you get a knife and slit his throat?? No. May you evict him if he's in such medical condition as immediate eviction would cause his death? No. Basically, you'd be obliged to treat the hostage humanely until the EMT's can come and take him to the ER.
Even if that works as an analogy, we need to take some time thinking about the real-life situations. So I want to add this:
In real life, only about 1% of abortions are performed for rape. There are two main reasons for this: (1) surprisingly, a majority of sexual assaults do not involve a normal, completed act of intercourse with ejaculation of semen into the vagina. (2) rape causes rage, fear, or both in the woman; and rage/fear trigger a flood of adrenaline, which --- if she was nearing her fertile time --- will block ovulation.
Nevertheless, if you're one of that unlucky 1%, pregnancy looks 100% wretched, and could certainly feel like an extension of the bodily invasion of rape. I have a close friend who performed a number of abortions at Bronx Pediatric Hospital in the 1970's as part of a medical research project. She did follow-up witht her patients (all under-age--- hence, "pediatric" -- and all the victims of at east statutory rape or incest) to document the "therapeutic" value of the abortions.
What she found deeply disturbed her. The hoped-for therapeutic effects weren't there. What she found was that the girls tended to identify with the rejected baby:
But underage pregnant girls who go on to give birth are much more likely to be removed into a protective environment (group home, etc.) and to receive health care and counseling during 9 months of pregnancy and beyond, which results in better psychological outcomes for the girls.
What I want to suggest here is that abortion is no boon for girls and women who have suffered rape or incest. It is not therapeutic. It is one more destructive, ugly experience. It is not part of the solution. It becomes part of the problem.