I have heard all of the political and emotional arguments for the “except in the case of rape or incest” illogic and though they are seductive, they are not convincing.
From the political perspective, one might suggest that there is a better chance of getting anti-abortion legislation passed when exceptions are allowed and I have no reason to doubt that assertion. From the emotional angle, we all have heart-felt sympathy for the victimized mother.
There is a powerful reluctance to force a woman to continue her physically demanding and emotionally draining role in the most divine function of God’s nature when the initiation of that process was without the mother’s normally assumed consent. We would be assigning to her the responsibility to carry into this world a new soul who will be a seemingly unholy combination of her own self and of a man who is either frighteningly unknown or sinfully familiar.
There is, of course, the almost inescapable temptation to assume this new person will somehow not be good because the genetic code of a rapist was used in his/her construction. Or that the new person will somehow not be complete because of the potential for physiological problems to arise when daddy is grandpa.
Adoption is always an option when the post-birth burdens outweigh the natural desire of the mother to nurture a child which is, after all, still half her.
On any scientific or logical rationale, assuming human life has value, I would ask two questions:
-Does it continue to grow and change via natural biologic process? - If so, it is alive.
-What will you call this life if the natural process is allowed to continue? - If the answer is ‘human’, then it has rights.
More directly to your point, if that life inside you is threatening your life, then you are allowed to defend yourself. No different than if your kid was trying to kill you with a gun. Thanks for helping to point that out to some here inventing false choices.
I am Catholic and I follow the Church’s teaching on abortion. It is never permissible. Pat Buchanan, one my political heroes, was asked one time about these so-called rape inceptions. Speaking of allowing abortion in the case of rape, Buchanan said, “If you want to kill somebody for it, kill the rapist, not the child”. I don’t really trust any politician that believes it’s OK to murder an unborn child if they don’t like who the father, as in rape and incest. A committed pro-life advocate, that believes all life is sacred, calls these politicians not pro-life, but pro selective abortion, because that’s all they care. Rick Perry take this stance, but still says he is 100% pro-life. No he’s not. For eight years, when GW Bush was asked about his position on abortion, he would always say he believed in the “sanctity of life”. That is unless the pregnancy was caused by rape and incest, then he believed it was fine to abort the baby. His wife usually stayed quiet about abortion, but the minute Bush was no longer president she gets on every talk show she can and said she was pro-abortion and all the Bush women were, like that was something to be proud of. She also said she is for homosexual marriage.