How Do We Respond to the Question 'What About Rape and Incest?'

Republican Todd Akin is standing firm. He has refused to bow to pressure to withdraw his candidacy for the U.S. Senate after he made a comment that Gary Bauer of The Campaign for Working Families called, "a gift to our political enemies."

When the Missouri Congressman was asked by a St. Louis TV station to state his views regarding possible exceptions for abortion, he responded, "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." He added: "But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. You know I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

For all his good intentions of trying to put the focus on the right to life of the unborn, Akins' use of the phrase "legitimate rape," which he later called a "misstatement," and for which he apologized and asked for forgiveness, has resulted in fierce castigations from Democrats and the liberal media. It has also brought calls from his fellow Republicans to withdraw from the race against incumbent Claire McCaskill.

Ann Coulter wrote, "If Akin truly loves his country and genuinely wants Roe v. Wade overturned, he will step aside and allow another Republican to run in his place." Coulter and others have said Akin should have been better prepared to respond to the question.

"How about saying," she offered, "'Yes, it's still a life, but more people are killed in drive-by shootings in Chicago every year. You give us the 2 million abortions that aren't a result of rape and incest and we'll give you the few thousand that are.'"

Coulter was correct in pointing to the huge number of deaths every year at the hands of abortionists. But her response still misses the mark on two points.

As lawyer Rebecca Kiessling, who was herself conceived in rape, says, "Rape exceptions in the law actually put the government in the position of having to ascertain when the child was conceived, who the father is, whether the child was conceived during the alleged rape or during intercourse with her husband or boyfriend, and if the child was conceived during the time frame of the alleged rape, then the government would need to determine whether the sexual intercourse was consensual or not."

According to Kiessling, the "rape exception" only perpetuates injustice against rape victims whose accounts are viewed with skepticism. She says that "it further leaves the majority of impregnated rape victims wholly unprotected under the law. Rape exceptions suggest that a 'real rape victim' couldn't possibly love 'the rapist's baby' and that rape victim mothers don't exist."

This assumption was expressed by Susan Milligan in U.S. News and World Report. She called children conceived through rape, "spawn." Such comments deserve as stern a rebuke as Akin's do. No child is any less human because he or she was conceived during a rape. Such a claim denies the biblical truth that all children-including the unborn-are created in the image of God. The circumstances of their conception are irrelevant. The baby in the womb is an innocent human person whose inalienable right to life must be protected just as much the baby outside of the womb.

Coulter's response also overlooked the fact that abortion itself is a traumatizing experience. The truth is:

abortion hurts women. Giving a woman the abortion option-whether she is the victim of a rape or a married woman with unplanned pregnancy-is not the "compassionate answer." Abortion does not bring healing; it brings misery, pain, and suffering, as millions of women who have had abortions can attest.

After 39 years of legal abortions in America, the statistics on the effects of abortion on women are nothing short of tragic:

•65 percent of women who abort report symptoms Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that they attribute to their abortions.

•Women who abort have a 62 percent higher risk of death from all causes for at least eight years after their pregnancies.

Supporters of the abortion industry want to hide the truth that abortion is harmful to women. Every woman considering having an abortion should be told the fact that 31percent of women who have abortions suffer health complications afterwards.

•Women who abort are twice as likely to have pre-term or post-term deliveries in subsequent pregnancies.

•Women who abort are more likely to experience infertility, stillbirths, and miscarriages.

•Women who abort have a significantly increased risk of breast cancer and cervical cancer. (See the Elliot Institute's Life-Threatening Risks of Abortion)

As Rebecca Kiessling observes, Rep. Akin is not the first political candidate to have run afoul of the media over the question, "What about rape and incest?" "The problem," she says, "is not with these candidates' values. The problem is how they express them."

Kiessling says candidates should respond to the question by giving the following three-part answer:

First, according to the Supreme Court, the death penalty is "cruel and unusual punishment" and rapists don't deserve the death penalty. However, if the rapist father doesn't deserve such punishment, how can we say that the innocent child conceived in rape deserves to die for the crimes of her father?

Second, Keissling points out, rape victims are four times more likely to die within the next year after the abortion, with a higher rate of suicide, murder, drug overdose, etc.. "If we truly care about rape victims," she says, "we should protect them from the rapist, and from the abortion, and not the baby. A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim-an abortion is."

Finally, notes Kiessling, rape victims choose abortion at half the rate of the average unplanned pregnancy, which is over 50 percent. "Only 15-25 percent of rape victims choose abortion…. The majority of rape victims choose to raise her child - not 'the rapist's baby'-HER child." At her website, Rebecca has gathered stories of women who became pregnant by rape and either regret aborting, are raising their children, or are birth-moms. She also has stories of those who were conceived in rape and/or incest.

The answer to the question, "What about rape and incest?" is clear-and it's not abortion. Two wrongs do not make a right.

-- Dr. Karen Gushta is a writer and researcher for Truth in Action Ministries (formerly Coral Ridge Ministries). Her most recent book is How Can America Survive? The Coming Economic Earthquake. She has also written The War on Children: How Pop Culture and Public Schools Put Our Kids at Risk (2009) and co-authored Ten Truths About Socialism (2010). Dr. Gushta is a former board member of the Broward County Right to Life and is Vice-President of Broward County Eagle Forum. Her doctorate is in Philosophy of Education.

Yes, I absolutely agree with your post.

In my mind, the original crime in the scenario of impregnation by way of rape is that the male proceeded with obtaining the consent of the female.

The situation cannot be corrected without obtaining that consent.

What needs to be done is that we must go back and ask her how to proceed, thus it is her choice and it always was her choice, sadly the act of rape denied that choice.

Certainly, if she decided to proceed with the pregnancy and either raise the baby or put the baby up for adoption, then that is the best solution in my mind.

If she decides not to do that, however, then I do support that decision. I will neither judge her, nor condemn her, but I will judge and condemn the rapist, and I will support the female victim.

I cannot and will not under any circumstance be party to compounding the original crime by further denying the victim her consent.

I agree, Drew68. It would be extremely difficult.

After contemplating this, I can only say that the crime of rape is a horrible and evil a crime as murder.

It is as destructive and self centered as anything that I can even imagine.

Damn those who commit this crime, damn them to Hell.

You have shown more sense and compassion on this thread than your opponents.

I am against abortion for convenience, but rape is a completely different scenario. I’m amazed that so many people can’t see the difference.

If the woman is can endure the pregnancy and raise the child or put it up for adoption that would be the best situation.

But forcing that situation on the victim of a brutal crime is also evil and will cause her further injury. To deny this is being willfully stupid.

I’m so disgusted by the behavior of “conservatives,” both the pundit class and those here on FR, that I simply have to hold my tongue and walk away.

Akin was simply repeating what John Wilke MD said. Wilke was distinguishing “legitimate” (i.e., forcible) rape from statutory rape, which though illegal is usually consensual and therefore does not induce the stress, psychological and physical trauma that forcible rape creates.

And I’m still not convinced Wilke’s main point from a physiological standpoint was wrong. Animal models consistently demonstrate higher rates of spontaneous miscarriage related to high stress.

We taught NFP for ten years including couples who wanted children. Stress negatively effects fertility. Period. What is more stressful than what Akin was addressing, forcible rape?

So there IS plenty of medical science to back up his and Wilke’s point. Their position has not been refuted in this regard.

More importantly is that we do not as a culture condone capital punishment for rapists. Why the hell are we making an exception for capital punishment for the other innocent victim, the child conceived?!?

But the “conservatives” followed Romney’s lead and threw Akin under the bus. Even catholic Ryan caved upon Romney’s lead. This is a microcosm of what we can expect from the GOP on social issues going forward.

A pox on both parties and their sycophant pundits both here on FR and elsewhere.

Yes I’m going to hold my nose and vote R/R. But this country is due for chastisement of Biblical proportions and R/R will not save us from what is heading our way.

Quote that Movie ..... Rob Roy takes a deep breath and declares, “It’s not the baby that needs killin’. ... We do not kill the innocent in order to punish the guilty.

or do the math. A woman can get pregnant only 6 days per month. What are the chances she gets raped during that time frame.

or more math. There are at least ONE THOUSAND INNOCENT BABIES KILLED EVERY STINKING DAY. YOU WANT TO ADD TO THAT?

Thank you for those kind words, desertfreedom765.

I know my position on this matter infuriates some, and that makes me sad to say the least.

But I must stand by it no matter what. I believe that to deny the female her consent is but a continuation of the crime, and I cannot be party to that. To return her consent to her is right, and it is justice.

She msut be the one to decide the resolution.

What about the “consent” of the other innocent victim, the baby conceived?

Your position is sophistry in any orthodox Judeo-Christian analysis.

But in a post Christian culture, among posters who are propagandized to the point of eclipse of reason, yours is seen by some as laudatory.

May god have Mercy on us all for our hubris. .

The mother’s consent was denied first.

It really isn’t a hard concept to grasp.

If you FORCE her to have the child of a rapist, then you may well be FORCING her to do something that she does not want to do, much as her rapist FORCED her to do.

I will not be party to that.

Why are you fearful of getting her consent?

If delivering such a child is something that she wants to do, then she will do so.

If it isn not something she wants to do, then I imagine she won’t.

The burden of this falls squarely upon the rapist and no one else, so direct you righteous anger at him, because he certainly deserves it.

But forcing that situation on the victim of a brutal crime is also evil and will cause her further injury. To deny this is being willfully stupid.

Woman that have abortions are often plagued with terrible guilt, remorse and depression for decades. They know in their hearts “I killed my baby”. That causes infinitely more injury than carrying a child for nine months. If the woman wants to give the baby up for adoption at least she will know “My baby is alive somewhere” instead of “I killed my baby”. You mention the rape victim, by advocating abortion for rape, you now have 2 victims.

There are indeed two victims, little jeremiah, and they were both victimized by the rapist.

But in forcing by law a woman to bear the child of a rapist, you may well have more than one perpetrator at that point.

My position is pro what makes the victim feel whole again, and not what I tell her makes her feel whole again.

I want to believe that a large number of women would not choose to abort, but rather to deliver and adopt. It’s hard for me to imagine that someone would choose to raise the child of their rapist, but I expect that that has happened in the past, and will happen again.

But I cannot deny the victim the choice of abortion in this case. I can’t do that in good conscience. It’s not like I want babies ot be aborted. What I want is for men not to rape women, but alas...

She should have the opportunity to give her consent or to not give her consent, because that was denied her by a violent criminal, and that is a wrong that must be righted before anything else can proceed.

There are two lives at stake here, not one. When and how can it be just to ask or grant the consent of one person at the cost of taking the life of an innocent other? The injustice of the unintended pregnancy does not and cannot justify the murder of the other innocent victim of the crime. One injustice does not make another injustice morally acceptable.

The right to life of the innocent comes before any notion of consent. Being an innocent victim of rape does not confer the right to take the life of the other innocent victim of the same crime.

You are the victim of a very pernicious and diabolical form of propaganda, yet you think your position to have some sort of merit.

It does not.

Murder is a more grave crime than rape. If this were not the case capital punshnent would equally apply to both.

Being a victim of rape does not justify being the initiator of the murder of the innocent.

And yes, abortion is murder.

If you FORCE her to have the child of a rapist, then you may well be FORCING her to do something that she does not want to do, much as her rapist FORCED her to do.

She already HAS the child after conception. Conception has already occurred. It was part of the non consentual crime committed against her. It is already in the past. She can no more consent to having the child conceived than she consented to being the victim of the rape. They were both part of the same act. In the past.

The only thing she can consent to now is to murder the child or not murder the child. Being the victim of a crime in the past does not give her the right to be the perpetrator of a crime in the present. The unjust act of the past does not make the murder in the present just.

Consent has nothing to do with it. Now she can only consent to murder the innocent victim conceived in the initial act of injustice, or not murder it.

That too is unjust. But that's also reality.

The right to life of the innocent comes before any notion of consent. Being an innocent victim of rape does not confer the right to take the life of the other innocent victim of the same crime.

No it doesn't. The right of the mother to consent to being impregnated was denied before the child was conceived.

You are the victim of a very pernicious and diabolical form of propaganda, yet you think your position to have some sort of merit.

No, I am not. I arrived at my position via my own thought process and nothing else, and my position does have merit.

Murder is a more grave crime than rape. If this were not the case capital punshnent would equally apply to both.

I believe the crimes are equivalent in their severity. Man's law is not perfect, and neither are its perscribed punishments. I have already stated that I would not find a woman guilty of murdering her rapist.

Being a victim of rape does not justify being the initiator of the murder of the innocent.

The victim didn't initiate any murder at all. If she choses not to bear the child of her rapist, it is the rapist that initiated the killing of his child, and no one else.

And yes, abortion is murder.

In most cases, I agree with that. In the case of rape and incest, it is a justifiable killing, although it is indeed a tragedy of tremendous proportion.

I had a bad experience in my life which I won’t go into detail. I wound up having an abortion, which I bitterly regret to this day. I would infinitely rather that I carried the child with a very bad beginning (conception) to term and given him or her up for adoption, than know that I killed a human being, a baby.

I know from bitter, bitter personal experience that carrying a child - unwanted, unasked for, no actual (real) or perhaps known father - for nine months, is absolutely to be preferred than carrying the weight of having caused an innocent child to die, for 40 years.

By the word "has" I mean "bear". I am not prepared to deny her her right to consent as her rapist did. Perhaps you are. I am not.

She isn't the perpetrator of any crime if she choses to abort the child of a rapist. You may call her a criminal, but I don't. The person who put the life of the child at risk is the rapist, and he did so by callously forcing upon someone who didn't consent and couldn't reist.

Consent has nothing to do with it. Now she can only consent to murder the innocent victim conceived in the initial act of injustice, or not murder it.

I don't see it as murder, I see it as a justifiable killing.

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