Rape and Incest

I was listening to Bill Bennett's "Morning in America" radio show on my way to work this morning. Georgia gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel was the guest, and Bill asked her about her pro-life stance. She gave a pretty standard "pro-life" answer, stating that abortions should generally be prohibited but that exceptions should be allowed for cases of rape or incest. I also found a blog post on her campaign website, where she says, "And while I will not seek to prohibit abortions in the extremely rare cases of rape, incest, or where there is a real threat to the life of the mother, I will do everything in my power to encourage and promote alternatives to abortion in these tragic situations."

This kind of thinking (or lack of thinking) is what is wrong in the pro-life movement today. If someone takes the position that human life begins at conception, then that someone must regard each and every abortion as the murder of a human person. If any single preborn child is to be considered a living human being, then ALL preborn children must be considered living human beings, without regard to the circumstances of that child's conception. Allowing abortions in cases of rape or incest is tantamount to saying that children in the womb are not living persons and can be killed at will, that we merely want to outlaw abortions in general in order to punish women for their sexual practices and enforce our moral views but that women who get pregnant through no fault of their own, as in cases of rape or incest, should be able to end their pregancies if they want to. On a purely logical basis, that position is indefensible. If unborn children are human beings and if each abortion kills an unborn child, then each and every abortion must be regarded as the murder of a human being and should be treated accordingly by our legal system. Those on the pro-abortion side know that the whole "exceptions for rape and incest" position does grave harm to the pro-life position; this is why they keep bringing up the rape and incest issue in public discourse.

I have to return to Footnote 54 of the Roe v. Wade decision:

When Texas urges that a fetus is entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection as a person, it faces a dilemma. Neither in Texas nor in any other State are all abortions prohibited. Despite broad proscription, an exception always exists. The exception contained [410 U.S. 113, 158] in Art. 1196, for an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, is typical. But if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother's condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the Amendment's command?

There are other inconsistencies between Fourteenth Amendment status and the typical abortion statute. It has already been pointed out, n. 49, supra, that in Texas the woman is not a principal or an accomplice with respect to an abortion upon her. If the fetus is a person, why is the woman not a principal or an accomplice? Further, the penalty for criminal abortion specified by Art. 1195 is significantly less than the maximum penalty for murder prescribed by Art. 1257 of the Texas Penal Code. If the fetus is a person, may the penalties be different?

As much as I hate to agree with anything in such a horrible and disastrous court opinion, the court's logic in this section is sound. If we are pro-life because we believe that unborn children are living human beings with the God-given right to life, then we must demand that our government protect that right to life for ALL unborn children just as we demand that it protect the right to life of all persons already born. This is the goal of Texas Personhood and other advocates of personhood legislation.