Why make an exception for rape and incest?

I always look for­ward to Dr. Mar­ty Klein’s Sex­u­al Intel­li­gence newslet­ters, so I was tick­led to see one in my inbox today. But one of the head­lines took me by sur­prise: End Rape & Incest Excep­tions to Stu­pak Abor­tion Ban. Dr. Klein always has excel­lent analy­ses, and this one is no exception.

If you’re against repro­duc­tive choice for so-called “moral rea­sons” (as if any­one get­ting an abor­tion or sup­port­ing its legal­i­ty isn’t “moral”), be con­sis­tent. If killing a fetus or even a fer­til­ized egg wan­der­ing around a wom­an’s body is the same as killing a per­son (the posi­tion of every anti-choice activist), why should it mat­ter how the fetus or fer­til­ized egg got there? Why is a fetus’ right to live dimin­ished because its father was a rapist or a sadist? After all, we don’t say the chil­dren of such men have few­er rights than oth­er children.

Cyn is Rick's wife, Katie's Mom, and Esther & Oliver's Mémé. She's also a professional geek, avid reader, fledgling coder, enthusiastic gamer (TTRPGs), occasional singer, and devoted stitcher.
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7 thoughts on “Why make an exception for rape and incest?

  1. While I total­ly get where he’s going with this, the whole thing seems to be head­ed straight towards “The Hand­maid­’s Tale.” 

    And if you take the genet­ic route and say, “Well, if it’s incest, then there’s poten­tial for genet­ic dis­eases..” then you open up the whole genet­ic test­ing can of worms and I can see the end result of that, which is genet­ic screen­ing for all embryos and manda­to­ry abor­tions for those that have genet­ic dis­eases.… a ter­ri­ble step that leads straight into eugenics.

  2. True. I’m not say­ing that I agree with that atti­tude, but then, I don’t agree with ANY of their argu­ments. Tak­ing them to their log­i­cal con­clu­sion sim­ply shows how very ridicu­lous they tru­ly are. When they start pick­ing and choos­ing which abor­tions are “accept­able,” their argu­ments fall apart.

    It’s the same with the whole busi­ness of claim­ing that life is sacred while also sup­port­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Wait, that means that some life is sacred, right? Oh, and war is okay? So only our cit­i­zen’s lives are sacred, and maybe our cur­rent allies, unless they com­mit cer­tain crimes? Or they hap­pen to be fathered by a rapist or in an act of incest? Gosh, that’s complicated!

  3. I can see the end result of that, which is genet­ic screen­ing for all embryos and manda­tory abor­tions for those that have genet­ic dis­eases.…

  4. True — but that would be mur­der, would­n’t it?

    The point is that if abor­tion is mur­der in one case, it’s mur­der in any case, and it can­not be jus­ti­fied. We do not kill the dis­abled, the old, the sick, the poor, the ille­git­i­mate, or those whose parent­age might be a result of rape or incest after they are born, so why make any oth­er excep­tions IF life begins at con­cep­tion? We don’t mur­der chil­dren because their par­ents can’t afford them now, so if one tru­ly believes that life begins as soon as sperm hits egg, then end­ing every preg­nan­cy is mur­der, even if it’s your own daugh­ter (or you!0 and it would be a ter­ri­ble inconvenience/embarrassment/ruin your political/religious career/etc.

    I have one and only one good thing to say about Sarah Palin: many peo­ple in her posi­tion would have qui­et­ly arranged for an abor­tion for her daugh­ter. I don’t know if there was pres­sure on the girl to do that, but if there was­n’t, then at least the fam­i­ly prac­tices what they preach in that respect. (I would hope that the girl was giv­en a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to choose for her­self, but I seri­ous­ly doubt that was the case.)

  5. I got here com­plete­ly by acci­dent but could­n’t resist adding a com­ment to say: Most tru­ly anti-abor­tion peo­ple (I am one of “those peo­ple!”) ARE against abor­tion for incest and rape. The only rea­son they say “fine, let’s make excep­tions for incest and rape” is because incest-and-rape abor­tions are such a small per­cent­age that MOST abor­tion would end if these excep­tions were left open. Just thought I’d clar­i­fy the think­ing for ya 🙂
    Mer­ry Christmas!

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