“A woman should have access to abortion if she gets raped, she did not consent to being pregnant!”
Defending the sanctity of life in cases of rape must be done with great gentleness and precision. We as pro-life advocates must approach this subject from a genuine place of love and truth.
We must first establish foundational truth when discussing abortion. The unborn baby is a living human being and he or she has done nothing wrong.
While the full weight of the law should come down upon the rapist, it would be unjust for the innocent child to be punished.
Let’s make a quick analogy.
Say your father was the worst human that ever lived, a homicidal maniac that has raped, murdered, and tortured innocent people. We would likely agree that he should be held accountable for those actions, and justice should be enacted against him. But what if someone proposed that because of your father’s crimes we should kill you?
When a baby is conceived in rape and someone suggests that the best course of action is abortion, that is exactly what is said. Punishing the child for the sins of the father.
The late great Charlie Kirk would often contend with abortion in cases of rape. One of his most straightforward replies was to say “I have two ultrasounds. One is a baby conceived in a loving relationship, the other conceived in rape. Which one is which?”
The truth is that the circumstances of a person’s conception do not determine the validity of their rights.
When evil is committed the moral response is never to kill an innocent child.
A common emotionally charged response to the above logic is to say “you want the government to force women to carry a rapist’s baby.” The truth is, the pro-life position is not forcing anyone to do anything, rather it is to say there is one thing that ought not be done. If applied in law, protections for the unborn in cases of rape would prohibit actions, not compel actions.
Only the rapist has enacted force upon another. Imagine if an evil man locked a woman and a young child in a room for 9 months against the woman’s will. Now imagine that the only way for the woman to be free before the end of 9 months is to murder the innocent child. Legally prohibiting the woman from murdering the innocent child would not be the same as forcing her into the room. The just thing to do is to punish the man who put them in the room, and to protect both innocent lives inside.
While we understand that abortion in cases of rape may seem like a compelling exception to be made, we stand on the truth that killing an innocent child is not a just response to evil.
As we continue to expand our growing catalog of pro-life answers to pro-abortion arguments, please feel free to submit suggestions at info@lifeissues.org. We will happily refute any arguments that you need help with.
Bishop Fulton Sheen said a young woman who became pregnant from an assault told him no one believed her, people said she had shamed her family by getting pregnant out of wedlock, and asked him why she had to suffer like this. He told her she was suffering because she was carrying the weight of one man’s sin. Imagine carrying the weight of the whole world’s sin like Jesus.