An Appeal for the Unborn

This column is the third in my trilogy on abortion. Last week, my guest discussed the need for compassion to be shown to the woman who chose to terminate a pregnancy. As a medical doctor she took the position that she would rather provide the woman with the opportunity to have an abortion “in an informed, medically safe and legal way”, rather than suffer the consequences of unprofessional intervention.

Agreed, unprofessional intervention or botched abortions have an ugly history of barbaric procedures often leading to tragic consequences for the mother. It is believed that one woman dies every seven minutes around the world due to an unsafe illegal abortion. In the United States the death rate for abortion is currently 0.6 per 100,000 procedures. Hence, it would be safe to say that in the U.S., legalizing abortion has reduced reproductive barbarism significantly.

However, with safer procedures has come increasing frequency of abortions and casual sex. Researchers tell us that some 22% of the 1¼ million pregnancies in America will be terminated in abortion. More than 48% of these women would have had at least one previous abortion. But why would a woman want to abort her baby? The most common reasons women consider abortion are:

- Birth Control – more than 50% of all women who have an abortion used a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant;
- Economics – inability to support or care for a child/to end an unwanted pregnancy;
- Birth defects – to prevent the birth of a child with severe medical problems;
- Physical or mental conditions that endanger the health of the mother; and
- Pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. 

Although much has been said of the mother’s health and forced sex as legitimate reasons for abortion, many analysts are reluctant to tell us that such cases are rare among women seeking abortion. Actually, fewer than 3% of all women who abort fall into these categories.

So often we forget that the biggest victim in abortion is the child that is aborted. For convenience, we sometimes ignore that the child is a person. Legally, one is charged for double homicide when a pregnant woman is killed. Already, 29 states practice fetal homicide laws. The law grants personhood status to a fetus, thus affording legal rights for a fetus, separate from those enjoyed by the mother. The killer is usually charged for double homicide.

In addition, the use of ultrasound in early pregnancy enables medical personnel to examine the gestational sac within the uterus as early as the fourth week of pregnancy. There should be no doubt then, that an abortion is the surgical removal of a person from a woman’s womb.

The purpose or method of removal does not legitimize the act of removal. Fearful young women sometimes attribute their pregnancies to rape in order to avoid possible condemnation. For instance, Norma McCorvey was the young woman called “Roe” in the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade case of legalizing abortion. Norma elicited sympathy in the court and media because she claimed to be a rape victim. However, years later, she admitted that she lied and was not raped.  

The courts and the media fell for that lie because we have been led to believe that abortion should be expected whenever someone is raped. Under no condition should rape be trivialized. It is a horrible crime for which rapists should receive the full extent of the law.

Rape traumatizes women and as a society we should do everything to reduce the impact of that pain. However, is abortion the only option and does it bring authentic healing to rape victims? Feminists for Life contend that “some women have reported suffering from the trauma of abortion long after the rape trauma has faded.” 

In their book Victims and Victors, David Reardon and his associates draw on the testimonies of 192 women who experienced pregnancy as the result of rape or incest – and 55 children who were conceived through sexual assault. Nearly all the women interviewed in Reardon’s anecdotal survey said they regretted aborting the babies conceived via rape or incest. Of those giving an opinion, more than 90% said they would discourage other victims of sexual violence from having an abortion.
Today Jennifer Bowman has three beautiful children. However, looking at her one could never tell that she was a victim of rape. Her passion for this forgotten group of victims is evident on her website.

The impact of such stories is not merely statistical for me. I thank God daily, that although a victim of rape, my mother-in-law did not opt for an abortion. The child that resulted has changed my life forever.