Abortion as self-defense?
By Tom Quiner
Chris Christie said something remarkable in last night’s Republican debate:
“I believe that if a woman has been raped, that is a birth and a pregnancy that she should be able to terminate. If she is the victim of incest, this is not a woman’s choice. This is a woman being violated. And the fact is that we have always believed, as has Ronald Reagan, that we have self-defense for women who have been raped and impregnated because of it, or the subject of incest and been impregnated for it. That woman should not have to deliver that child if they believe that violation is now an act of self-defense by terminating that pregnancy.”
The good governor equates human abortion with an act of “self-defense.”
Tell that to the innocent person in the womb whose body is being ripped apart.
The director of Iowans for Life, Maggie Dewitte, reacted on her Facebook page:
“I just finished watching the debate … and Bush and Christie just disqualified themselves in my opinion. When you call yourself pro-life and then go on to say how you agree with exceptions is unacceptable. Listen, as a women I cannot imagine being raped and then getting pregnant as a result of that rape. However, in our country, rapists and child molesters cannot be given the death penalty. Why do we think it’s okay for that innocent child to be given the death penalty? Rebecca Kiessling was just in Des Moines. She was conceived as a result of rape. Her birth mother chose life and placed her for adoption. Her life matters! 100% pro-life, no exceptions!”
By contrast, Marco Rubio refused to budge on life issues despite the political expediency of watering down one’s convictions, as Messrs. Bush and Christie did. Said Rubio:
“I would rather lose an election than be wrong on the issue of life.”
Good for Senator Rubio.
The number of lives at stake are significant, according to Ms. Kiessling who was conceived as a result of rape:
“Four to six percent of rape victims become pregnant — 32,000 rape-related pregnancies annually, with 15-25% aborting, 25% choose adoption and over 50% raise their children. So that’s 25-27,000 of us born each year in the U.S., which is .67% of the population born each year.”
Here’s the thing about the violence of rape. Women who compound the violence of rape with the violence of human abortion suffer more psychological trauma than women who allow the product of rape, the human being in the womb, to be born.
These are the surprising findings uncovered by Dr. David C. Reardon, Julie Makimaa and Amy Sobie and revealed in their book, “Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions, and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault.”
They talked to a whole bunch of women whose lives were turned upside down by rape, and who were impregnated as a result. Here is what the authors learned about these women:
“Many of the women in our sample aborted only because they were pressured to do so, and most reported that the abortion only increased their experience of grief and trauma. In contrast, none of the women who carried to term said they wished they had not given birth or that they had chosen abortion instead. Many of these women said that their children had brought peace and healing to their lives.”
Irrational, isn’t it? A baby should be a symbol of hate, not love, for victims of rape. That is what our intuition says. That is what our culture says. The Democratic Party bases their human abortion platform on this premise.
Dr. Reardon learned from victims themselves that the opposite was true:
“Abortion increases the woman’s sense of isolation and shame by allowing others to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. By getting rid of the pregnancy, which is a reminder of the sexual assault, it allows other people to ignore the woman’s need for understanding and honest exploration and resolution of what she has been through.”
Here’s what hits me like a ton of bricks. Advocates of abortion “rights” club us over the head with the need for abortion on behalf of victims of rape and incest. Dr. Reardon’s research reveals that they’re just plain wrong.
By the way, his study includes victims of incest.
Somehow, love for human life is ultimately more therapeutic, more powerful, than hate for the rapist.
Love trumps hate, something Jesus always said.
Dr. Reardon gives us a cautionary warning:
“Population controllers have exploited people’s compassion for rape and incest victims to weaken abortion laws and gain acceptance for abortion on demand. It’s time to give these women a chance to speak out for themselves and let the truth be known.”
Marco Rubio made a strong point last night when he emphasized that abortion isn’t a political issue, but rather a human rights issue. Republican candidates should remember that and not water down their pro life message.
And don’t insult us by suggesting abortion is an act of self-defense.
I have long said that “self-defense” is the only reason abortion should be allowed. This definition of self-defense is pretty warped though. My definition of self defense is that if a woman’s life is in jeopardy, then the child should be terminated in self defense in order to save the woman. Those percentages are so low that if this were to happen, we would only have maybe 5-10,000 abortions per year instead of 1 million.
Agreed.
It would be less. The pregnancy is risk to mom is in the later stages, when the baby can be delivered prematurely. Now babies live healthy after being born as early as 6 1/2 months. That is about as early as most pregnancies b/c life threatening to mom. Technology is ever improving the outcomes of the very premature. There would be so few needed abortions for saving mom from dying. That is why they also add the whole “danger to the mother’s MENTAL health angle. That’s a hard one to quantify. It’s whatever they want to say.