Day 10

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" Abortion Arguments Series: Day 10 of 10 (Final Day)

"What about rape, incest, and fatal diagnoses?"

I saved the hardest question for last.

For nine days, I’ve argued that the unborn child is an innocent human being, and that ending an innocent human life is wrong. Now comes the territory where holding that principle is agonizingly difficult.

Let’s start with fatal diagnoses.

Much of what parents are told is a "fatal diagnosis" is actually an early screening test (NIPT), which carries false-positive rates of 40 to 70 percent for rare conditions like trisomy 18 and 13.

When a lethal condition is confirmed, the humane answer isn't a rushed procedure in a clinic; it is perinatal hospice and palliative care. That model allows parents to meet their baby, hold him, love him, and provide comfort care for whatever time he has. No parent should be told "there's no hope, here's the clinic" without also being told "and here's what it looks like to meet and cherish your child anyway."

Now, when it comes to rape and incest.

Let’s start where we should always start: with the woman.

She was the victim of a horrific, violent crime. None of it was her fault. Her attacker belongs in prison for the rest of his life. She deserves justice, medical care, trauma counseling, and every ounce of support a community can give her. Anyone who discusses this subject without saying that first has lost their moral compass.

I also know the last thing a woman who lived through that wants is a man who never will telling her what to do. So first, listen to some of the women who have lived it.

I’m not claiming these voices represent every woman. Many who abort after an assault report relief, but the women below are almost never heard in this debate, and their reality matters just as much.

Women like Nicole Cooley and Pam Messina, both assaulted, who chose abortion because people told them it would help them move on--only to find that abortion couldn't un-rape them, but instead added a compounding second trauma to heal from. Or Jennifer Christie, assaulted on a business trip, who chose to carry and said that seeing her ultrasound was the first moment she finally didn't feel alone.

Then consider the child.

If biology confirms that a distinct human life begins at conception, then a child conceived in an assault is just as human and innocent as any other. His biological father committed an unspeakable crime, but the baby did not. We do not execute children for the crimes of their fathers anywhere else in law or morality.

Rebecca Kiessling is an attorney and mother of five conceived when her mother was raped at knifepoint. Decades later, she began asking state lawmakers one piercing question: “Did I deserve the death penalty for the crime of my biological father?” We rarely acknowledge there is a living human being on the other side of that choice.

Ending the child’s life cannot undo the assault; it takes a crime with one victim and creates a second. What that mother needs is a community to absorb every shockwave: medical bills, trauma therapy, and, if she cannot raise the child, immediate placement with an adoptive family who will cherish him.

Now, what about the law?

Here is where I distinguish moral truth from legislative prudence. And I know some on my side may disagree with my ultimate conclusion here.

Thomas Aquinas argued 750 years ago that law has to lead a society toward justice at a pace it can actually bear, because laws too far ahead of the people get rejected entirely and accomplish nothing.

Morally, I believe every child has a right to life. But in the voting booth, I will gladly vote for a law that includes exceptions for rape, incest, and fatal anomalies if that is the only law capable of passing today. A statute that legally protects 90 percent of children is infinitely better than an ideological purism that saves none.

Which brings me to the question that I always ask when abortion advocates bring up these tough cases.

Rape, incest, and fatal diagnoses together represent roughly 1 to 2 percent of all abortions.

If we agreed today to legal exceptions for all of those tragic cases, would you support legally protecting the children in the remaining 98 percent?

If yes, our argument is over, and we should be writing a bill together.

If no, then be honest: this was never about rape or fatal diagnoses. Those agonizing cases are being used as human shields to avoid defending why the vast majority of elective abortions should continue.

If the hardest cases are addressed, then the only question left is whether you are willing to protect everybody else.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series.

PS - I plan to have a book out in a few weeks that puts all of these arguments in one place, expands more on each one and shows how they play out in the real world."