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The first is that the majority of legislation that limits abortion is done with caveats that allow exceptions in cases of rape and incest. The second is that pro-choice activists argue that being anti-abortion is primarily about controlling the bodies and choices of women.
It has recently dawned on me that these two things are connected.
When we allow for a rape exception, we move the focus away from the life of the unborn child and instead focus on the behavior of the mother. We validate the argument that what we really want is to do is to punish and control women for what they do with their bodies, and repudiate the argument that the reason we fight this fight is for the lives of unborn children.
When we allow for exceptions to anti-abortion laws in cases of rape and incest, it is seen as compassionate because,
"The woman shouldn't have to bear a child when she didn't want what led to the child."
"She shouldn't have to live with the consequences of someone else's sin."
"It's too heavy a burden to bear the child of an abuser."
All of these statements make a judgement call on the behavior of the mother. By saying the baby is a burden, or a consequence, or a punishment that the victim of rape shouldn't have to bear, we're saying that in the case of consensual sex, the baby is a burden, consequence, or punishment that she should have to bear.
When we make a rape exception, we reduce a unique human life, a life with dignity and value independent of its circumstances, to a punishment inflicted on women for sexual 'misbehavior'. By saying that some women ought to be spared from this 'punishment', we prove that it is, in fact, a 'punishment' for the rest of them. A child becomes a method to punish and to shame, to burden and to make an example of to enforce a certain moral sexual code.
Which is exactly what the pro-choice activists have been saying we've been doing all along.
Now, I want to be clear here, I understand that a child is a huge responsibility, and that there are burdens and struggles that come with motherhood, especially motherhood in poverty or from a pregnancy that springs from an abusive relationship. It is the responsibility of the pro-life movement, and of decent human beings in general, to do all we can to support women in these situations. But those situations should never be understood or presented as some sort of "punishment" for past behavior. Those situations call us to love, not to judge or shame.
If anti-abortion policy is truly about valuing human life, then there is no room for the rape/incest exception in the pro-life movement. Not only does it say that certain lives are worth less because of the circumstances in which they came about, but it undermines our claim that we take seriously the life and equal human dignity of the mother as well as the child. If we approach pregnancy as a punitive consequence of some sort of 'misbehavior,' then anti-abortion laws take the form of retribution and punishment. And when we engineer laws to be punitive towards a certain segment of a population, we are discriminating against and dehumanizing that segment.
I believe a part, though admittedly probably a very small part, of the reason that there has been such an outcry from pro-choice organizations against recent laws that do not contain a rape exception is that we have removed this inconsistency in our argument. These laws truly stand for all life in the womb consistently, and bring the focus of our arguments where they belong-- on the life of the child, not on punishment for the 'crimes' of the mother.
No longer can the pro-choice movement claim that we're in it to control or punish women-- we must now be truly in the fight in order to defend the sanctity of life.
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