Warning: Rant Follows

Some days, traipsing about the wingnut-o-sphere is downright dangerous to one's sanity. A quick review of Lifesite this afternoon turns up one of the most amazingly idiotic screeds I've seen in some time.

Abortion in Cases of Rape: Why Not Kill the Guilty Rapist Before the Innocent Child

The headline tells us quite a bit about the thesis of the author - it's a fairly classic piece of irrationality in which a child that is a result of a rape is portrayed as a victim being punished for the father's actions.

The author dives into his thesis quite early, posing the following question:

However, in a civilized country we punish the guilty and not the innocent. So why are we suggesting capital punishment for the innocent unborn child rather than the guilty rapist?

There are two fallacies in here to start with - first, that we do not punish rapists; the second that if the woman has an abortion afterwards she is "punishing" the unborn child.

Both are patently false. A brief examination of our criminal code makes it quite clear that rape is a most serious offense, and carries significant consequences with it.

The second gets into a nasty little issue - namely that of a woman's control over her own body and fertility. I doubt that any woman who has been raped would view an abortion as "punishing" the child. She might justifiably have some strong opinions about carrying the child of someone who has brutalized and violated her though.

However, the argument gets more irritating:

Secondly, abortion is harmful to the women that undergo it. Childbirth is a natural function that women's bodies were made for. Abortion is not. Abortion is a traumatic event psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and physically.

1) Abortion happens quite naturally - it's called a miscarriage.

2) Childbirth can be quite damaging to a woman's body - the rate at which women died giving birth to their children in centuries past is a good reminder to us of just what the price of being female often is.

3) Any major event in life can be traumatic - whether that is major surgery, marriage, divorce, birth of a child - whatever.

At this point, I started getting annoyed - then I read the last part of the writer's thesis:

Why are we giving more trauma to the victim of rape by encouraging her to abort her child?

Carrying such a child to term has been for many women a help in coming to grips with the abuse they suffered. Many victims of rape and children born of such attacks have testified to these truths.

At about this point, I saw red. First of all, following a rape, no ethical professional is going to encourage the woman to have an abortion. The option will certainly be presented, as it should be.

Why on earth would we punish the victim of a rape by insisting that she carry what amounts to a "cuckoo egg" to term? While some women may find the experience therapeutic, others are going to be thoroughly revolted by the prospect of giving birth to a child resulting from such a violation.

The issue here is that it comes down to a woman's authority over her own body. A rapist violates that control in the first place. After that, as far as I'm concerned, the woman is the person who has to bear the consequences of his actions. It is, therefore, quite reasonable for her to make whatever decision she sees fit should a pregnancy result. Society is morally obliged to be supportive of her, whatever that decision.

I should point out that the author of the column is apparently a man by the name of "John-Henry Westen". Perhaps that tells us a great deal about the thesis he starts from. As a male, his reproductive "goal" - biologically speaking - is to get as many opportunities as possible to create offspring. It is, in his world, therefore reasonable to continue the violation of a rape by insisting that the victim carry the resulting child to term.

If and when we find a way to make the rapist carry the resulting child to term, and go through some facsimile of a childbirth experience (how about a modified c-section - without the anaesthetic, perhaps), then you might be able to convince me that the woman's pregnancy may not require termination. However, the decision remains hers ultimately even then. In the meantime, these moralizing anti-abortion males can shut their yaps.