By Shauna Segadelli, Law Student
Every pro-life legal triumph invites the pro-abortion bloggers to examine their opposition’s strategy. Their observations can be painful to read – especially when they are true.
Equating North Dakota’s recent legal measures banning abortion after six weeks with torture, Jessica Valenti writes at The Nation:
“But how else would you describe laws that are meant to punish women for being sexually active? Sure, anti-choice legislation and activism prides itself on showy pro-woman rhetoric. Women’s Right To Know! Women Deserve Better Than Abortion! But at the end of the day, forced pregnancy is less about protecting women or ‘life’ than it is about punishment and humiliation.
Rape exceptions are the clearest example. While I agree that forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy that is the result of rape is an even further assault on women’s bodily integrity, the foundation of a rape exception is that some women ‘deserve’ abortions and some don’t. The underlying message is pretty clear—a woman who has been forced to have sex has done nothing wrong, a woman who had consensual sex has.”
While her classification of abortion restrictions as torture nearly extinguishes my hope in modern feminism, I thank Jessica for pointing to a logical fallacy that the pro-life movement has condoned for too long: the notion that abortion is unacceptable, except in cases of rape.
Life is life is life, no matter the circumstances surrounding its conception.
True defenders of life must not harden their hearts to unborn children of rape. When we make room for exceptions in cases of rape, our message takes on an unsettlingly punitive ring. It’s wrong to terminate your pregnancy, unless the fruit of your womb isn’t your fault! Within this paradigm, unplanned pregnancies create opportunities to point fingers, rather than to rejoice in the gift of life.
At best, the rape exception is a political concession without which, pro-lifers fear, important life-saving legislation could never survive the court of public opinion. At worst, it betrays a morality that judges a person’s value according to the sins and virtues of his parents.
Since this message prioritizes sexual responsibility above the dignity of human life, it is no wonder that the self-proclaimed “Feminist Killjoy” thinks it’s “HILARIOUS” to “say anti-choice laws aren’t about punishment”. As she opines in the torture post:
“…if you believe abortion is a ‘convenience,’ rather than a human right, saying as much is controversial. To the American anti-choice movement, it’s even laughable.”
Maybe, somewhere, there is a sadistic, rich white man who cackles maniacally every time an agonizing rape victim sees a “+” on her pregnancy test.
But nobody laughs at abortion in the pro-life movement. No exceptions.
