Rape and Responsibility for the Child

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This piece was published in the Pasadena Star-News on August 23, 2012.

The scab that is the abortion debate has been picked off again in a most vile way. The debate about forcing a woman to have a baby that was conceived due to rape always elicits emotionally charged reactions. People who say abortion should not be allowed in those cases because the child has a right to life do not consider the consequences to the rape victim, the woman they want to force to become a mother. She also has rights.
 
The goal of rape is to degrade and humiliate the victim. The perpetrator uses intimidation, threats and physical violence to prevent the woman from resisting. In this society we consider rape to be a heinous crime and, when tried and convicted, send the perpetrators to prison. However, they bear no responsibility for the child that resulted. It is the woman who is alone and pregnant.
 
Men don’t rape women so they can create new life. They do it to physically and psychologically hurt them. If a pregnancy results, the entire burden falls on the woman and she alone has to go through a pregnancy she didn’t want and has to deliver a child she never planned to have. It is easy for those who deny her an abortion to say the child has a right to life. It makes them feel good about themselves, and then they walk away. 
 
Suppose the woman is married. Are those who want to deny her an abortion expecting the husband to support his wife through a pregnancy neither of them planned or wanted. Can they imagine supporting their own wives through an ordeal like this? If the couple has children, what do they tell them? A bad man hurt mommy and now you are going to have a brother or a sister. Really? 
 
If the rape victim doesn’t have health insurance, how would those who deny her an abortion suppose she would pay for it? She can go to a county hospital, but I wonder how many of those people would go to a county hospital for treatment.
 
Even if she has insurance, there are co-pays and deductibles. If complications arise and costs skyrocket, the out-of-pocket expenses would be substantial. Would any of those people who feel she must go through the pregnancy step up and help pay the costs?
 
The bottom line in this scenario is that the woman is victimized once and is then further victimized by a society that requires her to gestate a fetus whose rights trump hers. She will endure a pregnancy she didn’t want and go through labor to deliver a baby who is the living reminder of the violence and degradation that was forced on her. The physical, emotional and psychological costs to her are tremendously high and she should have the option to end the pregnancy.
 
The man who did this to her is long gone. The people who deny her abortion have gone on with their lives, claiming their righteousness in the preservation of life, not knowing or caring that the pregnancy they insist she go through could destroy hers.  
 

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