Abortion Wrongs WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT ABORTION RIGHTS. This is an article about abortion wrongs. Much misinformation is distributed on this subject. Let us consider the common arguments for abortion. A WOMAN HAS A RIGHT OVER HER BODY. We are blessed to live in a country with a Bill of Rights. Each is entitled to privacy, liberty, and life. Women should be allowed to make decisions about their own bodies, of course, as should men. But, personal rights end when exercise of them could and does lead to endangering one’s own life and the lives of others (i.e. drunk driving and drug addiction, murder, endangering another’s life through negligence).[1] When a woman gets pregnant, she becomes responsible for another body. The Golden Rule applies in this situation: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12; cf. Philippians 2:4). Would I want to be aborted? Ronald Reagan was right when he said, “I have noticed that all those who are in favor of abortion were born.” A political cartoon pointed out the inconsistency and the real problem behind abortion: First frame: He kissed me and I melted. Second frame: My heart pounded at his touch. Third frame: His embrace sent blood coursing through my veins. Fourth frame: I was overcome with passion. I couldn’t refuse. Fifth frame: Well, now I’m pregnant and I want an abortion. Last frame: After all, a woman should have control over her body.[2] If there is irresponsibility prior to pregnancy, the chances are greatly increased there will be irresponsibility afterwards.[3] It is sometimes argued that though the baby is human and alive, it does not have the same rights that a mother does. Some even use Exodus 21:22 to say God sanctions such an idea. Actually, this text teaches the opposite (cf. Exodus 21:28-37). Moses wrote, “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine” (Exodus 21:22). The phrase no mischief follow means that the baby is born prematurely but is healthy. But if mischief followed, that is, the baby was injured or died, then punishment was to be exacted according to the injury (eye for an eye, etc.). MOTHER’S LIFE ENDANGERED. This is very rare, and due to medical advancements, abortion can almost always be avoided. Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General, said: “Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life. The doctor will either induce labor or perform a Caesarean section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby’s life is never willfully destroyed because the mother’s life is in danger.” Dr. R. J. Hefferman said, “Anyone who performs a therapeutic abortion (for physical disease) is either ignorant of modern methods of treating the complications of pregnancy, or is unwilling to take the time to use them.”[4] In those extremely rare cases when a choice must be made between a mother’s life and the child’s (e.g. tubal pregnancies), what should be done? The dilemma is the same faced when two lives are jeopardized in a fire or flood. If both cannot be saved, which is to live? This would, obviously, be a difficult choice. In the case of choosing between a mother and a child, the decision would be made by much prayer by the loving parents. Abortion is justifiable in such a case, as an act of self-defense. This is not an argument for abortion on demand. Abortion would be like casting an unwanted child back into the fire or water! CHILD ABUSE WOULD SKYROCKET. Child abuse is a horrible crime. It needs to be addressed; violators need to face severe punishments. But is the answer to child abuse killing unwanted children? Is not this the ultimate form of child abuse? Actually, since abortion was legalized, child abuse has climbed by at least 500%, even though we have prevented the birth of more than 40,000,000 unwanted children. There is much that we still do not know about the sick psychology that leads to child abuse. One thing does stand out, however: Prenatally, these were not unwanted pregnancies, they were super-wanted pregnancies. The landmark study on this was done at the University of Southern California. Professor Edward Lenoski studied 674 consecutive battered children who were brought to the in- and out-patient departments of that medical center. He was the first to go to the parents and study to what extent they wanted and planned the pregnancy. To his surprise, he found that 91% were planned and wanted, compared to 63% for the control groups nationally. Further, the mothers had begun wearing, on average, pregnancy clothes at 114 days compared to 171 days in the control, and the fathers named the boys after themselves 24% of the time compared to 4% for the control groups.[5] The parents commonly grew up in a hostile environment, and were themselves abused. When the children fail to satisfy their [unrealistic, neurotic expectations of perfection] emotional needs, the parents react with the same violence they experienced as children.[6] Isaiah urged, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and declare unto my people their transgressions” (Isaiah 58:1). WHAT ABOUT IN CASES OF RAPE? For a man to force a woman is an unspeakable crime. Every woman fears such circumstances above nearly any other evil. Every husband and father of a daughter abhors the thought of those under his care being violated. Such cowardly evil boils the blood of every true man, and turns the stomach of any normal person. Such selfishness shows a heart so small and closed that it hardly qualifies to say it is made in God’s image. Whenever abortion is argued, invariable the pro-abortion speaker will say, “If you outlaw abortion, then rape victims would have no recourse but to bear a rapist’s child.” Is this a valid reason to keep abortion legal for any woman for any reason? Let us consider three introduction points, and then a brief discussion. First, let us define rape. Rape is the forcible imposition of a man on a woman for sexual intercourse. This study is discussing assault (forcible) rape, not marital rape or remorse over consensual sex. Whether a rape occurs behind the bushes or on a date, it should be reported to police and charges filed. (College students, are you listening?)[7] Second, it is interesting that the percentage of rape abortions is actually less than the percentage of unwanted babies conceived outside of marriage. Fifty-one percent of unmarried women who become pregnant with boyfriends have abortions; less than half of rape pregnancies are aborted. The rest carry the baby to term and give the child up for adoption or opt to keep it. In one study of 37 rape pregnancies, 28 carried to term.[8] Third, stiffer laws and enforcement is better protection for women than abortion rights. Sex criminals should face the quick and severe wrath of an angry society (government) (Romans 13:1-5); this would go far in preventing these tragedies (Ecclesiastes 8:11). UNCOMMON. The rape argument for abortion is a smokescreen used to prejudice undecided minds. These situations make up a very small percentage of abortions in the United States. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a research arm of Planned Parenthood, completed a survey of 1900 women who had an abortion. The reasons for having an abortion: 21% said they were not ready for the responsibility. 21% said they could not afford the baby. 16% were concerned about how a child would change their lives. 12% blamed a relationship problem. 11% felt they were not mature enough. 8% said they had all the children they wanted. 1% were the result of rape and incest. Keep in mind that this 1% figure is from a pro-choice source. The AGI Mission Statement says it favors the freedom to terminate unwanted pregnancies. According to their data, about 14,000 women have abortions each year because they became pregnant after rape or incest. This is out of a total of 1.37 million abortions.[9] There is the likely possibility that the true number is even smaller. In many cases, there is social pressure to claim rape to justify a decision to abort. Forty-three percent of women obtaining abortions identify themselves as Protestant and 27% as Catholic. Both groups are historically anti-abortion, but often give exceptions in cases of rape or incest. That false claims of rape are made is commonly understood in discussion of the abortion issue. The story of Jane Roe, of the infamous Roe v. Wade Decision, is a case in point. In the early 1970s, Norma McCorvey (her real name) fabricated a story about being gang raped at a circus, mistakenly thinking this would permit her to obtain a legal abortion in Texas. In 1987 she revealed that the baby was actually conceived through “what I thought was love.”[10] She had made up the story. Another case is Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program. Up until 1988 abortions were funded for women who claimed they had been raped, without requiring reporting to a law enforcement agency. Abortion clinic personnel issued thinly veiled invitations for women to simply say they’d been raped. Since they didn’t have to prove it, and no one would arrest the rapists, many took advantage of the offer. Based on unsubstantiated claims, the state funded an average of 36 abortions a month. When the legislature added a requirement for reporting the rape to a law enforcement agency in 1988, the average dropped to less than three abortions per month. UNLIKELY. The likelihood of becoming pregnant from rape is, thankfully, very low. Pregnancy occurs in only about one in four thousand rapes.[11] (Normal pregnancy rates are about 1 in 1,000 copulations.) There are physical reasons for this. It is likely because of timing (not during the three days a month a woman is likely to get pregnant), and because the rapist often does not finish the sex act. Also, some women who are raped are sterile, are on contraception, or are before/after child-bearing years. There are emotional reasons for this. A rape victim rarely gets pregnant because conception is unlikely during psychological trauma. Our benevolent Creator so made the feminine reproductive system that she rarely conceives under stress. All have known married couples who wanted a baby and tried to conceive – but met with frustration. Finally they adopted a baby and then conceived shortly afterward. To get pregnant and stay pregnant, a woman’s body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain which is easily influenced by emotions. Every woman is aware that stress and emotional factors can alter her menstrual cycle. There’s no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation, and even nurturing a pregnancy. UNWISE. What advice should be given a rape victim in the most traumatic time of her life? In most cases where there is a pregnancy, the victim did not report to a hospital for help; she kept it to herself. For several weeks, she has thought of little else. Now, she has finally asked for help, has shared her upsetting story, and is in a very vulnerable, frightening situation. Her main questions are: What should I do now? Should I carry the baby or have an abortion? Is abortion her best option (or as many see it – her only option)? When pregnancy follows rape, victims need moral support, financial help, frank understanding, and sheltering by caring family/friends, and assistance from a fair government. Abortion should not be counseled. Why? First, two wrongs do not make a right. There is no way to ignore God’s words: “no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him (1 John 3:15).” The trauma has already occurred. She has been raped. She will live with that fact regardless of whether she has an abortion or not. She has been the victim of one violent act. Should we now ask her to be a party to a second violent act? Many would counsel her to return violence (killing a baby) for violence (rape) (cf. Matthew 5:38-41). Will she be able to live comfortably with the memory that she had an abortion? Would she ultimately be more at peace with herself if she could remember that, even though she became pregnant unwillingly, she nevertheless solved her problem by being unselfish, by returning love for hate. Compare this memory with the woman who can only look back and say, “I killed my baby.” One study concluded, “We found the rape experience is forgotten (what he did), replaced by remembering the abortion, because it is what they did.”[12] Second, abortion is unwise because abortion can be dangerous to the mother. This is true physically. Unsuccessful second pregnancies occur more than twice as often among those who have had abortions. Dr. John Wilke explains that in the first and third trimesters, a woman who has had a previous abortion is two times more likely to have a miscarriage and in the second trimester is ten times more likely.[13] Further, her baby is two times more likely to die after birth than a baby of a mother who has not had an abortion. Other dangers include premature births, tubal pregnancies, loss of interest in sexual activity, damage to the reproductive organs, intractable hemorrhages, pelvic pain, infertility, severe emotional and psychiatric problems, and even death.[14] Abortion is also dangerous to the mother emotionally. Many feel serious emotional pain after having had an abortion. In recent years it has become clear that women who had abortions after rape can suffer from Post-Abortion Syndrome. A national research project on PAS included these statements from women who had obtained abortions (reason for abortion not given): It affected my relationship with my children because I emotionally pushed them away – I felt I didn’t deserve them; I would go to the cemetery wondering what they did with my baby; Initially I also felt a sense of relief that it was all over. But it was a strange brand of relief that did everything relief should, except make me feel any better. A woman who aborted a rape baby can carry the same burdens of guilt, denial, and depression that a woman who aborted a love baby often does. Why is this? At least two dynamics seem obvious. Rape was something done to her. She was not responsible. She was the innocent victim of another’s violence. By contrast, the abortion was done by her. She agreed to it. It was her decision to solicit the second act of violence. And she comes to see it as her own unborn child. The newly-conceived baby is certainly the rapist’s child, but he or she is also her child – half of the new baby’s genetic material came from her.[15] UNFAIR. Let’s look at it this way. Do we punish other criminals by killing their children? The innocent baby committed no crime. He should not bear punishment for the crimes of his father (Ezekiel 18:4, Ezekiel 18:20). Just as there are lasting emotional consequences of this violent crime, when pregnancy follows, there are physical consequences as well. Our philosophy of judgment seems terribly unequal at this point. Our courts have declared capital punishment for rapists to be cruel and inhumane. The guilty father only gets a few years’ punishment, and often gets nothing but a slap on the wrist. But we execute capital punishment on the innocent baby! more at link https://housetohouse.com/abortion-wrongs/