On Rape and Incest Exemptions

So, ok, we know that most Republicans are pro-life. That means that they generally don’t want abortion to be legal, and believe that the state should force women to have children they don’t want to have (this from the small government types who want to keep government out of your business, totes for realz, yo!). This is done, usually, under the “sanctity of life,” with the idea being that women shouldn’t kill babies because they don’t want to give birth to them.

Ok, that’s all well and good. It’s a position that I can’t agree with (because I don’t consider a three-month old embryo to be a “person” in any sense), but I can understand where people are coming from when they have a position like that.

What I don’t understand is why anyone would have the option that “aborition = murder” and then follow that with, “but it’s ok to murder a baby produced by rape”. To me, if it’s a human life, it’s a human life period, and the circumstances of conception shouldn’t matter at all.

I don’t see how anyone squares the circle here. I mean, if you truly believe that abortion is murder, then how can you accept the murder of a baby whose only crime is being conceived through rape? To be fair, there are those out there like Rick Santorum who don’t want these kinds of exceptions, but they are in the significant minority.

I think part of this is a political move on the part of the pro-life crowd. Most of them realize that if they argue that a woman who is raped shouldn’t be allowed an abortion, that’s going to cost them votes. I think also that due to the large squick factor, they also know that incest exemptions are voter-friendly.

I suppose part of the argument could be something like, “Well, the woman didn’t want to have sex and certainly didn’t want to get pregnant, so since it wasn’t her choice, we should let her have an abortion.” But then why not extend that further to say, “Yes, she did want to have sex, but she was on the pill and the male was using a condom, and she got pregnant anyhow. She didn’t want to, so since it wasn’t her choice, we should let her have an abortion.”

The more cynical side of me also believes that while they “know” that their “good” little daughter or their wife won’t go out and have pre-martial sex or cheat on them, well, things happen. If their daughter or wife gets raped, the last thing they want to do is have to raise a child that isn’t theirs, or have a grandchild whose father raped their daughter. I’m not sure how much of a contributing factor to the exemption this is, but I’m willing to bet it’s huge, even if only on a subconscious level.

Ultimately, of course, I have no problem with abortion. As far as I’m concerned, an acorn isn’t a tree, an egg isn’t a chicken and an embryo isn’t a baby. As a result, I certainly have no problem with the idea of women who are raped getting abortions any more than I have a problem with anyone else having them.

I really am struggling to understand how anyone logics this out, so if you’re someone who is pro-life, but believes in the exemption for rape or incest, would you please explain to me why? I’d honestly like to know, because under your own beliefs, it just doesn’t seem to make sense.

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