Guest writer: Christopher Folkerts, pastor of New Covenant United Reformed Church in Twin Falls, ID
“Aborting children conceived through rape or incest is inhumane, unjust, and unloving.
People who argue that abortion should be permissible for children conceived in the circumstances of rape or incest argue illogically, and therefore, inconsistently. They are still believing the lie that the child in the womb is not a child but a mass of cells similar to a zit. If the “thing” in the womb is just a mass of tissue that can be discarded at whim, then why have any restrictions at all. To place a single restriction on abortion is to say that that “thing” is a person with value and dignity. And if that “thing” really is a person with value and dignity, it cannot be distinguished from another as more or less deserving of life. The argument that children may not be aborted except in cases of rape or incest is simply to act like all the evil dictators this world has known, such as Adolf Hitler, and determine who is and who is not worthy to live. To abort under cases of rape or incest is inhuman and barbaric. If that “thing” in the womb is a person, abortion under any circumstances is murder. If it is not person, then let’s stop our bickering and abort whomever, whenever, and however we want. No justification is needed, we are simply popping a zit.
Not only is this argument that abortion to be permissible in cases of rape and incest inhumane, it is unjust. It is punishing the person in the womb for a crime he or she did not commit. It is injustice of the highest order since that person is not capable of defending himself or herself. If it is a person that is in their mother’s womb, they are endowed with all the rights and responsibilities of the Constitution of the United States of America. Specifically, in this case, they are being denied the right afforded them in the Sixth Amendment, namely the right to a trial by jury.
Allowing abortion in cases of rape or incest additionally unloving. Obviously is it unloving to the child who was just murdered, but is unloving to the woman who has conceived her child. The argument for allowing abortion under such circumstances is most often made at this level. It is not a philosophical argument but an emotional one. It argues that aborting the child is best for the mother’s psychological and emotional state of being. But is this the case? We forget that the child in her womb is as much her own flesh-and-blood as it is the perpetrator who raped her. We forget that that child shares her DNA and will share his or her mother’s looks and character. We forget that the mother knows, not by scientific data, but by her mother’s heart, that the “thing” in her womb, however horribly conceived, is still at the end of the day, her child—her baby. In the moment of great pain or shame, she may detest the child in her. That is normal given the circumstances of the evil inflicted upon her. We must speak lovingly to her and address that pain and shame. We must punish the evil man who raped her. But to allow her in a moment of pain and shame to abort her baby is to allow her to inflict upon herself another wound, as deep and horrible as the first. She knows in her mother’s heart that she has conceived in her womb her own child. She may decide to give her child up to adoption because of the pain she experienced and have peace that she has brought joy to a couple longing for a child. But do not let her be an accomplice to the murder of her own child. She will know it and live with the horror of what she done for the rest of life. It is unloving to the woman to allow her to abort her baby even under such horrible circumstances as these. It is the character of a just, noble, and kind society to stand beside abused women and encourage them in their darkest moment to give life to their baby. This is the loving and compassionate thing to do.”
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