Hard Questions

Abortion and rape

Rape is a truly horrific crime against women. Whether or not pregnancy has resulted, the woman needs a lot of help and support to recover from the experience. It can seem as though a child conceived as a result will be a constant reminder of the attack and for this reason abortion is often seen as the obvious response to a sexual assault pregnancy. Statistics suggest that pregnancy occurs in around 5% of rape cases, the subsequent abortion rate represents a tiny fraction of the 200,000 abortions carried out in the UK each year.

At the heart of the pro-life case is a simple conviction: that an unborn child at whatever stage of development, is a human being with as much right to life as you or I. the circumstances in which the unborn child came into the world do not alter our recognition of the child’s humanity. Surely all of us deserve the chance to be born and make something of our life, however we were conceived?
Why should the child suffer the death penalty when he/she is entirely innocent? We cannot discriminate against an unborn child simply because of the actions of their father. Many children have to live with parents who are inadequate cruel or violent. Life is not easy for these children but we do not say that their lives are worthless because of their parent’s failings and problems.
We may think that abortion is the best way for a woman to begin to move on from the trauma of rape however abortion cannot undo the fact that the rape happened. The abortion can bring with it a new set of problems. Some women report that the trauma and emotional intensity of abortion exacerbate their existing difficulties.
We recognize at LIFE that a pregnancy resulting from rape is a traumatic and devastating situation. But a woman facing a crisis pregnancy as a result of rape need not face the situation alone. LIFE provides a whole range of services including practical and emotional support and confidential counseling.
In society we are quick to judge the situation and view the child merely as a rapist’s offspring forgetting that the child is also the mother’s son or daughter. A huge amount of pressure can be put on the woman to have an abortion and move on.

One girl, who wished to remain anonymous, told us her story:

“….I can honestly say that keeping my daughter was a great decision, and I really enjoy being a mother. Although she was conceived in traumatic circumstances, I came to understand that she had done nothing wrong and was not responsible for the way she came into the world.
Some people have judged me harshly for carrying the child of a rapist; but when I look at my daughter I don’t see the face of my rapist-I see my beautiful daughter, who I love. She is the proof that something good can come from something terrible…”

Abortion and disability

Tests for disability

Chorionic villus sampling (CVS), this tests a tiny part of the placenta in the early stages of pregnancy.
Alphafetoprotein test (AFP), widely used, tests a mothers blood sample at about 16 weeks.
Amniocentesis test, involves removing some of the amniotic fluid from around the child, by syringe at about 18 weeks (has at least a 1% risk of causing miscarriage)
Ultrasound scanning, involves ‘bouncing’ sound waves off the baby to produce a moving picture on a monitor screen, revealing the development of the child.

Pre natal screening is not wholly reliable; it is reckoned that 10% of diagnoses are incorrect.
Even if the child is found to be at risk of disability it can be hard to predict the degree of disability.

However and whenever disability is detected the child needs help with his/her difficulties and the family needs support and sometimes practical help.
A person with a disability has the same right to life as any other member of society. Aborting children because they have or might have a disability is the ultimate form of discrimination.
In the UK it is legally permitted to abort a baby up to birth on grounds of disability, acceptance of abortion on these grounds has led to the killing of unborn disabled children who are unwanted or rejected. If pre-natal screening reveals a disability parents are often put under pressure to opt for an abortion.
Many people argue in favour of aborting disabled babies on the grounds that they will have “a poor quality of life”. How can anyone know this? How can anyone have the right to pre-judge the quality of someone else’s life before they are even born?
It is one of today’s biggest contradictions just as we have really begun to look after disabled people as never before, privileged parking spaces, protected jobs, specially adapted work environments etc we are devising increasingly more ruthless methods of searching out and destroying unborn disabled people.

The disability rights commission (DRC) are extremely concerned about this law as it reinforces discrimination against people with disability. In 2001 the DRC stated that:

“The section is offensive to many people it reinforces negative stereotypes of disability and there is substantial support for the view that to permit terminations at any point during a pregnancy on the ground of risk of disability, while time limits apply to other grounds set out in the abortion act, is incompatible with valuing disability and non disability equally.”

Abortion to save the mother’s life

In years gone by the choice between saving the life of the mother or the child was not uncommon. Medicine and science have advanced so far in recent years to such an extent that this need not be the case these days.

There are nowadays very few occasions where the life of the mother is threatened by pregnancy. Even in this rare situation the child can be delivered and given the chance to survive.
Children delivered a little over half way through the pregnancy now have a much better chance of survival because of the skill of doctors and the facilities available in special care baby units.
Medical intervention to save the life of the mother that results in the death of the child as an expected but not intended side effect is not a direct abortion e.g. in the case of ectopic pregnancy. In this situation the baby begins to develop in the mother’s fallopian tube and has to be removed or the fallopian tube will rupture and cause the death of the mother. In this case the baby dies as the result of a condition where nothing else can be done but a direct choice is not taken to end the life of one in favour of another.

Backstreet abortion

This term is usually used to describe illegal abortions. Backstreet abortions played a major role in the legalization of abortion in the first place. Pro-abortion campaigners claimed that legalalizing abortion was necessary to stop thousands of dangerous abortions taking place which caused injury and death for many desperate women.

This argument, accompanied by alarming statistics, was instrumental in convincing politicians to change the law on abortion but there is little evidence to suggest that backstreet abortion was the problem some campaigners claimed it to be. In fact the number of women in danger after backstreet abortion was in decline in the years leading up to the 1967 abortion act. Dr Bernard Nathanson, co- founder of the United States pro-abortion group NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) admitted that the drive to legalise abortion was based on the invention of false statistics. He said:

"We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the US. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000."
Bernard Nathanson, Confessions of an Ex-Abortionist

A law banning abortion would not stop all women from having abortions. But it would be a powerful statement about the value of human life and about the ideals of our society. Rape is illegal. Why? Not because we think that by making rape illegal we will completely stop rape from happening. But because we recognise that rape is wrong and bad for society and we want to discourage people from committing rape by any means possible. The same can be said for theft, assault, drink-driving and so on.

The law matters because it is a statement of the kind of society we want to build, and the society that LIFE wants to build is one that respects and protects the dignity of each and every human being, especially the small, the vulnerable, and those who suffer exploitation and discrimination. Legal abortion radically undermines the principle of equality before the law.

There are those who say that this position is uncaring. We disagree. LIFE is at the forefront of caring for women in crisis pregnancy. We recognize that both a woman and her unborn child need our support, love and care.

It is true that many women suffer after illegal abortions. But remember too that in every single abortion, whether legal or illegal, a human life is taken. And women often suffer after legal abortions. You can find out more about the consequences of abortion for some women in other LIFE literature.