First of all, I just went to the most difficult funeral I’ve ever attended in my life. Some friends buried their 2 week old little girl - they lost her to T13. The pain in that tiny church was palpable. You could “feel” where the parents were with your eyes closed.

I didn’t really have any words to comfort the mom and dad with … all I could do was be there, cry with them, and love them.

After the “mercy meal” which followed the funeral, we gave a woman a ride to the store, and along the way, it came out that her 16 year old daughter was the product of a rape. She shared a bit of what she’s been through, and is still going through … and I found myself in tears, yet again.

At the end of our conversation, she said: “Well, look what I have! What could I change?”

I replied: “Perhaps the way you ended up with Ashley?”

And she said: “But, would it still be my Ashley?”

Now, every time I see Ashley, I’m not going to be able to help but think about Carol’s words … and remember some of the comments to this post. Ashley is a beautiful, gentle, smiling young lady - who loves babies and little children. I can’t imagine that she could ever have been classified as a “rape child” and subsequently aborted.

With this discovery, and still raw from the funeral of a two week old angel who would also have been a candidate for abortion - seeing the grief her parents are enduring … I’m firmer in my belief of the primacy of life than I’ve ever been.

By the way, Carol has agreed to counsel with anyone who is the victim of rape, and finds themselves pregnant … and needs to talk. Please email me, and I’ll put you in touch with her.

In fact, today, in a pregnancy resulting from rape, the fetus is condemned but the perp usually walks. That make sense to anybody?

BTW, at the risk of opening a can of worms, incestuous liasons are sometimes consensual.

best,

Flea

Women who are impregnated through rape and incest are not willing partners in the sex act. They have no choice as to whether or not they are victimized.

Babies who are conceived through rape or incest are not willing partners, either. They also have no choice as to whether or not they are victimized.

[...] is not about birth control, it is about sparing victims from further trauma.

Dakota, having your life ended is pretty traumatic too. The woman is a victim, and she in turn victimizes the baby. No one wins, there.

we cannot know the depth of each individual’s personal pain or the fears that continue to haunt her.

Emotional trauma does not trump a human life. If I’m traumatized enough, I can kill another human being? Especially one that isn’t even responsible for my trauma, and who is already as much a victim as I am?

I understand that the agony they’re going through can be extremely damaging - traumatic - emotionally crippling, even. But it’s still not a reason to kill another human life. Killing that baby is not going to unrape the woman … all it’s going to do is make one more victim.

I’m sorry Dakota Gramma, you still haven’t convinced me.

However, with the same logic: are we going to legalize drugs, so that drug addicts won’t try to get them from unregulated sources, and end up dying from drugs which were too pure, or were contaminated?

Women who do that sort of thing know what the risks are. They exercise their right to choose to do it anyway.

If abortion is legal, and used as birth control, the way it is today, then far more lives are lost than would be through illegal, botched abortions … because if abortion were outlawed, the danger and illegality would be a strong deterrent for many women.

The idea of legalizing something because some people are going to do it anyway … doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me.

Dakota - thank you for your cogent and level headed discussion of this most difficult subject. If you have more to say, I’d be happy to hear it.

I agree with you that the chances of this bill getting as far as the Supreme Court are slim to none - but frankly, I don’t believe that those who wrote the bill expect anything else. I have a feeling that they’re accomplishing, at this point, exactly what they wanted.

As far as allowing exceptions for exceptional circumstances - I agree IF the exceptional circumstances are a medical necessity - to save the mother’s life.

I do not agree in the case of rape. While I understand that this could be worse than a nightmare for the mother, it’s not a reason to give the innocent unborn baby a death sentence. I do not place emotional trauma above a human life.

Aborting a baby because of incest is no different than aborting a baby because it has Trisomy … it’s eugenics … it’s selective culling. In fact, aborting a baby because of incest may be even worse, since not every baby which springs from an incestuous union is guaranteed to be defective.

And that is my position on abortion.

Life is precious … each human life has a right to give survival its best shot. Although one life may have sparked another, one life is still not worth more than another. You can’t put a value on life - life is.