Rape vs. Life

Quick, kill him! He has rapist genes!

Two of the hardest issues to think about in the pro-life movement are rape and incest (referred to here as simply “rape”)—the two times where the woman did not have a choice to get pregnant. It then seems cruel to force her to take responsibility for something that isn’t her fault. People that are generally considered radically pro-life usually say that they are against all abortion, except in cases where the life of the mother is in danger or the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.

It’s true that it isn’t fair that the mother had no choice in the matter. But it’s even less fair to let her abort the child in those instances. People who make the exception for rape and incest are looking at the problem out of proportion. If a fetus is a child, then it is murder to abort her no matter what the circumstances of her conception. Rape and incest don’t change that. You can’t sensibly say that it isn’t okay to kill the fetus in most circumstances, but it is okay to kill the fetus in cases of rape or incest, unless you don’t truly believe that the fetus is a child in the first place.

A common argument for abortion in cases of rape and incest is that the baby will have rapist genes. This is saying that it’s okay to kill this particular baby because he’s a potential rapist. Eugenics, in other words. Strictly speaking, we’re all potential rapists. Even if we’re more genetically inclined to certain kinds of evil than other people, it still comes down to the choice of the individual. If we managed to track down everyone who was genetically inclined to a crime and kill them, the population of the Earth would go from three billion to zero. Besides that, plenty of people from rough homes with rough genes grow into good people. Many also do not, unfortunately. But environment has much more to do with how people turn out than genetics.

Even if the “rape gene” was truly a deciding factor in whether someone becomes a rapist, that suggests that humans are merely evolved animals that can’t think for themselves (which many people do believe) and therefore isn’t really capable of making the decision to not rape—but if that’s the case, then there’s nothing wrong with rape (because we’re all animals anyway), and therefore absolutely no reason to abort rapist-gene-babies. Hmm. Contradict, much?

It’s a personal choice, raping. Non-genetically-inclined people can still make the choice to rape people. You can’t eliminate the “rape gene” and assume that will eliminate rapists.

Why don’t we focus more on stopping current rapists and getting “rapist babies” (who are just as beautiful as any other baby) into good homes, and forget the easy way “out” that won’t work anyway?

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