The "Rapist's Child"
/If you’ve paid attention to the modern abortion debate, you must have noticed using the term “child” to describe the unborn is normally met with disdain from abortion advocates. Only medical terms like “zygote” or “fetus” are used, if the unborn is even mentioned at all. Mainly, abortion is talked about with euphemisms like “reproductive freedom.” They’ll say, “Abortion is healthcare,” never mind how healthy the baby is after the procedure.
But there is a time when politicians will come out and call the defenseless unborn a “child.” If a woman is raped, suddenly, that baby is a “child.” And it’s not her child. It’s not a grandchild of loving parents who want to help their daughter get through a crisis. It’s not a child with unalienable rights. They are the “rapist’s child.”
When President Biden lamented about Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court, he criticized laws “so extreme” that “women and girls will be forced to bear their rapists’ child.”
In a recent interview with former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, California Governor Gavin Newsom shoehorned abortion into a criticism of Governor Ron DeSantis signing a permitless carry bill. “Of course, it’s not surprising for a guy who doesn’t believe a young girl should have the freedom to determine her own reproductive future and has to bear the child of her rapist.”
I’m often told that abortion isn’t a black-and-white issue, and it requires a nuanced approach, but when it comes to abortion in the case of rape (which accounts for less than one percent), there is an overwhelming amount of disdain for women like Eartha Kit, Valarie Gatto, and Kathy Barnette, and for the people who wish to protect them from violence. Even passionate pro-life advocates—who hate “killing babies”—agree with discriminating against these particular babies. But as Barnette’s mother said, “It wasn’t a ‘choice,’ it was a life.” And it’s worth genuinely having conversations about whether abortion is the best solution to heal her trauma and why our society is so insistent that it is.
Dr. Sandra Mahkorn published a report in 1979 studying 37 pregnant victims. Granted, the study is old and the sample size is small, but it’s important to shed light on a real issue in our society: we treat rape victims horribly. Part of what made the pregnancies of these women so difficult were the attitudes and opinions of loved ones, whether they would be believed or blamed, along with their level of culpability. And also, they were treated as though they are carrying a stain that needs to be removed.
[This study indicates] that pregnancy need not impede the victim’s resolution of the trauma; rather, with loving support, nonjudgemental attitudes, and empathic communication, healthy emotional and psychological responses are possible despite the added burden or pregnancy.”*
Some women even feel as though they are regaining their agency because they can protect someone else from becoming a victim of violence. When Rebekah Berg was offered a free and “hush-hush” abortion to eliminate her twins conceived from a rape, she had to reject it. Years prior, she experienced an elective partial-birth abortion at 18 weeks and was traumatized. “How can I heal that violence of rape with more violence?” Berg now credits her twins for saving her life. “I would have died over, and over, and over again if they weren’t there for my reason to live.”
Pro-life activist Lottie Jewpree (her social media name) often pushes back hard against abortion advocates who jump to rape exceptions. “Hey, excuse me! I was actually pregnant from rape as an underage teenager, and I’m pro-life, and my daughter was valuable, and I loved her. And she wasn’t a ‘rapist’s baby.’ She was my baby.” Lottie speaks against defining people around their circumstances and granting power to abusers rather than the women who carry life.
Men are only empowered in the abortion debate if they support a woman’s right to kill their offspring or if they’ve violated that woman. Then, they have ownership of that child. Then, their crime is a tattoo marked on their identity. Only loving fathers who want to protect their children are silenced and deemed insignificant. They don’t even have the right to mourn a “woman’s choice,” but a rapist can have a whole child.
Journalist Sally Kohn on CNN Crossfire once accused Live Action founder Lila Rose of “saying, in effect, the rapist should have more rights than the woman to decide what happens in that womb.” This is ridiculous. The rapist had no right to violate a woman. Loaded claims like Kohn’s are meant to make women like Rose the aggressor. The aggressor is the rapist, who should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
But the reality is our society grants more rights and dignity to these rapists than an unborn child. He has due process and won’t be sentenced to death for his actions.
A child is a son or daughter of any age. Once a child is conceived, they exist. They cannot be undone. The only way out of this world is through natural or violent death.
Unwanted pregnancies are a complicated issue. There’s a body inside of another body, so what do we do? As Josh Brahm, President of the Equal Life Institute says, “If you’re going to use violence, you had best make certain there are no other options on the table.”
The Turnaway Study indicated that 96 percent of women turned away from abortion don’t regret not killing their children. If our society could become more compassionate, understanding, and supportive, and we stopped using terms like “rapist’s child,” what are the odds she’d land in the 4 percent? And even if she did, is that a good enough reason to end someone else’s life?
As renowned abortionist Dr. Warren Hern noted in his book, Abortion Practice, abortion is not a cure for rape. He said, “The abortion counselor should recognize that the emotional trauma experienced by the rape or incest victim cannot be treated adequately, if at all, in the abortion clinic setting.” They require special care and appropriate psychological counseling and support.
I can fully understand why a woman would want an abortion after experiencing sexual assault and why even “pro-life” advocates grant this exception. However, at the very least, no matter how passionate you are about this issue, I implore you to please stop stigmatizing mothers and their children conceived through rape. They deserve to be more than victims of evil men, and they deserve to be more than a talking point for the abortion lobby.
*Source: Mahkorn, M.D., S. K., & Dolan, M.D., W. V. (1981). Sexual Assault and Pregnancy. In D. H. Thomas Hilgers, New Perspectives on Human Abortion (p. 194). Frederick, MD: University Publications of America.
