Rape is a feeling...

The Visible Conservative:  Christians Unleashed show
Pro-Life Friday Monologue - February 17, 2012

I've read and listened to many people say that abortion should be kept legal in the case of rape or incest. About just as many say that abortion should be kept legal for everybody because some women who become pregnant through rape might want to abort.

The beginning of new life is a biological event. The body of a rapist does not know it is committing rape. Psychologists tell us that rape is not about sex, it's about power. Rape, therefore, isn't about the body, it is an intent [of the mind]--an intent to harm.

The body of a woman does not know what rape is--it is the mind and emotions of the woman that determines whether a sexual encounter is consensual or rape. Rape, therefore, is the violation of the mind by using the body.

The body of a child that is conceived does not know it is conceived through rape. Her life began through the union of an egg and sperm, just like any other life that is conceived. Rape, therefore, has no bearing on the life that begins.

So it makes little sense for people to argue about women's bodies and fetuses. What people are arguing about is how to deal with the tragedy, the emotions surrounding an event, and the injustice of abuse. Tragedy, emotions, injustice--that is what rape is, and they are all abstract objects. You can't touch them; you can't destroy them; you can't see them with your eyes. So how does rape--an act of intent on the mind that results in tragedy and injustice and creates a life that doesn't know how she got there--how does rape justify an abortion, which must violate a woman's body a second time to violate the body of a child in the womb to a bodily death? That does not follow.

Rape is an intent, a feeling that is given and received wholly in the mind. The woman's body is an object to a rapist, no different than a womanizer or an abusive boyfriend (and to tell you the truth, there is no real difference between all of them). A woman is an object to harm that leads to the real harm, which is in the mind. Rape is a feeling, so how does aborting a child from rape take away anything about the rape itself? This whole argument that women have the right to abort a child if they are raped rests on nothing but feelings: perceived resentment toward the child and the horror of carrying the rapist's child. Let me tell you something--resentment and horror are feelings. I'm fully compassionate and understanding about resentment and horror. But how compassion leads to death is more horror, and we should be above that as a civilized, enlightened, caring society.

I've said this before, there is no substantive difference between a child conceived unintentionally in consensual sex and one conceived in rape. The only difference I can see is on the faces of the adults talking about it. A child conceived through rape is only by degrees more unwanted compared to a child that is conceived by a woman and her boyfriend, one-night stand, or whatever. So don't tell me, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, or Women's Media Center...don't tell me there's a meaningful difference between two children in their mother's wombs. That difference exists only in your perception--it exists inside your small, limited minds. Christians are not limited by your definitions of life. It's Christian values that, to be honest, talk about the essential rights of women. You don't get to define my rights; my rights in this world come from God, and so do yours. Remember that the next time you turn your nose up at a child conceived because her mother was raped.  Don't forget to take a quick look at your face in the mirror while you're at it. 'Cause there's the problem right there..in the mirror. Not in the womb.