It looks to me like Rep. Akin, senatorial candidate from Missouri, is confused about the difference between the idea of morality and the idea of legality. In Akin-World should all immoral conduct be subject to some form of legal sanction? If so, whose morality should govern? Haven’t we already lived over forty years under the governmentally imposed morality of the rights of the mother control all abortion nearly all the time? Shouldn’t we know the difference? Isn’t the very idea that a woman is pregnant through involuntary sexual intercourse something that we all shudder about? Isn’t that shudder an acknowledgement that there is something deeply different about unwanted pregnancy and “forced pregnancy?” I certainly think and, more importantly, feel so and I’m a committed pro-lifer. But this is the very reason that the question about pregnancy through rape is such a loaded one. It makes even pro-lifers extremely uncomfortable and confused. Therefore, when Rep. Akin was asked the question about the collision between pregnancy by rape and a law against all abortion he sought refuge in an unproven and probably baseless medical hypothesis, that a woman’s body would protect against pregnancy if the cause were rape by violence or, as Akin put it so inartfully, ‘legitimate rape.’
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Lets examine this issue a bit.
There is no significant evidence that in cases of “legitimate rape,” read that ‘rape with violence’, that women’s bodies will tend to repel and protect against pregnancy from the sperm of the attacker. In fact, this whole idea is really pretty stupid if you are putting it forward in an effort to prove that rape-pregnancies don’t exist. They do. So, even if there was some evidence, even one case of pregnancy based upon such a rape is deserving of being addressed in the context of the question of whether there are any circumstances in which abortion should be legally permissible. And even if there were a mountain of evidence which indicated that rape with violence pregnancies were impossible, what of other rapes? Rape through trickery, rape of an involuntarily intoxicated person, rape by an authority figure and other situations in which the will of the woman is overborne, what should be the case for abortion then? Is the idea of Rep. Akin that it just easier to argue for and enforce a prohibition of all abortions rather than address these questions on their merits or lack thereof? Is there another reason?
Of course, in the Catholic church all abortion is immoral. That is because we Catholics view the act of abortion is itself intrinsically evil and therefore is impermissible in any situation. This is a good and clear and morally defensible argument. It is a hard teaching and one which creates foreseeable albeit rare situations where women are called to bear children conceived without their consent. A horrific circumstance but one which a woman of extreme faith could embrace and grow immeasurably through the love she shows to the innocent child of rape. But, what about the world in which we live? How many women of such faith exist even among Catholic women? Do we as a society have the right to impose this trial of faith upon a woman because we consider the act of abortion to be inherently evil?
In the natural law world inhabited by philosophers there are apparently arguments both supporting and opposing abortions in rape situations. The first, as indicated above, is the natural law ethical theory of Double Effect. In that analysis, before you get to any other consideration, you determine whether the action to be undertaken is either “good in itself” or indifferent. If the action is itself inherently evil, then it is never permissible. When the death of an innocent child is involved, in this view, actions taken to end it’s life are inherently evil and therefore impermissible. The countering natural law theory has to do with acts which are contrary to nature. It is obvious that it is contrary to nature for a mother to kill her child. There is vast evidence that women will go to great lengths for their children both to preserve their lives and advance their interests at all or nearly all costs. An act contrary to this natural imperative is clearly an act contrary to nature. When, however, might this not be so? Clearly this “natural law” view comes into conflict with the natural law of self preservation in some circumstances. When, then, does the natural law of self defense come into play in the pregnancy arena? Is it not fundamentally defensible to suggest that this is a very different situation than one in which the woman voluntarily places herself in that position? For instance, when a child has been conceived against the will of its mother and poses a threat to her life, as any pregnancy does, should the woman be forced to carry the child to term? What risk is a woman legally required to undertake when she is involuntarily pregnant? The common law (a form of natural law which has been used in this country’s courts for hundreds of years) has already taken a position on a similar circumstance. The common law does not require a person to rescue another unless they have created that circumstance or they are in a special relationship with the person at risk. This is essentially the situation created by a rape-pregnancy. The woman, who had no hand in creating her pregnancy, should not be legally required to carry the pregnancy to term because she neither created the circumstance nor does she have a special relationship with the child which was created without her consent. This is not a moral position though, this is a legal position. It may not be your or my cup of tea, but it is defensible and reasonable.
Catholic and other anti-abortion advocates can reasonably argue that it is immoral to abort a child because abortion is inherently evil and unjustified on any basis. It seems to me that these are fundamentally different questions, though, whether it should be illegal for a woman to abort a rape-child and whether it is immoral. It seems to me that in that circumstance a woman should have the legal option to abort the child even if I would also argue that she should morally avoid utilizing that legal option. It seems to me that anti-abortion advocates like myself should acknowledge the legal, if not moral, difference between the voluntary pregnancy and the involuntary one. This is especially true when our opponents inexplicably see no difference between the two situations in terms of the rights of the mother to abort the child. Our opponents argue simplemindedly that the child has no right to life when his/her life cannot be supported outside the womb of its mother regardless of whether or not the mother voluntarily embraced the possibility of new life when engaging in sexual relations. To utilize the foregoing common law analysis the mother who voluntarily agrees to engage in sexual intercourse both has a hand in creating her condition and has a special relationship, thereby, with the child. Legally there is a basis for placing a legal obligation upon the mother, a woman who is pregnant through voluntary actions on her part, to carry the child to term. There is simply a valid legal difference between the rights and legal obligations of women carrying children who were conceived through voluntary intercourse and those conceived through rape, even if some would argue that there is no moral distinction because the child is in both instances an “innocent.” Those who are pro-choice see no moral or legal difference and I think that those who are pro-life should view things with more depth in terms of what should be legal in this country even while maintaining their moral consciences for personal decision making. If we in the pro-life camp continue to refuse to see the difference between law and morality, there will be more Akin moments to come.
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