The Long Answer to Question Three

Now for the long answer.

The whole premise of the Roe vs. Wade case was that a poor, young woman was seeking an abortion after being the victim of a gang rape. Norma McCorvey, the (in)famous Ms. Roe has since come out with the truth; it was all a lie. She says that she was used by her lawyers and the organization who hired them. She was never raped, and she never had an abortion. In fact, by the time the Supreme Court issued its ruling, her child was two years old.

Since 1973, there have been approximately 48 million surgical abortions performed in the United States. No more than 1% of all these abortions have been performed because of rape and less than .5% were performed after cases of incest. Even setting aside the moral issues, it simply does not make sense to base this country's extremely liberal abortion policy on the very rarest of circumstances. (Any woman can get an abortion in this country at any point during pregnancy and for any reason, even against the wishes of the baby's father. By far, the majority of abortions are performed because of the opinion that a baby would be too inconvenient or too expensive. I do not necessarily believe this is always the actual opinion of the mother; I believe many women are convinced of this by coercive partners, relatives, friends, and medical providers.)

Because this situation is so rare, it is hard to find statistics on the outcomes of rape/incest victims who become pregnant to compare those who had abortions with those who did not. However, two studies have been done on small samples of women who became pregnant as a result of sexual assault. Very few of these women said they actually wanted an abortion. Of the women who had abortions 95% of them later regretted the decision. They reported that at the time they felt pressured by others, and they reported that the abortion made them feel violated even further. Of the women who did not choose abortion, not one regretted giving birth to her child.

So there is good evidence that abortion is not the best answer for the woman. And, of course, it is NEVER a good solution for the child. An unborn baby is no more or less a living human being because of the circumstances of his conception. Not even the rapist is given the death penalty! Why should an innocent baby be sentenced to death for her father's actions?

As for the issue of very young girls getting pregnant, statistics show that it is better emotionally and physically for a teenager to carry the pregnancy to term rather than abort. Girls who had an abortion were five times more likely to seek help for psychological and emotional problems than girls who carried their "unwanted" pregnancies to term. They were more likely to be depressed or suicidal and more prone to substance abuse. Teenagers also suffer the physical and medical side effects of abortion much more frequently than older women. Clearly, abortion is not the best solution to the problem of "teen mothers". I am astounded at how many people actually seem to think that abortion is a better option than adoption for these girls! They will say it is an unfair burden for the girl to give away her baby and then "never know" her child. I believe it would be a far heavier burden for her to know (or later realize) that she had killed her child!

As I stated in my short answer, by far the most important reason to oppose abortion regardless of the circumstances is because an unborn baby is a living human being, and you cannot justify taking an innocent human life, ever. Science is proving more and more the humanity of the unborn, and I think this is only appropriate at a time when politically that humanity has been under attack.

Lord Jesus, have mercy on us.

I used several internet sources for this little "essay" of mine, including Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions by the Guttmacher Institute; links in the "Research" section at AfterAbortion.org ; and finally several informative links at Abortion- the UnChoice.