The Rape Exemption

This was my response in a Facebook page for the group Ladies Against Feminism. The topic was Rep. Akin's 'unfortunate' comments, and I am pleased to say that we managed to shift the conversation from screaming about "legitimate rape" to an actual debate on the rape exemption in a proposed ban on abortion.

We had been debating for some time with a couple of feminist women who have been, predictably, proceeding from the viewpoint of secular humanist atheistic feminism. I made a response that I rather liked, and so I post it here for 'everyone' to enjoy:


The problem here is that we are proceeding from a radically different point of view. I could see how, if you do not believe in anything beyond this life, sacrificing yourself for another human being may seem like a flaw rather than a virtue. We Christians, however, follow a God who chose to sacrifice His only Son so that we could have life and have it to the full. Our God is based, not on temporal pleasure, but on love... and that love includes temporal sacrifice for eternal pleasure. Therefore a woman carrying her baby to term, even to give it up for adoption and never see it again, is virtuous.

We also are mostly pro-life... that means that we believe that a human life is created at the moment of conception, a human life as worthy of respect as any human baby, toddler, child, teen, adult, or elder. We do not determine whether a human being deserves basic human rights based on his of her size, age, race, gender, or contributions to society. It follows naturally that we believe that abortion puts to death a human being. That doesn't mean that abortion is Always Evil. Just that its benefits must be stacked up against the detriment of causing the death of a human being.

Given that, I know that from your viewpoint you would never have meant to say this... but your statement did sound as if you will proudly murder someone whether it's against the law or not, because you want to, and you should not be punished for murder because you're a woman - and this is what feminism means. Coming from our viewpoint, I'm sure you can see why feminism seems far more cruel to us than it does to those who do not believe in according basic human rights under the same situation.

Finally, we are not feminists. Rather than trying to claim that women and men are equal in physical form and meant to take identical roles in biology and society, we merely believe that women and men are to be treated equally under the law and are equally capable of petitioning God, with roles in society and biology that are very different, but equal in importance and honor. Therefore, we are very aware of a woman's role in nurturing life and giving of herself to join as partners with God Himself in bringing that life to an eventual state of autonomy. Women are tied strongly to Life in this way... it's no wonder that women have so often been the peacemakers in a society. The women of Sabine and Liberia both created peace and prosperity by joining up, confronting their men, and demanding a cease of hostilities.

As such, Life is our privilege and our business, and carrying a child to term, even an unexpected one, even a child of rape, is bestowing our gift upon the world. It is our privilege to turn something terrible into a blessing. In this way, even outside of our Christian view of sacrifice, giving life and love where there was none is, again, virtuous.

Even so, many of us *are* in favor of a rape exemption for an abortion ban. But we personally would choose life and encourage other women to do the same