As a pro-choice person, I am somewhat concerned by the tack taken in this post and others on Broadsheet that is meant to expose the hypocrisy of those who are OK with terminating a pregnancy in the case of rape or incest, but not otherwise. I'm not sure why it serves anyone to set up an all-or-nothing dichotomy (as in, if you think terminating certain but not just any pregnancies is OK you're really not pro-life, so shaddup). For starters, I think it's too likely to backfire. Also, you can't really criticize both Bajoie (who is consistent except for semantically) and also Chaisson (the hypocrite) unless you are truly unwilling to engage the anti-choice point of view, which I hope is not the case.

I'd also like to explore that perspective a little. To me, it basically says: a person who consents to sex implicitly consents to the possibility of parenthood (or relinquishing for adoption, at a minimum). No consent to sex, no consent to the possibility of parenthood. I see your point that if you believe in the personhood of the fetus, this question should be irrelevant--one cannot commit infanticide of an ex-utero baby born of a rape/incest. However, whatever you think of this perspective, it is hardly a minority or extreme view. I see it over and over again in the letters section on Salon coming from people who consider themselves liberal and pro-choice. Please refer to the letters section on the Matt Dubay case. In that case, the U.S. legal precedents all maintain that the father took moral responsibility for his child by having sex. We cannot say that a rape or incest victim took on that responsibility, so most people would allow her to terminate.

I'd also refer you to this week's letters section about Plan B; several writers were alarmed at the possibility that young women could take Plan B repeatedly in lieu of a "regular" method of birth control. As long as a pregnancy does not result, why should they care? Although I don't agree with this perspective, I see that people of all political stripes are alarmed at the thought of sex without responsibility--be that responsibility for a child that results, or just for proactively using birth control up front each time.

On the other end of the spectrum, when mifepristone first came out in the U.S. over ten years ago, there were some who wanted to study it for use as a monthly method of birth control: i.e., have otherwise unprotected sex for a whole month and then on the last day of the month take mifepristone, and get your period (without ever taking a pregnancy test). If you really believe that an embryo lacks moral status, that should be totally OK with you. But most people, even those who believe that an embryo has no moral status, are shocked at the thought of sex without responsibility, and a possible abortion without knowing about it and taking moral/emotional responsibility for your decision to abort.

Lastly, I think that most anti-choice people would maintain that most unwanted pregnancies, carried to term, become very loved children, even by parents who thought they did not want to become parents. (Obviously children are wanted and adored by adoptive parents, but this refers to the biological parents who end up keeping the child. And obviously there are the outliers of abusive parents who should never be parents to anyone ever, but many more people fall into the category of planning on parenting eventually, but not now.) From conversations with people who had unwanted pregnancies before Roe v. Wade or in other countries, as well as people who accepted unplanned pregnancies here and now, I think this is, for most people, true. (Even The Onion takes this on, with the headline that One Night of Passion Saddled Me for Life with a Husband I Never Wanted. The kid? Lovable. The spouse? Who knows.) They see it as analogous to divorced parents who may wish they had never married each other, or even met, but love and don't regret the kids that resulted from the marriage. You can regret a big mistake but still love the resulting child. People for whom parenthood is a very difficult slog for many reasons still love their children. However, it is most difficult to imagine this change of heart taking place for a rape or incest victim, who didn't make a mistake with the attendant mixed and complicated feelings, but was the victim of a crime, and who is dealing with trauma.

Anyway, I'd encourage you to engage Chaisson, instead of mock him. I think it would be a help to us all.

Why are people willing to allow incest as a condition for abortion? I mean, if a woman is raped by someone in her family, then the rape exception would cover her abortion. If she chose to have intercourse with a family member, any resulting children could have terrible genetic defects, but no exceptions are given for any other women carrying fetuses with genetic problems, even if the child will die in pain within minutes of birth. Is it just that incest is so repugnant to our society that we can't stand the thought of having to look at the children that are products of it?

I think that most people, without realizing it, selfishly want children for one reason: so that when they die, they can die happy knowing they live on in some way. Another way of putting this: to combat the extreme fear of death, and any nagging doubts about the existence of an afterlife, we have babies to trick ourselves into thinking we'll live forever. I don't think this a bad thing. It's maybe kind of sad and kind of human, but it's not bad.

What is bad is when men try to wrestle controll of this. As a dude, I've always figured the price I pay for having easy orgasms, not having to go through childbirth or, for most of human history (i.e. pre contraceptive and birth control), worry about dying due to childbirth, is that i have no controll over what initially happens to that baby. Another way of putting it: women may have to worry about getting pregnant every time, but the power of controlling that future is naturally in your hands.

So I would say that fanatical assholes like these guys passing laws like this are trying to give men more control over the future children than nature gives them. The reason rape and incest are excluded is because they betray the philosophy behind what these guys think: that if a woman chooses to have sex with you and gets pregnant, that they have equal control over the baby as the woman. The main thing, they say, is that a woman took the risk. If she's raped, she hasn't taken the risk willingly.

So I guess what I'm saying is, these terrible decisions and insane laws aren't out of a fear of women, or a desire to have women restrained. They come from a very normal human fear of death and no afterlife, whether they realize it or not. I don't know how usefull that idea is, but it might be in understanding more about the enemy than they do themselves.