Rape and incest and abortion, oh my!

For some reason I can't stop musing over the rhetorical strategies common to the abortion debate, in large part because abortion is such an unimportant, narrow-reaching issue, yet it's such a salient political wedge.

My bone to pick today is how frequently rape and incest are used to justify keeping abortion legal. "You don't believe a woman has a right to abort her fetus? Well, what if she was the victim of rape or incest?!" It's the pro-choice camp's analog to the "yo momma" retort. There really isn't a good comeback to that, but nor is it a very good comeback itself.

Very few abortions are prompted by rape and incest. The prevailing estimate attributes about one percent of abortions to R&I.* Because these data are self-reported by the would-be mothers, the number is probably higher; shame and fear most likely cause many victims to keep mum about their true motivations. But even if the number were three or five percent, R&I would still represent a tiny slice of abortions.

So why do pro-choicers cling to rape and incest as their rhetorical side-kick?

First, it's a handy conversation stopper when debating with a pro-lifer. Rape and incest are less funny than cancer and Carrot Top combined, and only a truly dedicated anti-abortion advocate would get tangled in this argumentative net. Pro-choicers can bank on the fact that anyone who thinks that a woman should be forced to give birth to her rapist's baby will look like a raging asshole.

Second, I think it's emotionally and politically difficult for many pro-choicers to admit that they think abortion is okay in any circumstances. No one wants to concede that he thinks it's acceptable for a woman to subject herself to an emotionally scarring and potentially dangerous procedure that also, incidentally, sometimes terminates the existence of a blob of tissue that kinda looks like a real person. Whether or not you think a fetus constitutes a life, it takes a lot of conviction to dismiss abortion as no more serious than trimming a fingernail.

It's uncomfortable to say that, yes, it's better for both the would-be mom and the would-be baby that this pregnancy be ended than that an unwanted child is introduced to this world. It has a socially Darwinian ring to it, even if that's not the pro-choicer's true feelings, and in such an emotionally-charged debate, you can't afford to give your opposition any ground to stand on.

Thus, understandably, pro-choicers fall back on the rape and incest argument, and one percent of abortions are used to justify the other ninety-nine percent.

This debate--any political debate--would progress much more efficiently if everyone argued honestly rather than strategically.

* Coincidentally, about the same proportion of abortions occur in the third trimester as are attributed to R&I. So-called "late-term" abortions are often used by the pro-life camp as an argument against any legally available abortion, so the red-herringry works on both sides.