Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wants the Helms Amendment, which prohibits foreign aid for abortions, amended with a rape exception.
The use of rape as a weapon of war is particularly heinous. ISIS jihadists actually abduct and intentionally impregnate women, as a means of spreading Mohammedanism and facilitating the domination of Islamic rule.
We deeply empathize with those women who have been so inhumanly abused, but we still say the murderous violence of abortion is never the answer to the violence of rape.
Pro-life speaker Rebecca Kiessling told LifeNews that forcing Americans to pay for abortions would just victimize women in conflict areas a second time.
Kiessling points out that “most people don't put a face to this issue – for them abortion is just a concept.”
Indeed, Kiessling gives a face to the issue of what compromising politicians call “the hard cases.”
Kiessling herself was conceived by rape, when her birth mother was abducted at knife-point by a serial rapist.
Kiessling says that those who truly believe in the sanctity of human life understand that “every child conceived in rape is worthy of protection.”
She says true pro-lifers know that the conceived baby is innocent, and intentionally made by God in His image, even if his or her father was a rapist.
Besides, Kiessling says, the destruction of abortion doesn't help the mother.
“Rape victim mothers need real help, not abortion,” Kiessling said. “Justice is served by punishing the perpetrator, not the innocent child.”
Sarah Terzo of Live Action News says rape exceptions give the message “that their lives should not be protected – that their lives are not valuable.”
“If it's relevant that unborn children feel pain, then why is it not relevant that children conceived in rape also feel pain?” Kiessling told Terzo.
Elizabeth Reed told Terzo, “I was 15 years old, raped by a person I trusted, kicked out of my home by my mother, and homeless. And yet, I chose life and adoption for my daughter[.] … Whenever someone says they are pro-life 'except in cases of rape' I feel directly like they are saying to me that my experience was useless – that I should have aborted her and moved on – that her life doesn't matter, and she's not worthy of what I went through.
“When they say things like, 'No woman should be forced to carry a rapist's child,' I feel slapped in the face,” Reed said. “My daughter wasn't the rapist's child – she is mine.”
“I know that rape is traumatic, first hand,” Reed concluded. “I understand the plight of women who have been abused, but my daughter was a picture of hope to me[.] … In ALL things, God works for the good. Even tragedy.”
Kiessling noted that in war-ravaged Congo, victims of rape are provided health care for themselves and their babies. Women are also given counseling and childcare for their children conceived in rape.
In December 2014, two dozen groups in the U.S. called for an executive order allowing tax dollars for abortion for women victims of rape in war or conflict. Earlier this year, 81 Democratic lawmakers urged the president to create a rape exception to the Helms Amendment.
But Students for Life's website asks, “Should a child die for the crimes of his or her parent?” and explains, “A woman, violated in a sexual assault, should be surrounded by love and support. If that assault results in pregnancy, aren't there now two people affected by the assault? Two people in need of protection and care?”
Right to Life of Michigan's website notes that fully half of women impregnated by rape do not abort their children. “Life is precious in every circumstance,” they say.
“It is absolutely indisputable that the life within the womb is a unique human being,” according to the pro-lifers of Michigan. “To say that this irreplaceable life can be deliberately destroyed for any reason denies the intrinsic humanity of the unborn.”
