Rape Exceptions Aren’t Legitimate
{…] when progressives cede the moral center to the rape exception, they are implicitly buying into the idea that some reasons to have abortions are more justified than others — and that we should be interrogating these reasons at all. As Tracy Weitz, who conducts empirical research on women who have abortions (remember science?), wrote recently, “In many ways people opposed to abortion in all cases have a more consistent, and I would say, honest position. For them, either a blastocyst, embryo or fetus has a right to life, no matter how it was conceived, or a woman doesn’t have the right to terminate a pregnancy, no matter the circumstances.” She calls out commentators, including the very pro-choice Rachel Maddow, for saying that politicians are extreme when they even oppose exceptions for rape and incest. “Unfortunately,” Weitz writes, “it is extreme to oppose the right of any woman to make decisions about the direction of her life, no matter the circumstances under which she finds herself pregnant.” In other words, either you believe a woman has the right to decide not to be pregnant anymore, or you think you should get a say in her decision.
Excellent piece, highly recommended.
Rape exceptions are a form of misogyny— the real prochoice position is to maintain that women have control over their bodies, and they should have that control regardless of whether they’ve been raped.