Part 3

Abortion in the Case of Rape: Answering Lynn Wardle

Todd S. Bindig, Ph.D.

What strikes me most about not only Lynn Wardle’s response to the arguments I made in “Why Pregnancy Due to Sexual Assault Fails as a Justification for Abortion” but also those of others when I have presented these arguments in other venues is that they almost always misrepresent—or in fact re-invent—my argument.

Wardle Misunderstands

Wardle claims that my argument is that “abortion is never morally justifiable when performed because the pregnancy was caused by rape” and that “as a practical matter, abortion under those conditions only makes the matter worse.”

When attacking an argument, it is important to attack what was actually said in the argument, not what one wishes was said in the argument. My view is, in fact, that the manner in which a pregnancy began, no matter how evil that manner may have been, does not justify the killing of a pre-born child. However, that was not my argument in the piece in question. My argument was that the “middle” position—that abortion is generally morally wrong but conditionally allowable if the pregnancy was caused by a sexual assault—is irrational and should be abandoned.

It is true that one could logically come to the conclusion that, if the middle position is irrational, one must adopt the view that, because abortion kills the pre-born child, abortion is wrong and thus ought not to be permitted. In truth, I would be overjoyed if my argument caused people who hold the middle position to adopt this view. However, most of my critics seem to overlook the other possibility: that, when shown the irrationality of the middle view and still ardently dedicated to holding to one’s intuition that abortion be allowed in the case of assault-caused pregnancy, one could conceivably adopt the view that all abortions are morally justifiable.

In the first half of my argument, I am making the point that the only reason to hold the middle position—the only reason to restrict abortion in any way, shape, or form—is that one also holds the view that abortion kills a pre-born child and that this harm is not morally allowable, generally speaking. The point I was making is that one does not get to kill a child because one thinks it might make one feel better about some trauma one has suffered.

There are two ways to deal with this, and as far as I can see, only two ways. One can answer that the part of the middle position where one says the killing of the pre-born child is justified is wrong, or one can abandon the view that abortion kills a pre-born child and say that restricting abortion at all is wrong.

Also interesting in Wardle’s response is the amount of time he spends discussing the question of abortion when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. I never mention this situation, not even once, in my entire argument. My argument was exclusively addressing the issue of assault-caused pregnancy. Danger to the life of the pregnant woman is an entirely different argument, one that I sufficiently addressed in my book.[1]

Abortion: No Miracle Drug

Moving to the argument regarding the practicality of the assault-caused pregnancy justification for abortion, where I address the reality of the underlying assumption that an abortion in the case of an assault-caused pregnancy will somehow benefit the pregnant woman, we again see that Wardle has misrepresented my argument.

Wardle claims that I take “the categorical position that abortion always makes the trauma of rape worse for all rape victims.” This is actually not what I said. In fact, he strangely goes on to use my actual argument as evidence of a contradiction on my part. My actual position is that every available psychological study that has ever been done on the topic reveals that the vast majority of women who become pregnant due to sexual assault and have an abortion have extremely negative psychological repercussions, which these women themselves directly attribute to the abortion.

In every psychological study ever done on women who became pregnant due to sexual assault but carried the child to term (whether they put the child up for adoption or kept the child), 100 percent—yes, all of them—argued that they made the correct decision to carry the pregnancy to term and that this was helpful in their healing process. So, while it is correct that not every woman who has an abortion after being sexually assaulted will report severe psychological distress (yes, a small minority claim no ill effect or even to be better off), there is absolutely no reliable way to determine whether a woman will fall into the majority (about 90 percent) who have severe distress or the minority (10 percent) who do not.

Let’s suppose there were some sort of medical condition that was distressing, though not life-threatening. (Realistically, pregnancy is almost never life-threatening to a pregnant woman in the modern West.) Let us further suppose that this condition was temporary, and all the patients who suffered this condition and took no intervention asserted that they made the correct decision in taking no intervention, and they presented with no measurable difference from the rest of the population, after the fact. Now, let’s suppose that there were a drug available to treat this condition, but in every study ever done, 90 percent of patients who took this drug had the side effect of severe psychological distress and a considerably higher rate of suicide in patients than in any other demographic, and there was also no way to determine if any patient in question would be one of the 90 percent who had the side effect or one of the lucky 10 percent who did not.

No physician in his or her right mind would ever administer this drug; no rational person would ever take it. The point is not that the studies are incomplete; all studies are incomplete. The point is not that there might be other factors at play; there are always other factors at play. The point isn’t even that all people are different; of course people are different. The point is that it is ridiculous to look at the evidence that is available and suggest, with a straight face, that a patient should receive the drug in question when there is a 90 percent chance of a severely negative reaction and every study ever done shows that 100 percent of patients who did nothing got better!

And yet this is exactly the same as the situation with abortion in the case of sexual-assault-caused pregnancy. Why should our conclusions be different? The answer is that there is no rational reason for them to be; the only reasons ever given are based on an imagined dream-world, driven by emotion rather than reason, where those making the argument want to give people whatever they think might make them feel better (perhaps out of a desire to appear compassionate or “middle of the road”), regardless of evidence to the contrary and despite the horrific consequences (the killing of a child) of these actions.

It Really Is “So Simple”

So, in conclusion, yes, it really is “so simple.” I have attacked the “middle” position that abortion is justifiable in the case of assault-caused pregnancy. I have argued that the only reason to restrict abortion at all is that one believes that an abortion kills a pre-born child and that this is a morally repugnant act. I have clearly shown that the attempt to justify this via the assault-caused pregnancy argument is rationally groundless.

Further, I have shown that the underlying intuition—that the abortion will somehow help the woman—has also been shown to be incorrect with such a preponderance of the available evidence that no rational person would hold this position in any similar case. And thus, this position is not only irrational but also impractical. So, in the end, yes, it is quite simple: Holding the position that abortion is generally wrong but ought to be allowed in the case of assault-caused pregnancy is irrational and impractical and, therefore, ought not to be held.

NEXT: Lynn Wardle responds to Todd Bindig.