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By Ella Inedia
Legalising abortion for rape cases will increase the demand for abortion even though available data shows victims of rape are in the minority. Why is this, one may ask. The fact is, “how can a person prove she is a victim of rape to access an abortion?”
The Oxford dictionary defines rape as a crime of sexual intercourse without the victim’s consent, often involving the use of threat or force. Rape is a grievous crime that should attract stiffer penalty.
Rape sometimes results in pregnancy and the growing foetus has both biological father and mother.
Who would not sympathise with a victim of rape that results in pregnancy?
It is easy to say, “get rid of the child” because it is unwanted, unplanned pregnancy, therefore, unwelcome in the mother’s womb. However, there is a distinction between rape and pregnancy.
A pregnant woman holds the most precious gift to humanity within her, life!
This is recognised in the manner a woman struggles in her marriage to bear children and the joy that follows when conception happens. A child is certainly a valuable gift, irrespective of the moral standing of the father.
Imagine a mother of three children below five years, who is abused daily by her husband and decides to moves out of their home, leaving the children behind.
We may applaud her for running for her dear life. We may say to ourselves, “She is safe” or “she need not die from the abusive marriage.’”
However, the sad news of the death of her three daughters after been abused by their father, leaves one in shock. Would you not weep for this four-year-old child? Would you not cry for this two-year-old child? Would you not sigh and sob bitterly for the defiled one-month-old child left in the hands of a rapist-father?
What becomes of the mother when she hears the news of her daughters’ death? Would we still support her for running away for her life? Would she be able to move on with her life as though nothing happened? Certainly not!
This is not different from the child in the womb who is aborted/killed because she has a bad father, though one may also argue that the mother of three initially wanted her children.
There are three points to note. First, the value of a child can never be ascribed to the goodness of the father, we are all equal before God and even before the eyes of Nigerian law.
Secondly, the act of aborting the child lies with the mother, irrespective of who the father is.
This applies to the case of aborting a child conceived from an incident of rape as well as the above-mentioned case of the abusive husband and father. When a mother aborts her child, she becomes a victim of rape and perpetrator of murder.
Lastly, a girl or woman who aborts her baby mourns twice, from the rape and then the abortion itself.
It is the same for the woman who equally loses her children after suffering domestic abuse from her husband.
Some experience instant regret while others experience regret after decades of suppressing their pain. Perhaps the pain from watching a wanted child on ultrasound years later. The truth usually hits them.
What Marie Stopes and other abortion providers hide from their clients is that the “collection of cells” called foetus sucking at their thumb, playing with their umbilical cord, kicking, growing, breathing, is living/alive/a living being.
In cases of incest, the perpetrator relies on abortion to cover his trail. He is usually an older person taking advantage of a younger family member whom he molests and is unconcerned with the number of times she gets pregnant because it is convenient to drive her to the abortion clinic to get rid of any evidence, the unborn child.
Without evidence, the perpetrator can deny his actions and accuse the victim of lying and the “lying” child mourns alone in anguish.
Legalise abortion and you would have answered the prayers of incestuous perverts! Is that the aim?
•Inedia wrote from Lagos
