Allowing Abortion in Cases of Rape and Incest Hurts Women and Unborn Children

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The following is adapted from a column published in Family Council’s March 2024 update letter.

Supporters of the failed Arkansas Abortion Amendment have said the amendment is necessary to allow abortion in cases of rape and incest. To be clear, the amendment actually would have written unrestricted abortions into the Arkansas Constitution. Even so, many Arkansans understandably have serious questions about making exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest.

Rape and incest are horrific crimes, and the perpetrators of these crimes need to be punished as current law mandates.

A woman who is raped is a victim in every sense of the word, and public health officials have reported in the past that approximately 2%–5% of all abortions are performed because of rape or incest. In light of that, it’s easy for some elected officials to justify abortion in these situations.

We all wish we could take away the pain that victims of sexual assault experience, but there are serious problems with permitting abortion in cases of rape or incest.

Below are five points to consider.

  1. Abortion Does Absolutely Nothing to Prevent Rape or Incest. Despite its liberal state abortion laws, California saw its number of rape cases increase from 13,439 in 2020 to 14,435 in 2021. Legalizing abortion in cases of rape or incest does not protect women from sexual predators. It doesn’t help law enforcement arrest rapists. It doesn’t make it easier for prosecutors, judges, or juries to convict a man who rapes a woman.
  2. Abortion Actually Helps Conceal Rape and Incest From Authorities. In 2016 abortionist Ulrich Klopfer admitted to the Indiana Medical Licensing Board that he once performed an abortion on a 10-year-old girl from Illinois who had been raped by her uncle. Dr. Klopfer openly admitted that he did not report the crime to law enforcement. He let the girl go home to her parents who knew about the rape and had decided not to press charges. As far as anyone can tell, that girl’s uncle was never brought to justice. Indiana’s Medical Licensing Board was shocked to hear Dr. Klopfer speak so openly and so indifferently about what had been done to this girl. Abortion helps conceal evil crimes like this one.
  3. Abortion Does Not Heal the Harm That Rape and Incest Cause. Rape and incest cause lifelong trauma, but abortion doesn’t heal the wounds that rape or incest leave behind. Abortion takes the life of an unborn baby, and it carries serious risks for the woman. Abortion is not a quick fix. Its consequences are very serious.
  4. Rapists Have No Legal Claim to Their Victims or Their Victims’ Children. Under Arkansas law, a rapist has no legal claim to his victim or the children of his victim. That means a woman or girl who becomes pregnant because of rape can keep the child or put the child up for adoption, but she does not have to consult the rapist or share custody with him. Arkansas law is very clear on that point. Additionally, state courts can take other appropriate action to protect victims of rape or incest.
  5. The Unborn Baby is Totally Innocent. An unborn boy or girl has no control over how he or she was conceived. These are living human beings. Rape and incest are evil, and the woman who is raped is an innocent victim in every sense of the word. But the unborn child is innocent as well. Is it right to kill an unborn baby because the baby’s father was a rapist?

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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ACLU of Arkansas Supports Pro-Abortion Rule in Federal Court

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On Tuesday the ACLU of Arkansas announced it is leading a coalition of pro-abortion groups supporting a new Biden Administration rule in federal court.

In April, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin led a 17-state coalition challenging the Biden Administration’s new rule requiring employers to accommodate abortions under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) of 2022.

The PWFA is a federal law that helps ensure pregnant workers receive accommodations from their employers to protect them and their unborn children. However, the Biden Administration has reinterpreted the law to justify federal rules that support abortion.

The Biden Administration’s new pro-abortion rules threaten business owners with lawsuits if they do not accommodate employees’ abortions — even if the abortions would be illegal under state law.

The lawsuit over the rules is still playing out in federal court. However, the ACLU of Arkansas is co-leading an amicus brief supporting the Biden Administration’s rules.

In a statement, the ACLU of Arkansas said,

[A] broad coalition of labor, workers’ rights, and gender justice organizations — led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Arkansas, and the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC)  — filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in support of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) regulations implementing the landmark Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), including the regulations’ explicit protection for workers who have abortions.

It’s worth pointing out that the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is a bipartisan law that was supported by a broad coalition of organizations, including pro-life groups. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the law would advance its “goal of ensuring that no woman ever feels forced to choose between her future and the life of her child while protecting the conscience rights and religious freedoms of employers.” However, the Biden Administration is twisting this law to promote abortion.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Biden Administration has tried to use rules and regulations to support abortion.

After the U.S. Supreme Court released its 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision overturning Roe v. Wade, President Biden issued an executive order urging the Secretary of Health and Human Services to identify ways to use federal authority to expand abortion.

Since then, the administration has reinterpreted laws like the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to support abortion.

We believe federal courts ultimately will recognize what the Biden Administration is doing and block this pro-abortion reinterpretation of federal law.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Here’s How Pro-Life Efforts Helped Thwart the Arkansas Abortion Amendment

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Last week the Arkansas Supreme Court blocked the Arkansas Abortion Amendment of 2024 from appearing on the November ballot.

The decision came after the court determined the measure’s sponsors, Arkansans for Limited Government, failed to comply with state law governing the use of paid petition canvassers.

However, the measure might have moved forward in spite of the court ruling had it not been for pro-life efforts against the abortion amendment. Here’s how:

As we have written before, the Arkansas Abortion Amendment would prevent the State of Arkansas from restricting abortion during the first five months of pregnancy — which is more extreme than Roe v. Wade and likely would lead to thousands of elective abortions on healthy women and unborn children every year.

The measure would automatically nullify state laws that conflict with the amendment — jeopardizing basic abortion regulations like parental-consent and informed-consent requirements and paving the way for taxpayer-funded abortion in Arkansas.

The amendment does not contain any medical licensing or health and safety standards for abortion, and it does not require abortions to be performed by a physician or in a licensed medical facility.

The measure also contains various exceptions that would permit abortion up to birth in many cases.

Pro-lifers in Arkansas have worked for months to share this information and oppose the abortion amendment.

Placing an amendment on the ballot in Arkansas requires 90,704 valid petition signatures from registered voters. Arkansans for Limited Government utilized petition canvassers across the state — including some 265 paid-canvassers — to gather signatures in support of the amendment. However, pro-lifers have been active in every county across Arkansas, encouraging voters not to sign petitions for the abortion amendment.

On July 5, Arkansans for Limited Government submitted petition signatures to place the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot.

By law, when a ballot initiative’s sponsor submits the petitions, the sponsor also must file a sworn statement confirming that each paid-canvasser was employed in accordance with state law. Arkansans for Limited Government failed to file this affidavit when they submitted the petitions for the abortion amendment.

Because the sponsors failed to comply with state law, Secretary of State John Thurston rejected all of the petitions for the abortion amendment.

That prompted Arkansans for Limited Government to file a lawsuit against Secretary of State Thurston.

The Arkansas Supreme Court’s decision last Thursday agreed that Arkansans for Limited Government failed to comply with state law and that the Secretary of State was right to disqualify the petition signatures gathered by paid-canvassers.

However, the court’s decision indicated the Secretary of State was wrong to reject the signatures collected by volunteers.

Arkansans for Limited Government’s volunteers collected 87,675 signatures — which is short of the 90,704 required to qualify for the ballot. But had the group’s volunteers gathered more signatures, their abortion amendment might have advanced to the next step certification process.

All of this underscores the success of the pro-life efforts against the amendment.

Pro-life Arkansans mobilized to educate voters about the abortion amendment. They spread the truth, and Arkansans chose not to sign the petitions to place the abortion amendment on the ballot. Without those efforts, the the abortion amendment might have garnered enough support to move forward in spite of the state supreme court’s decision last week.

It’s a testimony to the hard work and dedication of the many pro-life groups and individuals in Arkansas who are committed to spreading the truth about abortion.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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