1. They Say: Why Should Men have an Opinion on a Woman's Issue, when they don't have the experience?
WE SAY: For every pregnancy, there is somewhere a man who is equally responsible for having started it, and equally responsible for the child. As Susan B. Anthony said, "All the articles on this subject I have read have been from men. They hold women as alone guilty, and never seem to include man in the plans for the remedy." Those women who have been abandoned by the father of the child have the right to be angry. They have the right to that support, and preferably more than just money. Men must be part of the remedy.
2. They Say: Abortion is the right decision for Rape and Incest victims…
WE SAY: First, we should understand that if we were to allow abortions only for rape or incest victims, there would not be enough abortions to keep abortion businesses open. Only about 1% of all abortions are performed for rape and incest cases.
Those abortions would have to be done at medical facilities where more individual attention to the woman's individual case would be expected. Rape kits and forensic data need to be collected for possible legal action, and the woman's emotional needs must be addressed.
Would anyone argue against more individual attention for a woman traumatized by rape or incest? In the case of continuing abuse, surely social workers must look into stopping the abuse.
The assembly-line nature of modern abortion businesses is the worst possible system for rape victims or victims of incest or sexual child abuse. Not only is the crying need for intervention to stop the abuse not met in an abortion business site, but studies have shown that abortion sites actually participate in the abuse by asking no questions and in effect aiding the perpetrator to cover up the crime. Advocates of continuing the current system of assembly-line abortion businesses are ignoring the needs of victims of continuing sexual abuse.
Additionally, most Americans don't support the idea that victims of rape and incest are any less entitled to consumer safety regulations at abortion sites than any other woman, nor are they less entitled to accurate information on which to base their decisions. Few realize how the position in Roe v. Wade and its progeny is so extreme that simple basic protections for women are denied by calling them "restrictions".
If your opponent ever refers to a child conceived through rape as "the rapist's child", immediately challenge this. Biologically, the child is every bit as much the mother's; legally, the child is completely hers and not his. The outrageousness of rape doesn't take away from women the right to be regarded as mothers of their own children.
Abortion is a solution imposed by a society that places too much importance on male lineage and not enough on the value of each human being.
Some women have reported suffering from the trauma of abortion long after the rape trauma has faded. Abortion because of rape, tends to be more traumatic than the average abortion because, among other things, some feel there is no option but to abort, and this compounds the trauma of having had no choice about sex.
Regarding abortion as a turning back of the clock doesn't help the healing process needed, and that attitude is insensitive to the trauma a large number of women associate with abortion.
Additionally, those women who do carry pregnancies to term after a rape find one of the hardest parts is the pressure to abort, and doubt that she was actually raped is she doesn't abort. Pregnant rape victims need and are entitled to emotional support, and they shouldn't be denied it.
3. They Say: Abortion is a Woman's Choice.
WE SAY: How can an act of despair be referred to as a "choice"? Choice can be used by others as a way of saying, "Lady, don't bug us with your problem. Go take care of it." Recent surveys suggest that approximately 60% of all American women having abortions felt pressured into the act.
"Choice" can and has been used as a rationalization for failing to give pregnant women the support to which they are entitled, and "choice" has been used after the abortion to belittle the pain felt by the women who have undergone it.
How many times has the father of the child failed to accept his equal responsiblity for the child by saying it was her "choice" not to abort?
How many times has a grieving mother been told she is not being "mature" about her "choice"?
"Choice" is meaningless without adequate information on which to base a decision.
4. They Say: Q. Aren't you Imposing Your Religious Views?
We Say: Susan B. Anthony was not imposing her religious views when she called abortion "child-murder" any more than she was imposing her religious views when advocating that women should have the vote.
**The pro-life legislation of the 1800's was initiated by the medical establishment of the day. The media and the feminist women's suffrage movement were also strongly against abortion. Even Planned Parenthood, which has the largest chain of abortion businesses in the nation, once said "an abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun" [Plan Your Children For Health And Happiness, 1963].
**Many atheists and agnostics are also in the prolife movement, opposed to the violence and destruction of abortion.
**In order to find out if abortion is the violent taking of a human being's life, I do not need to consult a church. I need to consult a medical textbook.
**Our behaviors are based upon the moral – or immoral – code of conduct we believe and follow. Either we believe in a moral code of conduct — Do No Harm — OR, we believe and follow an immoral code of conduct for our own self-centeredness, no matter who gets hurt in the process. Without a
moral code of conduct, complete chaos and anarchy will reign.
[Rachel MacNair, Feminists For LIfe, 1990]