Does Rape Legitimize Abortion?

One of the scenarios that pro-choice proponents might cite as justification for abortion (there is one circumstance that justifies abortion, to be mentioned later) is the rape of a woman.  This situation is one of the most emotionally charged for many to discuss when addressing abortion, but logic reveals that it is still a matter of simplicity.  Now, there are imbeciles who group rape and incest together in a way that equates them when addressing this issue, as if incest is inherently nonconsensual or as if the male must be the abuser when it is, but the true matter at hand pertains to rape.

If rape and murder are both wrong, neither one could ever make the other permissible.  One injustice cannot legitimize another, and thus not even the rape of a woman (I specify "of a woman" because the idea that only women can be or are raped is a vile myth) can justify needlessly extinguishing the life of an unborn child.  If abortion is murder and if murder is immoral, it inescapably follows that abortion, like any other form of murder, is immoral.  The matter is ultimately that simple.

A woman who is raped has no obligation to keep a child she did not plan for, of course, but she can ensure that she does not have to raise the child without having it killed in the womb.  Offering the baby for adoption once it is born would allow her to avoid unwanted parental responsibilities while preserving the life of an innocent person.  It is not as if the only possibilities are life as a reluctant parent or abortion!

There is only one situation in which abortion is justifiable.  Unless a mother's life is genuinely threatened by a pregnancy [1], nothing morally distinguishes abortion from the murder of a person outside of the womb.  The only reason why this scenario is an exception is because no one is obligated to sacrifice their life for that of another person, as neither "convenience" nor being victimized by an offense grants one the right to commit murder--no one can have a right to commit an evil.

While some of the subjects affiliated with abortion are more complicated than others (i.e. the reconciliation of personhood with being biologically human), the nature of abortion itself is not complex.  If humans have rights due to being human, then unborn humans possess these rights by default.  Thus, it is not as if rape changes the fundamental nature of what abortion is.  That rape is tragic is wholly irrelevant to the moral status of abortion.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/07/abortion-in-cases-of-life-threatening.html