The National Right to Life Committee just ousted one of its strongest affiliates, Georgia Right to Life, because the Georgia group refused to support an anti-abortion bill in Congress with exceptions for rape and incest. The primary cause for the schism seems to be a fundamental disagreement about the goals of the pro-life movement—the national group says it wants to eliminate abortion access completely, just like the state affiliate. But “prevailing political winds,” as Dan Becker of Georgia Right to Life calls them, would prevent any anti-abortion bills from proceeding without exceptions. "An overwhelming majority believes abortion should be allowed for rape," David O'Steen, executive director of National Right to Life wrote. According to the AP story, “at least 70 percent of Americans support such access, and less than 25 percent oppose it.”
Despite this overwhelming majority, Congress still prohibits U.S. foreign aid from subsidizing abortions as family planning. That’s why a coalition of feminist groups and humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders, are urging the president to sign an executive order. According to the Global Justice Center, “thousands of woman have been impregnated by rapists during recent conflicts in Rwanda, Bosnia, Congo, Syria and elsewhere, and yet most major international humanitarian organization balk at offering abortions for fear of jeopardizing their U.S. funding.” Though abortion access is thought of as a domestic issue, its foreign policy aspect is coming into focus, and its lack of attention may be the most dire feminist issue of our time.
Ellen Willis contends that even domestic anti-abortion rhetoric is not about personal responsibility, or abstinence, as pro-lifers claim. “When all the cant about ‘responsibility’ is stripped away…if the effect of prohibiting abortion is to keep women slaves to their biology, then so be it.” Truly, the comments section of that article speaks wonders to her point—When rape is used as a weapon of war, and unwilling and/or undeveloped women and girls are the victims, opponents of abortion access for them transfer their feelings on a not-yet sentient fetus, and ignore the emotional and physical danger faced by the women and girls. It becomes their punishment simply by having their anatomy. When women are impregnated by willingly having sex, people say it’s their fault, as if women have sole responsibility because of their anatomy. When it’s in a case like war, no one explicitly blames the women, but they consider it an unfortunate result of their body parts, as if that’s all they’re worth.
CRARY, DAVID. "Abortion in Cases of Rape: New Rifts in Old Debate." AP Online. Associated Press,
12 Apr. 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Willis, Ellen. "Abortion: Is a Woman a Person?" Women: Images and Realities: A Multicultural
Anthology. By Amy Vita Kesselman, Lily D. McNair, and Nancy Schniedewind. 9th ed.
Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub., 1995. 348-51. Print
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