The Republicans’ prompt and ill-considered sellout of Missouri congressman Todd Akins ignored the real point I suspect Akins was trying to make, and it’s an important one. First, however, his statement that the female body rejects a rapist’s sperm (or whatever he meant) is wrong. In fact, rape is probably more likely to lead to pregnancy than sex in other circumstances, and rape wouldn’t be a part of human sexuality if it didn’t confer some reproductive advantage.
The technical details aren’t really what people are outraged about here, but rather the term “legitimate rape.” By that, Akins was suggesting that some who claim to have been raped may not really have been raped. And if you want to stop abortion, but you provide loopholes such as “rape and incest,” those who really want abortions will have an incentive to falsely claim to have been victims. Of course not all will do so. Most probably will not. But enough will that it could cause serious problems.
For example, if a woman in a rape and incest only abortion state says, “I’ve been raped, and I need an abortion,” what do you think the doctor will ask? Why, he’ll ask “who raped you?” She’ll have to come up with someone or some description of a crime, or else she’ll have to make something up, otherwise the ban on abortion has no teeth. If she really was raped and reported it immediately, she won’t need an abortion; the morning after pill works. But if, for whatever reason, she held off long enough for fertilization to occur, the automatic assumption will be that she is the victim of a serious felony crime, and the state has a mandate to investigate.
Say she really wasn’t raped, but her boyfriend/sex-partner rejected her after she got pregnant and told her to get the hell out of his life. She isn’t ready for this baby, and she really doesn’t want to have it without some support. So she decides to claim she was raped. The doctor or some hospital official asks her who, where, when, she hems and haws, and finally a detective is brought in to get to the heart of the matter. Eventually, she admits that the boyfriend is the child’s father. “Did he really rape you?” asks the cop.
Now she’s faced with the choice of admitting that she’s been lying all along and losing the chance to get an abortion, or getting her boyfriend in very serious trouble with the law.
Who can say what she’ll do? It could go either way. And perhaps the most terrible thing is that a man’s dead child could be used to falsely convict him through a DNA test.
This is why I’m skeptical that an abortion ban could really work in the US. As long as we have open sexuality, and a diverse society in which people pretend to be “tolerant” but would flip out and prefer an abortion if their daughter were impregnated by someone of a different race, religion or class in most cases, people will demand loopholes. And loopholes are prone to abuse and dishonesty.
Perhaps for now the best we can do is practice harm reduction in regards to abortion.
