Abortion is one of the many issues with which the Bush and Kerry campaigns have sought to distinguish their candidates in an election now less than two weeks away. Bush signed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act; Kerry opposed it. Bush opposes the use of federal money for abortions; Kerry supports it. Bush wants to overturn Roe v. Wade; Kerry does not.
Yet regardless of their positions, each candidate agrees that certain instances warrant an abortion: cases of rape, incest or to save a mother’s life. In these cases, the mother has taken no voluntary action to put herself in an undesirable or unhealthy position, and her welfare is therefore placed above that of the unborn child.
With these three exceptions serving as the only justification for an abortion, an array of legal problems inevitably arises, clouding what proves to be an oversimplified solution to the endless moral and legal debate. Rape in particular is a criminal offense that cannot simply be confirmed through DNA testing. Its legal components are multifaceted and must be proven in a court of law or negotiated through a plea bargain. Therefore, in order to allow an abortion through instances of rape, a woman must wait for her case to reach the court’s docket, be heard and adjudicated by a judge or bargained by an attorney. Many states have grossly overfull dockets, and cases take months, if not years, to be heard. Once heard, cases themselves may take months or even years to complete, especially in highly publicized trials such as the Kobe Bryant case.
Furthermore, rape victims that cannot afford a private attorney would be forced to seek a public defender. While private attorneys can choose which cases they try, public defenders typically work in understaffed offices that handle hundreds upon hundreds of felony cases a year. It is unfeasible for rape to be proven in all — or even most — cases before a child’s birth. If there is any chance of a resolution before this point, there is a much smaller chance that one would be reached within the first or second trimester of pregnancy. If such cases are pushed through the system in time, it will place a strain on our already overburdened judicial system and further delay other felony trials.
In the Kobe Bryant trial, the defense found evidence that the victim had had multiple sexual partners in the days surrounding the incident. If the victim had become pregnant, she would have to prove not only that she was raped, but also that the unborn child was the result of the rape and not a different, consensual partner. This must be proven through DNA testing, which can now be performed before birth by taking samples of the amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus. Yet, the question of placing the financial burden arises: if the defendant cannot afford the test, should taxpayers fund it? Furthermore, bringing in an expert to verify the results and forgo a cross-examination only adds more steps in deciding whether a woman can legally receive an abortion.
Instances of incest and the mother’s safety don’t involve the same legal battles as rape. Incest can be proven through DNA testing, although the same issue of bearing the financial burden arises and knowledge of the mother’s health can also be acquired through various medical tests. Yet, because rape involves judicial intervention, requiring the expediency of our inefficient legal system in determining the confines of a lawful abortion is naíve and shortsighted. Our courts couldn’t handle the added stress or the diverted attention from other felonies equally injurious to society. If rape is one of three outlets through which one may gain permission to abort a fetus, it is even feasible that it will lead to an influx of rape accusations, more cases to pack already overfilled dockets and an even lower likelihood that any given case will be completed while the child is still unborn.
Abortion rights must be all or nothing. With the technology to perform the operation safely, it would be wrong for science to turn its backs on women forced into pregnancy or a possible fatal delivery. Abortion should be available to all women, and attention should instead be given to assuring its completion as early as possible in the pregnancy and definitely within the first two terms. This approach may not be ideal to hard-line conservatives or Christian fundamentalists, but it is both realistic and necessary in today’s society.
Jamie Shookman ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in English and political science.
