Frederica Matthewes-Green Opinion polls on the abortion issue sometimes reveal profound moral confusion among many Americans, such as the people who tell pollsters that abortion is murder, but that it should remain legal. There is no ambivalence, however, on abortion when it involves rape and incest. Remove that last clause, and support for the pro-life position drops 30 points. It seems like common sense.
Sexual violence is a nightmare.
Dragging it out for nine months of pregnancy seems but an added cruelty. Then there's the child, for whom the truth about his or her father could be devastating. It turns out that when victims of violence speak for themselves, their opinion of abortion is nearly unanimous-and the opposite of what the average person expects. Nearly all the women interviewed in this anecdotal survey said they regretted aborting the babies conceived via rape or incest. Of those giving an opinion, more than 90 percent said they would discourage other victims of sexual violence from having an abortion.