Sen. Akin and the Bigger Issue


No one can deny the mess that Sen. Akin has made for himself, and I won't go as far as to defend him.  However, I do think the media, and the rest of us, are missing the bigger point: he was not trying to talk about rape, per se, but was trying to talk about abortion.  He failed miserably, but in doing so, illustrated a bigger point, rape and abortion should not be common issues.  In fact, I believe that "rape" when discussed in the context of abortion, is almost always a red herring.  It get's our attention, and distracts us from the real issue.

The reality is, most abortions in the U.S. are not the result of a rape.  In fact, almost every source I can find, pro-life, or pro-abortion, agrees that the percentage of abortions that are performed annually as a result of a pregnancy resulting from a rape, are somewhere between .4-1%.  I've not been able to find even a speculative suggestion that the number might be greater than 1%.

What about the other 99%?  There is some disagreement on the number of abortions performed for the woman's health and safety, with estimates ranging between .5% and 6%.  The problem lies mostly in definition, it is difficult to quantify if the procedure is done to save a mother's life, or for more ambiguous health-related reasons.

That leaves 93+% of abortions that are performed for social or convenience reasons.  Ninety-three percent.

As a man, I do not think my voice should be diminished when I cry for a complete cessation of that 93% of the total abortions performed yearly.  Stop those, that's all I'm asking when I talk about abortion.  The rest are too morally ambiguous for me to pontificate on in this context.

As long as 93% of women who terminate a pregnancy do so for their own personal selfishness, any talk about "rape" or the "mother's safety" is just a distraction, and carries little weight in sensible discussion.