Sins of the Fathers

For some reason, before beginning the meat of this post I feel full disclosure is required of me, to whit, that I am not capable of bearing a child. 
I mention this as, in the eyes of some polemicists, this may render me as ineligible to express an opinion on what is meretriciously labeled "reproductive rights" as any old white guy republican politician. 

I think that at least one loser in the recent elections was pilloried for calling out those who have latched on to the least defensible position in the abortion debate. Well, he doesn't seem to have "called anyone out," exactly, but simply to have given a sincere and badly-worded answer to a pundit's question, which answer was seen as an affront to said indefensible, but purportedly compassionate, position.

 I don't know much else about this would-be congressman, but my guess would be that I agree with him about virtually nothing else.
 But let's talk about the pro-life-unless-that-life-was-short-sighted-enough-to-have-been-the-result-of-rape-or-incest position.

Let us say that you are opposed to at least some abortions.

Why are you opposed to any abortion?

Is it not because you believe that abortion is the deliberate taking of innocent human life?

Or is it because you believe that pregnancy is the just punishment due a woman for engaging in illicit, or at least careless, sexual activity?

Surely the former, please say it is the former? (I'm not addressing you, Mr Aiken, you've made your reasoning abundantly, albeit mayhaps inadvertently, clear.)

If you believe an unborn child's right to life trumps the right of the woman or girl in whose womb he resides not to be burdened with him, IN MOST CIRCUMSTANCES - how are his rights somehow impinged on by, abrogated on account of, the evil and vile actions of the man who begat him? Is that child somehow less worthy of, less entitled to his already-begun life than, say, the one who is the product of a boozy but amicable one-night stand?

How can that be?

Are you perhaps less concerned with the child's right to life than with the mother's responsibility to lie in the bed she has made?

We must stop allowing the argument to be framed by the devil's useful idiots, must stop trying to answer the unanswerable "When did you stop beating you wife?" question that tripped up the Indiana candidate.

"Do you believe a victim of rape should be forced to bear a child? Really?"

No, no, NO!

Ask in retort, do you believe that a child who is a product of rape is an inferior being to, and less entitled to life than a child who is the product of love? Really?