Column: Why I’m Against Exceptions for Rape and Incest

Politicians hone the art of the non-answer. The stock ”” often flippant ”” thing they say when asked a direct question; their go-to platitudes. For example: “What would you do about the war in Afghanistan?” Answer: “Listen to the commanders on the ground.” Translation: I wouldn’t DO anything. Another fave is saying, “I’d leave it up to the states.” It’s a way to not give your opinion and display a basic knowledge of civics. Slavery, segregation and later miscegenation were all state laws ”” but the “up to the states” verbal tic still sounds reasonable when said by a name on a yard sign.

But perhaps the worst, due to its lack of challenge in the stenographic media, is the answer on any abortion question: “I’m against it except for instances of rape, incest or the life of the mother.”

This (at least sometimes) is Mitt Romney’s stance on abortion. It wasn’t his running mate, Paul Ryan’s, until he joined the ticket. But Romney, after being staunchly pro-choice disclosing his family friend, Ann Keenan, died of an illegal abortion in 1963, now says he’d like to see it illegal once again. Except, he says, for women who are victims.

Romney and victims: It’s becoming a theme. If you worked at one of the companies Romney took over at Bain, Texas Governor Rick Perry called you a victim of “vulture capitalism.” Romney assesses a whopping “47 percent of Americans see themselves as victims” and the only way to get a medical procedure legally in Romney’s America is, yes, to be a victim.

What sounds like a not-so-extreme position on abortion rights is actually much worse than an outright ban.

If there are exceptions for ending a pregnancy requiring the recipient prove she was raped two things happen: 1) Just as with total criminalization ”” abortion goes back underground. 2) Rape is trivialized.

The accusation of rape has always been plagued by the counter-accusation of an ulterior motive. “She’s trying to destroy a good man.” “It’s just the remorse talking!” “This is blackmail.”

Or as Paul Ryan-endorsed Wisconsin State Rep. Roger Rivard put it last week, “Some girls rape so easily.”

To put this into perspective, think of what Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s victims had to endure to get justice: Sports fans rioted on campus after they came forward.

In order to terminate a pregnancy women who are raped will have to defend themselves against yet another charge: She just wants to get an abortion.

An exception for rape means not only ending legal abortions, it means profoundly changing rape.

As with anything, if abortion moves out of the light, it will find its place in the shadows, and then we’re back to where Mitt Romney’s family friend, Ann Keenan, found herself in 1963: bleeding to death from a botched back alley abortion.

Abortion rates don’t change with legality. A 2007 study by the World Health Organization found the same number of women who want abortions get abortions regardless of whether or not they’re legal. What changes is the numbers of women who die of unsafe procedures. In fact, the study noted, in Ethiopia abortion was completely illegal and also the second leading cause of death among women in that country. If you want to save lives ”” you want legal abortions, sex education and widely available birth control.

This rape clause is horrible public policy. This is not anything remotely resembling how a free country functions. This is not valuing life. It’s valuing easy answers to viscerally complicated issues.

You can morally disagree with abortion and then I suggest you don’t get one. But to nationalize women, to make their bodies legally akin to public incubators, is not the kind of country we want to live in.

It’s a country we should keep in our rearview. Abortion needs to stay legal and most importantly ”” private.