In her Sept. 28 column , Barbara Bowersox shows us how anti-abortion activists seem to believe that, by simply evading the issue of what specifically constitutes human life, they can get away with playing fast and loose with the idea of life, as such. They seem to believe that by refusing to specify the type of life they are referring to, they can get away with using “life” as an empty shell that they can endow with any meaning they want. And so we have the ugly spectacle of religious conservatives demanding that rape victims not only be forced to have the baby that results, but to see it as God’s own pre-ordained plan for that woman’s life.
And this is the kind of person who speaks of coarseness and desensitization and loss of respect for the value of life? What respect does that show for the life of the rape victim? What kind of life are we speaking of that demands that anyone be subjected to such ugliness? How can going through the motions of submitting to such things even qualify as life? Life requires taking action to grow. What growth comes from being forced to allow any random passerby to rip your humanity from you? And how can you demand that children be brought into such a world to be subjected to such a life?