When I read this, I was angry. A mother tells that her mentally handicapped (about 8-10 year cognitive level) daughter was raped, and being the pro-lifer that she is, she refused a pill that may (on purpose) prevent contraception, or may (not the purpose, but some claim it is possible) prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg.
The article seems to be in a: “Wow, am I not wonderfully pro-life, praise me” vein. Not one thing said: “My poor daughter!” She say: “After the police called me to tell me she’d been found, the officer asked me to meet him at the clinic and be reunited with my daughter. When I arrived, I was led to the Gloria Steinem Conference Room. I’m not kidding; that alone almost made me pass out.”
Serious? She is waiting to get reunited with her missing, mentally handicapped daughter, and her thoughts are not “How is my daughter?” but “Yuck, I am in a room named after someone I dislike!” Personally, if I was on my way to a loved one who was attacked, I would not mind (at that moment) if it was the Joseph Stalin Conference Room.
It is not in the interest of a molested child to get identifying details mentioned in the media, yet she has a daughter who functions on the level of a child, and she gives her name, which makes her daughter pretty identifiable.
And here I thought being pro-life is about caring about humans. Okay, I admit my rant may not be fair, and Elise Hilton probably cut all the non-abortion-related bits from her story. But it made me wonder about where the line should be drawn. This may get some flak, but so be it.
I am pro-life. I value the life of the unborn and the already-born.
I know trying to save babies in ectopic pregnancies are way out of line. The chances, currently, of killing the mother is much bigger than saving the baby. A big chance of killing a woman, through inaction, for the microscopic chance of a miracle baby is not pro-life. After all, the mother’s life is a life, and to be pro-life would be to want her to live. That much is clear.
But where is the line? Some birth control methods has the first purpose of preventing ovulation. But sometimes, that same contraceptive may (according to them) cause a conceived blastocyst to not get implanted. As such, anti-abortion campaigners sometimes speak out against these contraceptives .
Now, strictly speaking, if life begin at conception, to prevent a conceived blastocyst from implanting would be roughly like not allowing a living human being the environment he needs to survive.
But to what extend do we, in other things, avoid anything that has other purposes, but may take a life?
> We get into cars. Cars have the main purpose of getting us from point A to point B, but sometimes cars are fatal.
> We get into high buildings and take people there, although some people have died falling from balconies and windows far above the ground.
> We have pills in our homes, although suicidal people and small children have died from pill overdoses.
> We buy homes with swimming pools, leave the home, cross streets, and talk to people, without stopping it to think someone’s child may drown, we may be abducted, ran over by a car, or pick up an contagious disease that may kill someone in our family with a bad immune system.
Or is the better comparison this, seeing that it is more akin to making a hostile environment than to killing:
> We refuse to take some poor person into our home, who could die of malnutrition and disease if we do not, in order that we could better live our life, care for our family, etc.
Because we all do that. Even the most hospitable family in the world do not take in all the poor and needy.
To what extend should we avoid things that have a side effect that it may be deadly for someone?
It is even remotely possible that my writing this blog entry may cause someone to read and comment here when he should be doing something else, and the argument that ensues when he is found commenting here may escalate to the point where someone draws out a gun. But should such a ridiculous scenario keep me from blogging?
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PS: Recent studies gave no evidence that the kind of “emergency contraception” used in cases like this ever prevents implantation of the fertilized egg in the endometrium. http://www.cecinfo.org/PDF/ICEC_MOA_10_14.pdf
Christian Rethinker 
I have a (female) friend who is adamant about avoiding birth control pills because she firmly believes that it causes an early abortion.
I have heard that it does, but I don’t think there’s enough conclusive evidence to be dogmatic about it so I would not condemn someone for using it. However, there are pills, such as the morning after pill or RU-486, which their main purpose is an early abortion (i.e. preventing a conceived human from implanting in the uterus), and those I believe should be avoided.
Regarding your analogy of the homeless person, some do take in the poor and needy. There are rescue missions which do that, and there are people who do take in poor and needy people into their homes.
However, there is a moral difference between taking in a poor person and preventing a conceived human from implanting in the womb.
I am not responsible for the condition the poor person finds themselves in, but 98-99% of pregnancies (according to Guttmacher Institute) were consensual, meaning in the vast majority of cases, the unborn child is there through a consensual act. The mother and father are responsible for the child’s creation, and responsible for creating a naturally needy child. If you create a naturally needy child, then you bear a responsibility to care for that child.
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