I saw a quote from Akin and he said that he thinks you are punishing innocent life if you have an abortion - no matter the circumstances by which the woman got pregnant.

So at least part of your post I agree with: the trauma that comes from carrying a child because you have no other options is pretty significant. I don't think he gives a shit about that or the fact that the presumed mother is an innocent herself.

If the mother is receiving any kind of public assistance, there is usually an attempt by the state to discover the father's identity to recoup cost of benefits.

bottom line to many anti-choice activists is that the unborn child's rights trumps the rights of any actual functioning human lifeform.

Life is not nearly as precious once the child is born, but in the womb it is the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER.

Life is not nearly as precious once the child is born, but in the womb it is the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER.

That's the part that pisses me off. If life is precious, why wouldn't you want to protect it and help it to flourish?

For a lot of these people, no woman is innocent.

If life is precious, why wouldn't you want to protect it and help it to flourish?

Only brand new, pre-born life is THAT precious.

It seems a little weird to put it this way, but when I got pregnant it only deepened my conviction that the right to obtain an abortion is an absolute necessity. Even leaving aside how profoundly a baby changes your life after it's born, carrying one for nine months just takes over your life in every way -- physically, emotionally, socially -- even if it's a pretty easy pregnancy, like mine was. I can't imagine being pregnant if I didn't really, truly, deeply want it. To be denied the choice of whether or not to keep the pregnancy is frankly horrifying.

While the passing stranger wouldn't necessarily be aware that the woman was raped, any person that she sees with any degree of regularity is likely to realize that she was raped. (Unless there's a significant other to pose as biological father.)

I don't know about that. If someone I knew was pregnant and didn't have an SO, I wouldn't necessarily assume she'd been raped. If I gave it much thought at all, I'd think probably casual fling that ended when the guy didn't want to take on the responsibility of being a father. Or even that the woman really wanted a baby and had sought out a sperm donor, as a friend of mine recently did, and others have considered doing.

Instead of thinking about Todd Akin today, I have decided to just watch this supercut of Leslie Knope doing impressions over and over until I have memorized it.

Oy. Back from vacation...wondering how the heck many emails I"m going to have to plow through today. Eek.

I'm going to never assume anyone has been raped unless I was there or they told me. So no pregnancy is as a result of that unless the first sentence is fulfilled and they tell me that this pregnancy is related to that, no matter how many relationships they're not in.

Do people really go there? To rape rather than "some guy I didn't hear about?" That's depressing.