The individual states regulate abortion with laws typically making exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the mother.  We have seen that “health” as defined in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Doe v. Bolton could mean literally any complaint, such as emotional stress.  The cases of rape and incest are tragic and emotionally charged with huge issues for mother, child, and extended family.

The CDC reports that 32,000 pregnancies occur each year because of rape, and about 12,000 (at least 30%) are carried to term and raised by their birth mothers.  These children can face very difficult challenges if their mothers or other family members reject them.  However, is it their fault that they were conceived, and should they be killed by abortion?  Many mothers are starting to speak out and object to the negative perceptions and stigmata associated with children of rape.  Shauna Prewitt is one of those women. She is an attorney and a campaigner for the rights of rape survivors.

Valerie Gatto is a child of rape.  She was raised by loving parents and was told that she could be anything she wanted to be.  In 2014, she was Miss Pennsylvania and competed in the Miss USA contest.  She works to educate women about protecting themselves from sexual assault.

Reading about the anguish women experience leaves one saddened but with the observation that the conception is not the fault of the child.  Analyn Megison wrote in her article Conceived in Rape, Born in Love:  “My daughter was born of me, not of the rape I endured.”

The subject of a child born from incest is extremely difficult.   It might be surprising to learn that there are no data available on pregnancies arising from incest, and thus no data on abortions and live births.  Even the data on pregnancies and births resulting from rape are only estimated, and it is easy to see why these facts are the case:  there are issues of privacy and perceived shame that affect voluntary reporting and make it difficult to discuss how to collect data.  

Rape and incest are often discussed together, and indeed most incest likely involves minors and is technically rape even if not by force or coercion.  Pregnancies and births estimated to be from rape likely include at least some cases of incest.  Women wanting abortions have stated the reason to be because of rape 1% of the time and due to incest 0.05%. 

The incidence of pregnancy from rape is felt to be about 5%, and there is no reason to suppose it would be different for pregnancies arising from incest.  Based on request for abortion, it cannot be said that forcible rape occurs more often than incest or whether women pregnant from incest have more live births.  Comments in on-line blogs suggest that pregnancies from incest are uncommon, which implies that incest is much less common than forcible rape. 

Social services people say that pregnancy in a minor because of incest is typically brought to term and the child reared alongside its mother.  Another article in the Journal of Pediatrics states that most babies born of incest are given for adoption.  It appears that there are few cases of abortion because of incest.

It can be said, however, that a pregnancy resulting from incest between first-degree relatives (parents, children, and siblings) results in a 40% chance of autosomal recessive (genetic) disorders, congenital physical (birth) malformations, or severe intellectual deficits.  Another 14% have milder mental disabilities.  Less than 50% of such children are healthy.

In the interesting study producing that data, the unique control group was the women themselves who also had children by men who were not first-degree relatives.  In the latter group of children the rate of birth defects was 7%.

The heart is greatly saddened by a glimpse into the lives of those women affected by rape and incest, and the children born from those relationships, and for those very real people who had no choice and lost their lives to abortion.