Rape, Abortion, and Reproductive Violence

The other day, I watched Animal Planet. The episode showed lions in Africa, and how, when a new dominant male takes over a pride, he systematically kills all the cubs that are not self-sufficient or able to defend themselves. This automatically brings the female lions into heat. The lion then copulates with the females, replenishing the stock of cubs in a pride, and insuring that all of them are fathered by the dominant male. 

  

This is what I would term reproductive violence. It isn’t random or capricious violence, nor is it violence committed in order to secure food or some other resource. Rather, it is violence that has a clear reproductive objective: To make sure the pride’s focus and resources go to the upbringing of the dominant lion’s offspring, and none other. 

  

The rape of a woman by a man is similarly reproductive violence. 

  

A man ordinarily woos a woman, in order to convince her to have sex with him, get pregnant by him, and ultimately carry his child. But wooing—in all cultures—takes time, effort, expense. Resources. 

Rape, on the other hand, is the shortcut to that same result, just as theft is the shortcut to getting a new car: By raping a woman, a man has a chance to conceive. The man might not have the time, resources, or social standing to woo the woman and convince her to conceive a child of his—so he rapes her instead. He inflicts violence in order to maximize his chance at reproductive success.

  

Academic Feminist theory has often claimed that rape is a method of subjugating women—but actually, it’s not. Rape isn’t even about women—it’s about a man lacking the wherewithal to reproduce. It’s about a male’s frustration at his powerlessness, or at his lack of standing in his society. It has little or nothing to do with “the subjugation of women”. It often doesn’t even have much to do with a man’s feelings towards women generally. To claim that “all rapists hate and fear women” is as nonsensical as claiming that a man steals a car because he hates and fears all cars, or hates and fear car owners, or hates and fears the very invention of the automobile—patently absurd. A man steals a car because he can’t have the car. A man rapes a woman because he can’t have the woman. He carries out reproductive violence so that he can. 
    

But what about a woman? 
  
Bearing and especially raising a child is a tremendously intensive process for a woman. During the nine months of pregnancy, and at least four subsequent years of development, the child uses up an enormous proportion of a woman's physical energy, not to mention attention and care, especially after its birth and throughout its infancy. 

  

So a woman has to be selective as to which man’s child she is willing to conceive, carry and raise. That’s why in all cultures, a woman (or her family or her social milieu) obliges a man to woo her. She does so in order to insure that the man has the resources to care for her and her child, and to insure that the man has the stick-with-it-ness to stay after the birth of the child and help her care for it. 

  

But what if she becomes pregnant with the child of an undesirable man, or a man lacking in resources, or in social standing? What if she becomes pregnant with the child of a man she realizes will not stick around to help her care for the offspring? 

  

Currently in most countries in the West, she can abort the child. 
  
Just as rape is the reproductive violence men inflict in order to maximize their reproductive success, abortion is the reproductive violence women inflict in order to maximize their reproductive success. 

    

No one can argue that abortion is not a violent act. If we define violence as carrying out actions with the deliberate intent to cause physical harm or damage to someone or some thing, one doesn’t even need subscribe to the notion that a foetus is a human being to recognize that abortion is a violent act. If a foetus is just a clump of cells, then abortion is the intentional application of measures with the aim of destroying that clump of cells—and that’s violence. 

  

Many cultures—in fact most cultures, until quite recently—also practiced reproductive violence after the birth of the child. Lame children were left in the wild to die. Retarded children were often killed. 

  

Of course, now, in our current society, we abhor infanticide. We consider it barbaric. (Though it should be noted, in a hunter-gatherer tribe numbering a dozen individuals, barely managing to subsist, to allow a lame child to drain the resources of such a small tribe would be the immorality—which goes to show how cruelly situational morality really is.) 

  

Rape is not something that our culture currently allows either. Our society punishes the man who indulges in this form of reproductive violence. I don’t think I need to justify how punishing rapists is something a society ought to strive to do. 

  

But then why should women be allowed their own form of reproductive violence? 

  
In the West, we have determined that unjustified violence—against things, people and animals—is not tolerated. One could argue quite persuasively that the entire history of Western civilization has been a constant striving towards the ideal of living in a peaceful society, a society devoid of unjustified violence. 
  
The word “unjustified” is the key term. In the West, it’s not that we don’t accept violence, we don’t accept unjustified, unwarranted violence. 
  
For instance, going up to an unarmed woman on the street and shooting her with a gun would land me in prison—her murder would be unjustified. But shooting and killing a woman who is brandishing a machine gun and threatening to murder a schoolhouse full of children—even if she hasn’t actually done anything yet—is perfectly justified. Similarly, unjustified harm to animals and objects is considered punishable, while justified harm to either—for instance, slaughtering pigs for the market, or crushing derelict cars for the junkyard—is considered unremarkable. 
  
What separates justified violence from unjustified violence are the consequences of that violence: If that violence or harm is inflicted so as to prevent even greater harm, damage or violence, then it is justified. 
  
Similarly, abortion is unjustified reproductive violence, because the result of a pregnancy is not lethal to a woman, or even permanent: Women are only momentarily inconvenienced by an unwanted pregnancy. 
  
The only case where an abortion would be considered justified would be in the case of an ectopic pregnancy: The mother will die as a result of such a pregnancy. But that is the only case whereby a pregnancy will bring about unequivocal, permanent harm or damage. 
  
Especially in the West today, there are no irremediable consequences to a woman, should she have an unwanted pregnancy. 
  
A woman will not lose her social standing or employment, because of an unwanted pregnancy. In restrictive societies, there is a real danger of losing valuable social standing and prerogatives, if a woman has an unwanted pregnancy. But in the permissive Western society of today, that is no longer the case. 
  
Once the unwanted pregnancy comes to term, a woman will not be forced to care for this unwanted child for the rest of the woman’s life, if she does not want it: In Western societies, there are myriad agencies that can aid her in giving up the child for adoption. 
  
This is a key issue: As anyone with experience with children knows, the pregnancy is the easy part—raising the child born of the pregnancy is a process that consumes huge amounts of time, energy and resources. This is a consequence of an unwanted pregnancy that will not happen to a woman in the West who does not want the child born of the unwanted pregnancy. 
  
In fact, the only consequence a woman will incur because of an unwanted pregnancy is momentary inconvenience. During the nine months that the pregnancy comes to term, her body will suffer strains and discomforts—but they are not permanent or irrevocable, and they will end when the pregnancy comes to term. 
  
In the West, we have determined that momentary inconvenience is not the justification for violence of any sort. I cannot beat up a driver ahead of me who dawdles once the red light has turned green. I cannot steal a woman’s cellphone if she insists on taking a call while we are both in a theater. 
  
Therefore, since today in the West, momentary inconvenience is the only consequence of an unwanted pregnancy, then women should not be allowed to indulge in reproductive violence.  Like rape, abortion should be made illegal.