1%. It doesn’t sound like very much. If the sales tax goes up 1% in your town, you may notice the slight increase and may shop somewhere else. If your weight goes up 1% after Thanksgiving, it’s most likely only temporary. If you buy a car with 1% better gas mileage, you may not notice anything different. But, what is the impact on human life because of abortion exceptions, which amount to about 1% of cases?
Why is the 20 week abortion ban seen as a tremendous opportunity for a pro-life victory, while eliminating the rape exception is nearly at the bottom of the priority list for ending abortion? Isn’t it shocking that the prospect of annually saving 18,000 babies' lives with the 20 week ban, a laudable goal, is enthusiastically pursued, while the chance to permanently protect the 32,000 or more babies conceived from rape every year, by eliminating all traces of the rape exception, is not supported by many in leadership positions, (both pro-life and clergy), and in political office?

The rape exception is a creation of the abortion rights movement, but is accepted and promoted by some in the pro-life community out of a false sense of compassion, because it is the popular view, or because of pro-life politics. Most of these people do not consider my life at all. To them, the rape exception is only a concept.

I was conceived when my mother was attacked on her way home from work in the late summer of 1957. It is interesting to note that at the same time in 1957, members of a prominent lawyers group, The American Law Institute, (ALI), proposed and recommended that the first exceptions policy guidelines be added to state abortion prohibition laws. The ALI exceptions were: grave physical or mental health impact to the mother, evidence that the child would be born with a grave physical or mental defect, and rape and incest.

Mississippi added a rape exception in 1966. Colorado was the first state to incorporate the ALI exceptions in 1967. Thirteen states were using the ALI exceptions template by the time Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

I discovered my conception story in 2005, and the news was initially devastating. I have thought about my conception every day since, but, the initial pain has been replaced by a powerful pro-life energy and purpose. What is still devastating is the constant push for “exceptions” in law. It is quite a significant betrayal when the exception efforts come from the pro-life side. Their efforts, projecting them back to 1957, would have resulted in not protecting my life. Today, the exceptions target tens of thousands of babies when they are added to pro-life legislation. Our collective efforts at Save The 1 work to end the exceptions era and explain why exceptions are bad pro-life policy.

Unfortunately, those who advocate for exceptions never tell anyone when the rape exception era will end. They never tell us what has to happen in order to permanently eliminate the exceptions. They don’t seem to believe that the exceptions strategy is a broken strategy. They don’t make the connection between the rape exception and the history of the Roe v. Wade decision. They deemphasize the rape exception by saying that it only amounts to 1% of cases. This may be the most common rationale behind the promotion of the rape exception.

What is behind the facade of that 1% deflection? How can you say to a targeted group of people, “Sorry, there just aren’t enough of you to work very hard to protect?” There is a number that beyond which no one in the pro-life community could ignore. They never tell us what that number is, if they’ve even considered what it should be. It is clear that 1% is not enough. And, it is the ultimate cruelty. It is cruel to the rape-conceived. It is saying: “Your numbers are not significant enough to make it worthwhile to fight for your protection.” It is also cruel to women. Cruel and shocking. I don’t think anyone that supports exceptions has even considered it.

Being 1% is not yet enough to achieve legal protection for the rape-conceived. In order for that number to be higher and “significant” enough to be noticed, even MORE women would have to be raped and pregnant. Can you think of anything crueler than that? Is that really what it is going to take to end the “exceptions” era? Must we add countless more traumatized women to the 1% in order to surpass the mystery magic number necessary to purge exceptions from orthodox pro-life strategy? The obvious answer is NO! 1% is way more than enough.

Our founder and President, Rebecca Kiessling, discusses how exceptions impacted the Roe v. Wade decision in this article.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/rebecca-kiessling/the-trouble-with-unprincipled-incrementalism-and-allowing-for-exceptions/10150193880073154/

And this previous Save The 1 article expands on the point about the broken strategy.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/rape-exceptions-in-congress-a-broken-record

Please visit our SaveThe1.com website to learn the best responses to the defenses of the rape exception and answers to the questions you may hear. Please add the arguments presented in this short essay to bolster the information you will find on our website.

BIO
Jim Sable is a husband and father of 4 -- 3 biological sons and one recently-adopted daughter from China. He and his wife Wendy are both adopted. Conceived in rape, Jim is also a Board Member, national pro-life speaker and pro-life blogger for Save The 1.

7-month pregnant gang rape survivor denied a late-term abortion by the Gujurat high court in India.  With those kinds of news stories, we regularly see organizations like Amnesty International and Planned Parenthood International utilizing such stories to demand the legalization of abortion through all nine of months of pregnancy – not only for rape, but for any reason.  Rape is just the key to open wide the abortion door. 

Her own parents are supporting this purification test out of fear for what will happen to them and their two other yet unmarried children once she gives birth to this child conceived out of rape.  If the tantric doesn’t clear her, then her siblings will never be able to marry.

The ritualistic test involves the tantric interrogating the rape victim, then testing her veracity “by taking a pinch of barley seeds from a bag and asking her to say whether the number of seeds in his hand are even-numbered or odd.”  She is then repeatedly subjected to this process, including with a 10kg stone upon her head, which must remain in place until the tantric is satisfied that she is telling the truth.  This ritual can reportedly take months to complete, under the belief that a Goddess will reveal the truth.  If in the end, the rape victim passes the test, then no one can banish or condemn her; if not, then she is considered “impure” and is ostracized from the community, along with her extended family members.

Since HR36, Congress’ Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, did not follow solid pro-life principles, (a discriminatory rape/incest exception was included), debate on the floor of the House of Representatives resulted in some unintended consequences.  Did anyone else notice this?  The Democratic Party representatives -- the radically pro-abortion House members who testified in opposition to HR36, went on and on, speaker after speaker, presenting their sympathetic case that abortion is compassionate and protective of women after rape conception.  We are armed with the truth of what it takes to support a woman through her trauma after rape while also protecting her baby, so wasn't their rant on rape painful to listen to? The pro-abort Democrats' opinion is that the rape exception, as revised for the current bill, is still too restrictive.  They would make the same objections to a bill without a rape and incest exception, but this time, there was no counter-argument.