| Using examples of grounds that are considered in determining the degree of punishment does not mean that the rape exception need be made on the same grounds. There is the presumption of an emotional exigency difficult to overcome, i.e., revulsion at the thought of a conception originating in forcible penetration. On that basis, society may decide that it hasn't the heart to inflict punishment on the victim of rape who aborts. It is, in other words, a compassionate exception, which mitigates the harshness of the law in extreme circumstances. And it is, indeed, premised upon the idea that she is not as guilty as someone who merely uses abortion as a form of birth control: after all, the sex was not consensual, the conception was not a "risk run"; and the psychological pressure involved in carrying the child to term as a symbol of the attack would be, for most, a special torture.... |
