Charlotte Pence, the daughter of Vice President Mike Pence, said she would not advise a friend that had been raped to receive an abortion as she argued Alabama’s new abortion ban law could “lead to a shift in our culture.”
“Personally, I would not encourage a friend to get an abortion if she suffered the horrendous evil of rape or incest because I care about her child — and her. I do not believe abortion provides healing,” Pence wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Times. “This is where we have to start — in the one-on-one interactions with love instead of demonizing each other in the public sphere. We must have a desire to change hearts through kindness rather than only minds through debates.”
Alabama passed a law last week that outlaws almost all abortions. It puts doctors behind bars for up to 99 years if they provide the procedure, and does not provide exemptions for cases of rape and incest. It does permit women whose health is jeopardized by the pregnancy to obtain an abortion.
“No one can enjoy any of the freedoms in America if they are not first given the right to life,” Pence wrote. “While the law is hotly debated, its very existence — and the language included in it — may lead to a shift in our culture, one that will serve to produce long-term effects rather than fleeting reactions.”
Pence noted that the law recognizes an “unborn child, child, or person” as a “human being” and argued that such language could change “conversations, mindsets and rhetoric” surrounding abortions in the U.S. She claimed abortion is a divisive issue and that Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that made abortion legal nationwide, has made it an increasingly controversial topic.
[Also read: Televangelist Pat Robertson: Alabama abortion law too extreme]
“I want to see America choose life, to decry the killing of the unborn, but this starts with a shift in our attitudes,” Pence wrote. “It won’t happen without a country where we can all have differing opinions, vote on them and let democracy take its course.”
“In our own lives, let us pay heed to the wording in the Alabama law and recognize that to refer to an unborn child as anything less than a ‘human being’ or a ‘person’ is to advance a culture that takes away an individual’s freedom before he or she has a chance to speak,” Pence concluded.
Alabama is one of several states that have recently passed laws restricting abortions. For example, Georgia passed a bill this month that would bar abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detectable.
[Opinion: Roe v. Wade is not ‘gone,’ but for the first time in nearly 30 years, its survival is uncertain]
