The moment we agree that there are some circumstances in which it is permissible to intentionally kill a child, we have, in effect, adopted the pro-choice position.  This is something understood even by the leader of the most prolific baby killing machine the world has ever known.  On August 4, 2004, Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt was on KABC radio in Los Angeles and said this about pro-lifers, “...if you press them, they will almost always say that they believe in any case that the life of the woman – if a woman’s life is at stake – that it should take precedent... so they’re already, to some degree, pro-choice they just don’t know it.”

On the legal front, some scholars have suggested that if the law ever prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother, if a woman claimed she would commit suicide if denied an abortion, that would satisfy the legal definition of a threat to her life.  

From the pro-life perspective, when the public is shown that a legitimate argument can be made against abortion even in this situation, it becomes easier for them to understand why there should be no exceptions under any circumstances.  After all, this is the “gold-standard” for exceptions.

Defending this position starts with recognizing that with modern medicine the chances that continuing a pregnancy to term might kill the mom are extraordinarily rare.  However, in those cases where that possibility might exist, the crucial issue is intent. 

If a car wreck has trapped two passengers in such a way that saving one might take the life of the other, the emergency personnel on the scene would never intentionally kill one to get the other one out.  Instead, they would do everything possible to save both.  If in that process one loses its life, that would be seen as a regrettable, but unavoidable, outcome.  That dynamic applies when a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.  The woman’s physician should be directed to do everything possible to save both mother and baby.  If in that effort the child dies, that should be considered an unavoidable, thus lawful, outcome.  However, it is as morally indefensible to kill the baby to save the mother as it would be to kill the mother to save the baby. 

In short, the “no-exceptions” position is not that the baby’s rights are superior to the moms, but that they are equal.  It is a position that protects women without caving in to the irrational and morally bankrupt view that it is sometimes “necessary” to kill their children.