Rape and incest account for hardly any abortions. So why are they now a focus?

Just 1% of women obtain an abortion because they became pregnant through rape, and less than 0.5% do so because of incest, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Yet the battle over exceptions for both has garnered outsized attention in the national abortion debate.

This month Alabama passed a law banning abortions at any time period with no exceptions for rape or incest, only when the mother's health is at risk. Two other states – Ohio and Mississippi – have passed similar legislation, which also do not include exceptions for rape or incest. Georgia passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks and includes the exceptions, but requires an official police report alleging the crimes (research shows 3 out of every 4 sexual assaults are not reported, and out of every 1,000 rapes only five perpetrators are convicted).

Loading...

INTERACTIVE MAP: Where is abortion legal? Everywhere. But ...

Debate over the exceptions has dominated headlines and ignited Twitter wars. But Mary Ziegler, a professor at Florida State University College of Law who specializes in the legal history of reproduction, says exceptions for rape and incest are much more "symbolic than they are relevant," given that they don't apply to the majority of women having abortions. She said abortion opponents have never felt these exceptions were justified, but they were long seen as a political third rail. Now the anti-abortion movement is betting that's no longer the case.

"There was consensus that politically if you didn't include exceptions for rape and incest, politicians wouldn't go for it, voters wouldn't like it and the Supreme Court wouldn't tolerate it. What you see now is pro-life groups saying it's no longer a political necessity and we can be opposed to all abortions and we want the GOP to be with us," Ziegler said. "Pro-choice groups see rape and incest exceptions as the canary in the coal mine when it comes to extremism. They argue ... if you're willing to abandon these exceptions, then there's no saying when you're going to stop."

Nearly 80% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in the first trimester in cases of rape or incest, according to Gallup.

A coalition of anti-abortion groups led by Students for Life of America released a letter this week urging GOP leadership to reconsider their position on exceptions. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, said she would prefer to see abortion laws passed without exceptions, though they aren't a dealbreaker.

"I personally have lobbied on behalf of legislation which includes exceptions because if we can work with people on the other side to ban 98% of abortions we'll take it. But when asked what we support, we tell them the truth, even though that's difficult to hear and gets you called nasty names on Twitter for a week," Hawkins said. "We know the circumstances of your conception don't change the fundamentals of what is created — a unique, distinct human being that has a right to life just like you or I."

Publicly the GOP appears divided. Leading Republican lawmakers have expressed their opposition to Alabama's law because of its lack of exceptions, including President Trump, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel.

Last month, when the South Carolina House passed a bill banning abortion after six weeks with no exceptions for rape and incest, Republican state Rep. Nancy Mace said she was so stunned by her colleagues' lack of "compassion" that she went public for the first time with her own story of being raped at 16.

"I'm pro-life, I would choose life and I would hope if it was my daughter she would choose life. But I also don't believe it's the government's right in cases of rape or incest to tell a woman what she should do with her body," she said. "It's abhorrent."

But abortion rights proponents say the country is witnessing a false debate, a tactical distraction that keeps Americans fixated on some of the most extreme cases — such as a pregnant 11-year-old rape victim — rather than on the ways in which the laws restrict access for the majority of women seeking the procedure.

"Any ban on access to abortion is extreme, period. It risks a woman's life and is an attack on her most fundamental rights," said Rachel Sussman, national director of state policy and advocacy at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "Republican party leaders and Trump think by debating some exceptions versus no exceptions, they can make it seem less so, but while they debate, the rest of America is watching in horror. ... What you are seeing firsthand is what has been their strategy all along — to ban abortion outright all across the country."

With the appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, conservative lawmakers are betting the increasingly restrictive laws will lead to lawsuits that could push the high court to overturn Roe v. Wade, which recognizes a woman’s constitutional right to abortion

Ziegler said she's skeptical about the strategy.

"There's a lot of fairly unbridled optimism about the Supreme Court because it now has a conservative majority, though there has been no signal from the court that they're willing to go this far," she said.

More than 70% of voters do not want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, according to a 2018 poll from the non-partisan public opinion research firm PerryUndem. Half of Republican women agree.

You may also be interested in:

• Strict abortion laws may not tempt Supreme Court

• When it comes to abortion, conservative women aren't a monolith

• Ending Roe v. Wade wouldn't end abortion in America. This is what happens next.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rape and incest account for hardly any abortions. So why are they now a focus?