The relation between undoubted rape and procured abortion seems to present difficulties to some of my Christian friends with whom I have discussed the subject.

Let us suppose that a rape results in pregnancy and the woman (a Christian we will suppose) carries the pregnancy successfully to term. What is she to say to the child, in later life, in respect of one of the Ten Commandments? She can hardly ask the child to "honour thy father" and if she decides, un-Christianly, to lie to the child and say that the conception was not by rape but by voluntary act on her part, then she can hardly ask the child to "honour thy (immoral) mother" - and, herself, "to bear false witness" into the bargain.

This is a difficulty that might be avoided by termination of the pregnancy. It is hardly fair to the child to land him, or perhaps especially her, in a position where compliance with the Commandments is not feasible, in good conscience, whichever way you look at it.

Perhaps the resolution of such a dilemma may reside in asserting that the word 'honour' does not mean what it plainly does mean. There are, perhaps, precedents for this sort of resolution of Christian dilemmas. Such precedents tend to be somewhat unimpressive.