Rape and Incest - justification for Abortion? - Page 8

On June 16 2013 06:20 KwarK wrote:
On the one hand, this is true, the gender of the person making the argument has absolutely no impact on the validity of it. However if an issue is divided on gender lines with one gender predominantly favouring one action and the other gender favouring the other then the two explanations are that they are working from different data or that one gender is better at understanding the same data. The argument that men are making abortion laws is not that men are incapable of making a rational argument but rather that the fact that men will never have to deal with the reality of the laws, such as being forced to carry a foetus to term, is giving them different starting data. Imagine if a predominantly female legislative instituted a male only military draft, you might not doubt their intelligence nor their understanding of warfare and the need for the draft but you probably would wonder if they really understood what being shipped off to war while still a teenager would do to your life, your goals, your body and who you are as a person.

On June 16 2013 06:17 UdderChaos wrote:

You say that, and its a nice silly picture and all, but i struggle to see how life doesn't start at conception. At the end on the day an abortion is an intervention, a human effort to cease the life of a foetus or whatever. Before that the eggs die in the process of a period and the sperm die, well, probably on a tissue. From then on all milestones, like the heart being developed, baby leaving the mother, ect are all just statements of its progress, none have an tangible reason to be called the starting process. I don't like the pro life movement but i do see their point. And it's all very well saying its the mothers choice, but the person that would otherwise survive, gets no say in this whatsoever. Unless its the case of rape i don't really think it should be encourage, and sits very uncomfortably with me.

I really want to be pro choice because i think the idea of at least birthing a baby you don't want even if you give it up for adoption is a huge thing to ask of a women. But can someone give me a strong reason why its not killing a human being essentially? because ive heard the debates before i don't see any rational explanation on how this is not just basically murder. Just because the foetus is not capable of standing up for itself doesn't mean it should be denied the right to live. There are plenty of people in comas and with mental illness that cannot possibility speak up for themselves yet they are still granted human rights.

On June 16 2013 06:17 UdderChaos wrote:

You say that, and its a nice silly picture and all, but i struggle to see how life doesn't start at conception. At the end on the day an abortion is an intervention, a human effort to cease the life of a foetus or whatever. Before that the eggs die in the process of a period and the sperm die, well, probably on a tissue. From then on all milestones, like the heart being developed, baby leaving the mother, ect are all just statements of its progress, none have an tangible reason to be called the starting process. I don't like the pro life movement but i do see their point. And it's all very well saying its the mothers choice, but the person that would otherwise survive, gets no say in this whatsoever. Unless its the case of rape i don't really think it should be encourage, and sits very uncomfortably with me.

I really want to be pro choice because i think the idea of at least birthing a baby you don't want even if you give it up for adoption is a huge thing to ask of a women. But can someone give me a strong reason why its not killing a human being essentially? because ive heard the debates before i don't see any rational explanation on how this is not just basically murder. Just because the foetus is not capable of standing up for itself doesn't mean it should be denied the right to live. There are plenty of people in comas and with mental illness that cannot possibility speak up for themselves yet they are still granted human rights.

On June 16 2013 06:41 radscorpion9 wrote:


I think one of the simplest explanations is that it doesn't matter whether something is "alive"; what matters is whether you can consider it as being conscious or not, whether its a self-aware human being or a simple clump of cells that is going through the mechanical (i.e. there is no intelligence) differentiation process. And while you still have an embryo, and later during the early stages of a fetus, the "entity" doesn't meet the basic requirements that would enable it to have consciousness, or its awareness is so primitive that for all practical purposes it isn't human yet.

Therefore, in that moment, you could say you have a differentiated clump of cells, or a body that is just starting to grow its limbs, but that's really all it is. For all intents and purposes, *in that moment*, it is no more human than an inanimate object, or a garden plant. And so preventing this clump of cells from continuing to differentiate is not murder any more than throwing out a petri dish of stem cells is.

Of course it can become a human; but in and of itself, this isn't a good enough reason to say that that the process must continue. You could make the argument that someone's desire to have a baby is really the beginning of the birthing process; and that their decision against having a baby anywhere after that point is stopping the process. Just because there is a biological component as opposed to a purely mental one is irrelevant; they are both processes that can be stopped before they lead to the eventual birthing of a self-conscious baby.

It just so happens that in one case there is a physical leftover - and it certainly sounds grotesque to put it this way, but you have to realize that for all intents and purposes it does not matter whether the baby grew from an embryo to a fetus and then died (because it was never self-aware) or whether it never existed in the first place, except as a thought in their potential parents' heads.

On June 16 2013 06:20 KwarK wrote:

On the one hand, this is true, the gender of the person making the argument has absolutely no impact on the validity of it. However if an issue is divided on gender lines with one gender predominantly favouring one action and the other gender favouring the other then the two explanations are that they are working from different data or that one gender is better at understanding the same data. The argument that men are making abortion laws is not that men are incapable of making a rational argument but rather that the fact that men will never have to deal with the reality of the laws, such as being forced to carry a foetus to term, is giving them different starting data. Imagine if a predominantly female legislative instituted a male only military draft, you might not doubt their intelligence nor their understanding of warfare and the need for the draft but you probably would wonder if they really understood what being shipped off to war while still a teenager would do to your life, your goals, your body and who you are as a person.

On June 16 2013 06:36 Gjhc wrote:
I have a hard time understanding how can someone on a civilized world find an excuse for an undesired pregnancy, aside rape. Come on, we are rational animals that understand the consequences of our acts.

On June 16 2013 06:17 UdderChaos wrote:

You say that, and its a nice silly picture and all, but i struggle to see how life doesn't start at conception. At the end on the day an abortion is an intervention, a human effort to cease the life of a foetus or whatever. Before that the eggs die in the process of a period and the sperm die, well, probably on a tissue. From then on all milestones, like the heart being developed, baby leaving the mother, ect are all just statements of its progress, none have an tangible reason to be called the starting process. I don't like the pro life movement but i do see their point. And it's all very well saying its the mothers choice, but the person that would otherwise survive, gets no say in this whatsoever. Unless its the case of rape i don't really think it should be encourage, and sits very uncomfortably with me.

I really want to be pro choice because i think the idea of at least birthing a baby you don't want even if you give it up for adoption is a huge thing to ask of a women. But can someone give me a strong reason why its not killing a human being essentially? because ive heard the debates before i don't see any rational explanation on how this is not just basically murder. Just because the foetus is not capable of standing up for itself doesn't mean it should be denied the right to live. There are plenty of people in comas and with mental illness that cannot possibility speak up for themselves yet they are still granted human rights.

On June 16 2013 07:06 Leporello wrote:
Show me someone who opposes abortion but feels there should be exceptions, and I'll show you a person incapable of independent thinking. It's very literally a life or death issue. Abortion is either a killing of a human being, or it isn't -- how do so many people compromise on their belief that abortion is murder? Maybe because they don't really believe, on an intellectually-validated level, that abortion is really murder at all.

We're talking about the brutal dismantling of human embryotic flesh. If you think abortion is killing a baby (I don't, btw), why does it ever make it okay for the baby to be killed if the mother was raped or was impregnated by a family member? How is that the baby's fault, that it deserves to die, only because its mother was raped? Pro-Life's position is absolute -- the fetus is a human that deserves its own choices, the mother is merely a vessel.

I like these "exceptions" to abortion, as they show that Pro-Life is an unreasonable position. It's an absolutist position built on emotional appeal, that becomes ridiculous and non-absolute when you counter it with other emotional appeals.

Best thing to do is stop looking for ways to call pregnant women murderers, and let them make their own choice on the matter.

On June 16 2013 07:08 Shiori wrote:

If one is raped, then abortion should certainly be permissible, because the pregnancy occurred from a non-consensual experience. Much in the same sense that you cannot kidnap someone and hook them up as a permanent blood-transfusion machine to a dying innocent adult, you cannot hold someone who was raped as in any way responsible for their pregnancy. This is not incompatible with the pro-life position. The personhood of the fetus is utterly irrelevant.

On June 16 2013 06:33 TerribleTrioJon wrote:
I don't see these as suitable justification for the abortion or termination of an innocent human life. So, no... its not appropriate policy for children who are the product of rape or incest.




Suppose, following a rape, the victim became pregnant and had the baby. But then, a year or two later—or three or four years later—the mother comes to despise the child because the child’s very life and presence reminds her, horribly, daily, painfully, of the awful experience of the rape. Should we permit the woman to terminate the life of the two-year-old or four-year-old child?

And the follow-up question, is: exactly why should a four-year-old’s life, resulting from rape, not be terminated, if his or her life greatly distresses the mother, or, if one raises an objection, exactly why is the situation of abortion thought to be so decisively different?

So, in regards to trauma from a practical public policy perspective, would the sustained trauma and emotional harm to the mother and to the child provide adequate justification to "terminate" a toddler or adolescent who was a product of rape? If not, why to the human being in an earlier stage of development in the womb?

Rape is a horrible and tragic wrong in itself and a crime of great emotional harm, but is irrelevant to the morality/ethical issue of abortion. If the fetus or unborn child is an independent living human being, morally deserving to be treated as such, it should make no difference whether that fetus/unborn child was conceived by rape or incest.

Most abortion proponents agree that the fact of rape is irrelevant. Many are merely arguing the case of rape because they believe it puts anti-abortionists in a difficult spot. A question which decides whether or not this is the case is: Is it your view that whether or not abortion should be permitted should depend on the reasons for which the pregnant woman desires abortion? If the answer is no (as is probable and expected - committed pro-choice ideologues don't want to fall into the obvious trap of a “yes” answer), then, the point is made again and reinforced: the rape hypothetical and situation is really beside the point, isn't it?

If the answer is yes, that a woman’s reasons for abortion matter, I would ask if abortion should be permitted for purposes of sex-selection. What about abortion for purposes of spiting a boyfriend or a husband, or the pregnant woman’s parents? What about abortion because having a child would interfere with college studies or career ambitions? In my view, none of these reasons can supply a basis for restricting the right to abortion (and the U.S. Supreme Court in their previous rulings and precedent agree with me). Will the pro-choice advocate really embrace that extreme position?


I find that the case of rape can help produce clear-headed thinking. Most fair-minded people, if forced to think carefully - and if they are willing and able to do so - will realize that their position ultimately depends on whether a conceived, unborn child in the womb is morally worthy of protection of rights, regardless of how his or her life came to be.



What confuses the issue, for some, is unclear thinking about the period of pregnancy specifically. If the unborn child, conceived as a result of rape, magically could be removed from his or her mother’s womb - and live - surely no one would say that the trauma of rape should permit murdering the child. That would be exactly the same situation as killing the hypothetical four-year-old who was conceived by rape. Rather, it's the burden of being pregnant, and of having to bear a child conceived in that manner, that often drives the instinct to allow abortion in cases of rape.

What lies behind this instinctive reaction, I think, is the backwards notion and suggestion that pregnancy is some kind of “punishment” for sex (or rather "unprotected sex" for which pregnancy is some sort of disease).

The pro-choice crowd usually refers to the psychological torment of having to endure a rape-induced pregnancy and bear a child conceived in rape.

But that torment does not come from the fact of pregnancy itself. Pregnancy imposes burdens on mothers, in all situations. What distinguishes the case of rape is the unique psychological burden and humiliation owing to the circumstances that led to the pregnancy. That burden is real and undeniable. But that is exactly the type of psychic harm that we presumably would never allow to justify killing a born child simply because of the circumstances under which he or she was conceived. This returns the argument to the original set of questions. If we would not allow even real, serious psychological or emotional trauma to justify killing a toddler because of the circumstances under which he or she was conceived, we should not allow it to justify killing an unborn child for the same reason, unless the unborn child lacks equivalent moral status as a member of the human community. We would not allow killing for such a reason unless the living human fetus had no human “right” to continue to live in the first place.


That, in the end, is the point over which the debate needs to be conducted. If the human embryo is a mere irrelevant mass of cells, inconveniently present in a woman’s body, the pro-choice position is self-evidently correct. Abortion is no different from clipping a fingernail, and presents not the slightest moral question. One shouldn't appeal to the situation of rape, or possess any justification at all, in order to engage in an abortion. But if the human embryo is a separate, living human being - a living human organism distinct from the mother’s, even if a life that depends on the mother for survival, the anti-abortion/pro-life position is correct. The human fetus cannot be killed simply because he or she is unwanted, despised, regretted, or deeply upsetting. Short of the situation where pregnancy presents a true threat to the life of the mother, abortion is ethically unjustifiable. And even there, induced labor, premature birth and efforts to keep the baby alive seems preferable to an operation which intentionally and purposefully ends the child's life.


In closing, my last question to someone arguing for abortion of a child conceived of rape is "Why kill the innocent party without a trial?" Most people wouldn't believe in capital punishment, I would guess, for the guilty rapist. Why capital punishment for the baby?

The violence of abortion parallels the violence of rape, because both are done in a subjective and misguided sense of need, and both are done at the expense of an innocent person. A human organism in her various stages of development as embryo and fetus is a human being regardless of the circumstances of her conception. In matters of law, the point is not how she was conceived but that she was conceived.

On June 16 2013 05:32 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
^ If you thought about this topic more than the usual 5 seconds you would find that it is not that easy.

On June 16 2013 07:15 KwarK wrote:

This is nonsensical. It ignores that the murder of the child (if one holds abortion to be that) is a greater crime than the enslavement of the mother for 9 months and is built upon sex blame, the principle that if you have sex you deserve to suffer any possible avoidable unwanted consequences from that choice. If we legally forced everyone to endure any possible avoidable unwanted consequences from any decision they freely made then the world would be a really, really shitty place. But we don't, outside of abortion that argument doesn't really come up.