Posted on 08/08/2008 5:39:38 AM PDT by Apollos21K
There are some in the pro-life community who don't support South Dakota's latest pro-life measure, Initiated Measure 11.
IM 11 is a measure which would ban most abortions in South Dakota. Unlike Referred Law 6 in 2006, IM 11 contains exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother.
The exceptions in IM 11 were carefully written to prevent abuse.
For instance, the health exception requires that the issue must involve "a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of the functioning of a major bodily organ or system." In making this determination, the abortionist must use "accepted standards of medical practice" which must be documented in the woman's medical records. In other words, the claim to invoke this exception cannot be frivolous and must be medically substantiated.
The exception for rape and incest requires that the incident be reported to law enforcement authorities...
(Excerpt) Read more at dakotavoice.com ...
Abortion advocates, of course, don't like this measure either (even though their complaint last time was the lack of exceptions), but some pro-lifers oppose this bill. Though it would stop 98 percent of abortions in South Dakota, they want 100 percent.
Bill Connor, a man conceived when his mother was raped, has come out in support of this measure. He could have been one of those "exceptions."
I never understood this line of thinking. 98% is greater than 0%. Even if this bill saved 1 life I would support it.
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You have to start some place. 98% is a great starting place.
No, actually the exception for rape can be interpreted differently. The carrying of the child engendered by the rape is a continuation of the assault itself. Abortion under that circumstance has an element of justification akin to a lethal shooting under the ‘castle doctrine’ in a state without a duty to retreat clause in its law. While a Christian woman of deep faith might well chose to bear the spiritual burden this represents (in Orthodox tradition we call such a burden a podvig) with the support of her family, church and (again I write as an Orthodox) spiritual father, and we may hope and pray that all women faced with the decision are given the strength to make the choice of life under those circumstances, another person and certainly not the state ought not impose such a podvig.
In the Orthodox understanding, the woman and her physician would have to be penanced as homocides, but it is a matter of subtle spiritual discernment beyond me as a humble Orthodox subdeacon, and certainly beyond the discernement of a one-size-fits-all legislative decision, whether the penance should be closer to the canonical penance for murder—excommunication with communion on the deathbed only—or to the canonical penance for killing in war (I think usually applied in cases of homocide in self-defense)—three years excommunication (with communion permitted on the deathbed if the pentitent is mortally wounded or greviously ill during that three years).
The state should allow exceptions for rape and incest, but we Christians must work provide a society in which women victimize by rape or incest are supported in bearing the burden of carrying a child engendered by rape or incest to term.
I understand your comment, and I understand the feelings of people who want the exception. My compromise would be, lets execute the rapist.
“If a person was unfortunately conveived by rape, their life is less valuable than anyone elses.... “
Including the Rapist’s life. The Left would never dream of doing to a rapist what they would cheerfully do to an unborn child.
Bill Connor wow what a good Man.
We need MORE Bill Connors to speak up.
Can anyone help me with a saying I say once but cant remember exactly how it goes...
Something like People who support the pro choice movement do so untill it is there on life at stake.
Personally, I have a Byzantine penchant for mutilation as a substitute for execution. Blinding was the Christian East Roman substitute for execution for what were capital offenses anywhere else on the planet back before the Fall of Constantinople, though in the case of rape, another mutilation springs readily to mind. (Though there is evidence to suggest that blinding might be more usefully—rape being a crime primarily of power rather than lust, the castrated rapist might turn to imprisonment and torture.)
The point was to let the criminal ‘live out his life in peace and repentence’ as one of our prayers asks for all of us—the state can punish and restrain the criminal from reoffending, not damn the sinner.
Well JMO but those of us who believe that the womb is a sacred place where God create life see things in a different light then those who view the womb as a celluar mass that a woman can control medically as she chooses.
Ya know this may sound silly but has anyone ever looked at a newborn baby and went yuk how disgusting....NO it is instinctual for all (I would hope) to see a newborn babe and say Oh How sweet/precious/beautiful....
Even if one took Gods Creation of life out of the equation it still leaves that instinct in us to woo over the beauty of a newborn babe.
If a woman doesn’t have the right to kill the offspring of a rapist, I’m not sure what rights any human has.
That certainly precludes capital punishment. How can society determine a man should die for crimes against society if a woman who WAS RAPED doesn’t have the right to KILL any little beast the larger beast who raped her created.
She is under no obligation to bear that child of a rapist, and nowhere in the Bible will you find justfication for it.
It would seem you all believe man has a ‘right’ to impregnate any female, and she can do nothing about it. That sounds like a great plan for breeding lots of little half rapists by blood. No doubt women in South Africa applaud your bravery.
I guess you all believe that women in the Gulag were required by God to bear the children of their oppressors. I guess their lot is to lay back and ‘take it.’ If a Nazi raped a woman in a concentration camp, well, God told her, don’t you dare kill that precious child of those who are trying to kill you. You just let them use your body, and your miraculous womb, to create more monsters. BRILLIANT!
If a man can kill another man in war, and God doesn’t consider that murder, then no doubt the same special rules apply to killing the offspring of a rapist.
And I am completely against abortion, even in instances where it ‘may save the mother’s life’, but sorry, I don’t consider a rapist’s life or his little monster ‘divine’ or ‘precious.’ Let God value him after we dispatch him.
Plenty of people have looked at a newborn baby in disgust. There are thousands of deathcamps operating right now, in our country alone, where the babies are held in extreme disgust. Perhaps instead of worrying about women who exercise THEIR real rights, the right of anyone to overcome their oppressor(the rapist, not a broken condom or a night of drunken sex with a stranger), you should all go down to your local baby killing factory and show some concern about the women who do it because its ‘inconvenient,’ ‘its their right to kill their children,’ etc...and leave rape victims to seek their vengeance as they may.
I guess Jews in Dachau didn’t have the ‘right’ to kill their German captors. Surely they knew life is precious?!? Even the person who poured the gas crystals.
You must all really, really wring your hands at American history. Why, what ‘right’ did we have to fight Indians? Doesn’t God love them? Funny how our ‘rights’ as defined by God often intercept quite neatly with our ‘wishes and desires’ as defined by ourselves.
What wrong did the unborn child in the mother’s womb (with half her genetic makeup) do to the mother? How did the unborn child threaten her with violence? What did the unborn child do to deserve death?
What wrong did a murderer of another person do to you?
He harmed society, in addition to the victim.
Same with rape...you rape a woman, well BY GOD, you can expect your little beast to die. Just as if you murder someone in cold blood.
To put a sharper tip on my point...
What would be wrong with a child that was ‘half-Hitler?’
What would be wrong with a child that was ‘half-Dahmer?’
What would be wrong with a child that was ‘half-Stalin?’
You tell me how you’d view those precious children, and then you tell me what wrong the beast’s child did to the woman.
We’ve clearly established that the rapist committed a crime against the woman.
I’ll ask again: what crime did the unborn child (which is the woman’s child, as well) do to its mother?
Did the unborn child attack the mother? Did the unborn child rape the mother? Did the unborn child assault the mother? What action did the unborn child take to deserve to be killed?
What a bunch of hooey.
Where to start where to start.
1. To kill another human being in self defense such a in war is not murder.
2. Why should a baby who is an individual soul die because of the sin of a Man or Woman.
I could not even read your whole post.
You sound like a humanist.
My thought would be (without any consult to the Catholic Church) is sterilize the rapists.
My reasoning is with all the loop holes that can lead to a rapist getting out of serving time it would prevent future conception.
Post 13.
Pro Life Catholic Ping.
And uh Welcome to Free Republic.
I have to take a stab at this.
I am guessing that you are 29yrs old or less.
Because the wisdom of your ideology is immature and it has to be due to age.
And I dont mean that as a personal attack....in time you will aquire new understanding on such matters.
I would have a lot more sympathy with your argument if society was willing to give the death penalty to the rapist, but we are not, are we? Let’s get the death penalty for the rapist first, and then we can talk about the poor kid, who had nothing to do with the sins of his father.
“Same with rape...you rape a woman, well BY GOD, you can expect your little beast to die. Just as if you murder someone in cold blood.”
You sound like someone who had suffered the horrors of rape and instead of placing the blame where it’s deserved (on the rapist), out of a need for vengeance you placed the blame on an innocent party (the child) and did exactly as you advocate in the above quoted.
And now you are here to justify what you did while your conscience is steadily ripping you to shreds.
Or perhaps you are a child of rape who’s parent(s) heaped vast amounts of scorn and abuse because of your very existence and now you vent much of the same invective out of self-hatred and loathing.
Have I hit the nail on all of this, or is there something else you’d care to tell us?
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