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Rape Exception: Why Do We Kill Babies Instead of Rapists?
Life News ^ | 12/28/11 | Sara Johnson

Posted on 12/28/2011 3:50:05 PM PST by wagglebee

I got into a debate with a pretty good friend about abortion the other day. She’s typically a pro-life gal, but she has adopted (no pun intended) the GOP’s ‘get out of a debate alive’ exception to the rule—that abortion is murder, unless it’s the fetus of a rape victim, then it’s just removal of lifeless tissue.

For some reason, she was completely dumbfounded that I don’t have exceptions to my pro-life stance. My argument is that I don’t need them.

As a former student at a medical college, I’ve taken the Hippocratic Oath in order to participate in clinicals. (Full disclosure: I quit that job in order to save America from idiotic ideas, much like this one.) Because of this, I know there is a “first do no harm” clause. So no, I don’t think doctors should have to let a mother die in order for their baby to live. I think that is up to the mother and her doctor—at least until Obamacare kicks in.

The mother is a patient of a particular doctor. It is that doctor’s job to be an advocate for their patient. I have the same opinion in the case of a young child who is a victim; if delivering a baby is going to do irreparable physical harm to that child, no I don’t think they should be forced to have it. They should be well aware of what that means, but it is that doctor’s job to ‘first do no harm.’ Not saving the life of a patient is first doing harm, and that’s against the oath.

Where I always get into trouble with my “politically correct” friends is in cases of rape. Yes, I am aware that the woman lost her choice in this situation. Most women know someone who has been a victim of sexual assault, (I’m one who personally knows a sexual assault victim), so I’m not devoid of feelings here. However I don’t believe killing the baby is going to make the rape victim feel any better.

Let me cut to the chase here… if we can’t kill the rapist, why can we kill the baby? The baby is innocent. The rapist is a soulless loser who is going to get out of jail in 5 years, and in many cases will repeat the act. If I’m violently attacked, raped, and end up pregnant, killing my unborn child isn’t going to make me feel any less raped and isn’t going to bring me to peace. If my rapist was getting the death penalty… I’d at least feel safer.

I’m not saying rapists should get the death penalty. Granted… I’m not, not saying it either… What I am saying is, that being pro-life, except in the instance of rape, is one of the most illogical “exceptions” to a rule I’ve ever heard.

It’s like saying “This guy has been convicted to serve a sentence of ten years in jail for murdering your brother, but we’re going put his innocent daughter in the electric chair. Feel better?” Obviously that’s not going to make anyone feel better. In fact, I’d feel guilty for the innocent victim getting the death penalty.

I think an innocent baby is about the only positive, pure thing that can come from such a terrible situation. Is it ideal? Of course not. But whether that baby goes to a different home or stays with it’s mother, it is as innocent as the victim.

Critical thinking skills America…let’s use them.

LifeNews Note: Sara Johnson writes for Misfit Politics, where this opinion column originally appeared.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abortion; moralabsolutes; prolife
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Let me cut to the chase here… if we can’t kill the rapist, why can we kill the baby? The baby is innocent.

And yet rape is the reason that abortionist ALWAYS use to excuse killing babies.

1 posted on 12/28/2011 3:50:11 PM PST by wagglebee
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To: cgk; Coleus; cpforlife.org; narses; Salvation; 8mmMauser
Pro-Life Ping
2 posted on 12/28/2011 3:51:16 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: 185JHP; 230FMJ; AKA Elena; Albion Wilde; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; Amos the Prophet; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


3 posted on 12/28/2011 3:52:32 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

Exactly. Good, great question....but.....it makes too much sense.


4 posted on 12/28/2011 3:52:53 PM PST by RC2
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To: wagglebee

Abortion is an abomination for whatever the reason.

I wonder if there is any information available
as to what percent of rapes result in pregnancy.


5 posted on 12/28/2011 3:53:42 PM PST by Repeal The 17th (We have met the enemy and he is us.)
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To: wagglebee

Thanks to the liberals, felons have rights -— unborn babies do not.


6 posted on 12/28/2011 3:55:12 PM PST by EagleUSA
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To: Repeal The 17th
There are nearly 4000 abortions EACH DAY in the United States.

There are approximately 3200 pregnancies per year as the result of rape.

Rape Statistics

7 posted on 12/28/2011 3:57:57 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Repeal The 17th

Estimates are that 5% of forcible rapes result in pregnancy. Statistically that computes to around 32,000 a year.


8 posted on 12/28/2011 3:59:05 PM PST by Burkean (.)
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To: wagglebee; BykrBayb
I have to say that the exception for rape was a very difficult issue for me to overcome. Although I have never been raped, I did know someone who was, and who was also tortured. I felt a horror for the idea of carrying the child of a rapist. I believe that I am probably not alone in that.

I am grateful for all of those who argued the point here, and who convinced me that my feelings were wrong.

Thank you wagglebee, and Bykr Bayb, and all of the others who led me in the right direction. It is my firm belief that these threads can change hearts and minds.

9 posted on 12/28/2011 4:05:09 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: wagglebee
However I don’t believe killing the baby is going to make the rape victim feel any better.

First off, that we can't kill the rapist is an error of justice, but one does fix errors by committing others.

To answer your question, why should the question be up to you? Why shouldn't it be up to the rape victim? Following the non-consensual rape, should the law force another suffering upon her, namely, to endure pregnancy and bear the child against her wishes? Then she would be raped once by the rapist, and once again by the law.

Furthermore, why should criminal rapists be rewarded with genetic offspring, particularly from unwilling mothers? Society would be better off without rapists (re: death penalty) and to the extent that any component of social malfunction is genetic, the "innocent" offspring is potentially a carrier.

10 posted on 12/28/2011 4:07:32 PM PST by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: Burkean
It's about 3200 a year, not 32,000.
11 posted on 12/28/2011 4:07:51 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: trisham
On the surface the rape exception SEEMS sensible, but when you really look at it the fallacy of it is glaring.
12 posted on 12/28/2011 4:10:46 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee
if we can’t kill the rapist, why can we kill the baby? The baby is innocent.

You're right, of course. But people on our side would be be much better off deflecting the issue. It's a political loser. You wind up not saving the 10,000 rape babies or the several million others either.

ML/NJ

13 posted on 12/28/2011 4:11:55 PM PST by ml/nj
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To: coloradan; Dr. Brian Kopp; trisham; DJ MacWoW; little jeremiah; Coleus; narses; Lesforlife; ...
To answer your question, why should the question be up to you? Why shouldn't it be up to the rape victim? Following the non-consensual rape, should the law force another suffering upon her, namely, to endure pregnancy and bear the child against her wishes? Then she would be raped once by the rapist, and once again by the law.

So, your solution is to kill the only person involved who hasn't committed any sin?

Furthermore, why should criminal rapists be rewarded with genetic offspring, particularly from unwilling mothers? Society would be better off without rapists (re: death penalty) and to the extent that any component of social malfunction is genetic, the "innocent" offspring is potentially a carrier.

So, if YOUR FATHER were to go out and rape someone or commit some other equally horrible crime would it be acceptable for society to execute YOU? After all, you are genetically linked.

14 posted on 12/28/2011 4:14:07 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: coloradan
OK, so when a guy is convicted of rape, and his kids are already born, they're carrying the same genetic material. Why not just wipe them out, to avoid passing it on? Margaret Sanger . . . paging Margaret Sanger . . . .

Reductio of course, but fact is we have no idea of nature vs. nurture, or the role of free will.

I have seen decent kids come from horrible parents. I've also seen kids who had wonderful parents and every advantage turn out to be monsters.

Claiming that we can predict what the offspring is going to be like even in any general sense is playing God.

Nothing after forcible rape is going to be perfect. Nothing is ever going to be the same. But murdering an innocent child (regardless of whose 'genetic material' it carries) is not going to fix anything. Nine months (or less) carrying a child until it can be born and adopted is not comparable to murder, which lasts forever.

And of course the real problem with an exception for rape is that everybody who wants to get rid of a baby claims she was raped.

15 posted on 12/28/2011 4:18:09 PM PST by AnAmericanMother (Ministrix of ye Chasse, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment))
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To: wagglebee
...the US Supreme Court on a recent case said that a man who committed rape could not be killed, could not be subject to the death penalty, yet the child conceived as a result of that rape could be. That to me sounds like a country that doesn't have its morals correct. That child did nothing wrong. That child is an innocent victim. To be victimized twice would be a horrible thing.

--Rick Santorum
16 posted on 12/28/2011 4:18:27 PM PST by Engraved-on-His-hands
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To: wagglebee

If I may be permitted to be a bit expansive, I think I can explain the reason some, perhaps many, opponents of abortion want to create an exception in the law on behalf of women who have been impregnated in a rape (or by incest):

The starting point is to realize that the motto “abortion is murder” is not strictly accurate. Abortion is homicide. As homicide committed on whim, for convenience, because one doesn’t want to deal with the other person, or simply because one wishes another human being dead is murder, the vast majority of abortions committed under the aegis of “choice” are murder. The question of abortion policy turns on which abortions are justifiable homicide.

To illustrate that some are, I would note that anyone who has resolved the ambiguity of what the ancient patristic and Scriptural understanding of conception (as in ‘behold a virgin shall conceive. . .’) in light of the understanding that it is not the “planting of man’s seed in the fertile soil of the womb”, but the more complex process of fertilization and implantation, by holding as the Latin church and most Orthodox bishops who have spoken on the matter do that “conception” means fertilization, is faced with the fact that ending an ectopic pregnancy in which the embryo has implanted in the woman’s fallopian tube is homicide. However, if a physician does not commit this homicide, not only with the child die later, but the woman will either die or at least need dire emergency surgery when her fallopian tube bursts. I believe any person able to reason clearly about moral matters will agree that this is a justifiable homicide.

We can then consider other cases where continuation of a pregnancy threatens the life of a the woman, threatens to cause her severe permanent disability, and the like. As Christians, we might hope and pray that God give a woman the grace to risk a martyric death or giving herself over to severe disability for the sake of her unborn child, but should the state impose this podvig (as the Slavs call a spiritual burden) on her? And are there not very rare cases in which we ought not even pray for this, as the continuation of the pregnancy would kill the woman before the child could survive a caesarian deliver?

In the case of a pregnancy engendered by rape or incest, the growth of the child is surely felt by many victims to be a continuation of the assault, a continued violation of her person. Again, as Christians, we might hope and pray that God give all such women the grace to triumph over such feelings and carry the child to term, but should the state impose this on her? Here, as in the case of abortion to remove risk of death or disability, it may be argued that such an abortion is a form of homicide akin to homicide committed in self-defense.

For my own part, I do not expect the secular law to conform perfectly to the moral teachings of the Church, and until we are a sufficiently Christian society (should God give us grace) that women who chose to bear such podvigs are supported and even held in honor for carrying children engendered by rape or incest to term, I would prefer to not see the state impose them.


17 posted on 12/28/2011 4:22:39 PM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: The_Reader_David
Ectopic pregnancies are not a good example, because the child cannot survive, let alone be carried to term.

The removal of a section of fallopian tube to prevent bursting and infection is not an abortion, and the early death of the child (who could not survive in any event) is considered an undesired consequence of the intended act (removal of the tube).

Once you get into direct abortion, purportedly to relieve "emotional trauma" you open the door wide for all sorts of claims such as "I just can't deal with this baby".

Direct abortion is direct abortion and you can't do it, no matter how justified you think you are. That's a line that shouldn't be crossed, and it has nothing to do with Christianity. Murder is murder in every culture, and until "enlightened" modern Westerners thought of a plausible excuse, aborting a child was everywhere on a par with infanticide and murder.

18 posted on 12/28/2011 4:34:28 PM PST by AnAmericanMother (Ministrix of ye Chasse, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment))
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To: coloradan; wagglebee
That leftist garbage you're spewing is what was used to get abortion laws on the books. We were told years ago that it would NEVER be used as birth control. Except...........it is.

And it's an emotional and felonious assault on human rights. Yes, babies are human beings and have the right not to be murdered for the sins of a parent.

And a rape pregnancy is rare.

Assault Rape Pregnancies Are Rare

19 posted on 12/28/2011 4:37:56 PM PST by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are here! What will you do?)
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To: wagglebee
So, your solution is to kill the only person involved who hasn't committed any sin?

Has the woman who was raped committed a sin by “allowing” herself to be raped? I don’t think that’s what you mean. At least I hope it isn’t.

20 posted on 12/28/2011 4:42:15 PM PST by MD Expat in PA
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