” If the embryo is simply removed from her womb intact and set aside to continue out its natural life for as long as it can, would this satisfy your concern?”
No, since that act is itself an act of killing, unless the child is old enough to survive outside the womb, and even then, it would be a crime to let the child die due to neglect.
“Yes, but Good Samaritan laws do not apply to the donation of bodily resources (blood, organs).”
No, and I didn’t mean to imply that they did. I’m simply offering that as a good example of a law where you may be obligated to subordinate your rights to the rights of another, even though the conflict arises of no fault of your own. You didn’t cause an injured person to appear on your doorstep, and you didn’t plan your day around dropping everything to help them, but it is still the just thing to do, and in some cases, the legally obligated thing to do.
“I have to say, I honestly do not see a legitimate conflict between the raped woman and the embryo. The woman, who existed first, was forcibly impregnated. The embryo is now using her organs to survive. How can the law require her to continue to allow the embryo to grow inside her, using her bodily resources and putting her body through the normal stresses and health complications that often accompany a full term pregnancy?”
The conflict is pretty simple. The child has an inherent right to life, regardless of how it got here. The woman has rights as well, which she may be impeded from exercising while she is pregnant with the child. She cannot “unimpregnate” herself in order to remove the impediment; it can only be done by killing the child, or by waiting for it to be born, or miscarried naturally. So, if the woman wants to exercise the option of killing the child, it creates a direct conflict with the child’s right to life.
“This burden can, in no way, be seen as minimally inconvenient and is a clear violation of her bodily integrity.”
The burden doesn’t have to be minimally inconvenient. It merely has to be less of a burden than deprivation of life, which pretty much every conceivable harm or burden is. I’m sure if you put the choice to the woman: carry the child to term, or we can kill YOU, she would choose to carry the child. That alone demonstrates her inconvenience or harm is less than the harm that abortion would inflict on the child.
“The reason I continue to bring up organ donation is that a law such as you propose would raise the bar so radically as to what innocent individuals in society should be expected to provide other individuals in need that it could conceivably affect all of us (and should, if we’re to have a fair application of the principle).”
I’m not proposing anything radical, in fact, I’m not proposing any new law at all. I’m simply advocating just application of a law that has been in effect, pretty much since time immemorial, in one form or another: thou shalt not kill. I’m not saying the rape victim needs to go to the OB/Gyn every week, or take all her pre-natal supplements, or get a nursery ready. Just don’t kill the baby, since we are not allowed to go around killing people because we feel like it, or because they inconvenience us. The application of that law, in this special circumstance, may be more burdensome than usual, but it isn’t anything radical or novel that could lead to the kind of legislation you are worried about.
“If a rape victim is required to help the embryo, why shouldn’t you or I be required to help the kidney patient down the street?”
No, because this isn’t about making a law requiring forced charity or aid. It’s about having your rights abridged in order to minimize the harm caused by the rights of two persons being in conflict. There is no conflict between you exercising your rights and the kidney patient exercising his.
No, the act is simply intended to remove the being currently using the woman's organs. The fact that it will die without the woman's body is unfortunate, but is not something that she can remedy without enduring an unacceptably taxing, and traditionally unrequired, physiological burden. The fact that medical technology cannot help the embryo is not the woman's fault, and can therefore not be considered neglect.
The conflict is pretty simple. The child has an inherent right to life, regardless of how it got here. The woman has rights as well, which she may be impeded from exercising while she is pregnant with the child.
This may be your view, but that has not been the tradition of this country in any other area besides pregnancy by rape. I can think of no other case where someone is, or has been, compelled by the state to provide physiological life support to a being for which they have absolutely no responsibility.
Just don’t kill the baby, since we are not allowed to go around killing people because we feel like it, or because they inconvenience us.
We are allowed to kill people when they present a direct threat to us. A forced pregnancy, created entirely without any kind of invitation, is a particularly aggressive form of physical assault (one that lasts for 9 months and could cause the woman any number of health problems). The woman is more than justified, according to our traditions of personal liberty, to have the being effectuating the assault removed from her body.
It’s about having your rights abridged in order to minimize the harm caused by the rights of two persons being in conflict.
The woman, a person with rights who existed before the embryo, is in a state of being, essentially, assaulted by the embryo. Again, the law allows use of force in cases of self-defense. If that force ends up being lethal, one is still generally justified in using it, if it is necessary to stop the assault. So, I still fail to see how your position is consistent with our traditions regarding personal liberty and rights of self-defense.