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To: FourtySeven
"does not address any case where a woman is raped, and pregancy is the result"

You seem to be accepting the idea that two wrongs can make a right.

While the woman whom is raped is certainly a victim in the proper sense, the taking of a life cannot negate the initial act, but only introduces a second victim to the chain, thus worsening the over-all result.

23 posted on 11/13/2001 2:43:30 PM PST by editor-surveyor
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To: editor-surveyor
While the woman whom is raped is certainly a victim in the proper sense, the taking of a life cannot negate the initial act, but only introduces a second victim to the chain, thus worsening the over-all result.

This is very true. Abortion due to rape is morally wrong and destructive to all parties. But, I do believe that a raped pregnant woman should have a right to an "intact abortion", where the baby is removed from the mother alive and allowed to attempt survival if possible, as was mentioned in the article. I take this position because I believe no one should be forced to provide for another person for whom they bear no responsibilty. If she voluntarily had sex, and a pregnancy occured, then she and the father are responsible for the child that was conceived. But in the case of rape, there can be no question that she bears no responsibilty for the child that is conceived, however innocent that child is. It would be morally wrong for her to abort it, of course, precisely because the child is innocent. But, in this case, I think the "violinist" analogy works pretty well.

But, of course, none of this philosophising about when abortion should be legal, and when it shouldn't be, matters one iota to the central issue - that being that abortion is a phenomenon that goes beyond the capability of governments to control by simple restrictions. Abortion of early term babies is extremely easy to accomplish, and as long as the culture accepts it as a morally legitimate practice, it will continue to occur. Some of the highest abortion rates in the world belong to countries where abortion is entirely illegal. A cultural pathology requires a culturally based cure. Only once these pragmatic solutions have produced results should bans and restrictions be enacted, but even then only as symbolic confirmations of the society's improved moral condition.

So while we waste time and energy debating when abortion is a right, and when it's not, the masses, who never concern themselves with philosophical issues to begin with, continue to abort millions of babies without any concern for subjective conceptions of "unalienable rights."

29 posted on 11/13/2001 9:18:00 PM PST by helmsman
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