Posted on 09/09/2009 5:42:49 PM PDT by Dan Middleton
My life is proof that something good can come from something so terrible. And I don't regret my last minute change of heart one bit.
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You cant reason with people who base their ethics on the situation. Yes carrying a baby that is the result of rape would be hard. Abortion would be worse than that. No matter what a baby is a baby and should be cherished not ripped apart in their mother’s womb.
We’re not going to see eye to eye on this. But make no mistake, forcing a young woman, by the state, to carry the product of an act of violence to term is telling her she HAS no rights. She didn’t ask, nor willfully engage, in behavior that would bring about mutual consent for the creation of a child. You’ve already decided that a fetus that hasn’t reached viability has more rights than an adult woman, who remains at the mercy of her rapist’s actions for at least the next 9 months. I cannot fathom how wrong that is (even if your intentions towards the unborn are honorable). And when I speak of equal, I’m talking equal rights under the law. Men and women are different, but basic rights, and victims rights, should be clear-cut and not unequal. If men could carry children, you better believe they’d have a rape/incest clause.
I am sorry for your loss of your unborn child. As I’ve stated, there is no good outcome in any of this, but if you can convince a woman — willing — not to terminate at the start, go right ahead, kind persuasion isn’t coercion, but I cannot, in this instance, give a wholesale endorsement to the state dictating a woman remain a victim of a crime she did not consent to for 9 months. I put myself in a young woman’s shoes, and my response is, I’d want that reminder of violence, of violation, out of me at once. She needs to decide what is right for her as a victim of crime and not have the state dictate to her what she will do, making her cease to be a free citizen. Totalitarianism is never right, even when done in the righteous cause of morality.
I am assuming Oprah aborted the baby?
Every situation we encounter requires a decision to be made, and hopefully it is the best one that can be made on the basis of ethics and morality. Unfortunately, this is a subject with which several conflicting moral questions converge that, despite what we say, have no clear-cut superior solution (or really just degrees of bad and having to make the best of a horrible situation). It is an issue of life, you are right, but I am right when it is an issue of victims rights of a female citizen and coercion by the state (however well meaning). Maybe at some point in the near future, innocent women will be able, by whatever means, to prevent a pregnancy via such a vile act, rendering abortion in this case moot. Let’s hope that happens as soon as possible.
I can see that we aren’t going to agree. A pregnancy is a natural thing that happens not something forced by the state. What the state has done is INFRINGE on the right of the child to life by allowing the mother to kill her child in the womb.
Why do you oppose unlimited access to abortion? And you still haven’t answered the argument about the continued violence against the woman’s body, to her emotions, and to her unborn child. You seem to think that abortion will cure her of the rape. This couldn’t be further from the truth. If abortion were illegal, the woman would still have rights. She wouldn’t and shouldn’t have the right to KILL her child. She would have the right to give the child up for adoption or keep the child. She would have the right to justice under the law against her attacker. She would have the right to receive medical care and counseling. You think because she can’t KILL her baby that she has no right. Do you oppose abortion because it is wrong? Do you oppose abortion because it is the taking of an innocent life? If those are your reasons, then rape doesn’t negate those reasons. If it is wrong, it is wrong. You don’t seem to have a very sure foundation for your ethical standards. AGAIN, abortion is MORE VIOLENCE FOR THE WOMAN. IT WILL DO MORE HARM TO THE WOMAN not to mention the violence and death to her child.
The state is not forcing her to carry the baby, the state is protecting the life of the baby.
You have bought into the pro-abort’s lie to women that once they have the abortion it will solve their problems. That once the baby is removed they can get on with their lives as if none of it happened. That it will bring them “closure”.
It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t solve their problem, it exacerbates it.
Well said. I am too tired and wordy too get my point across this efficiently. And I use too incorrectly.
“I put myself in a young woman’s shoes, and my response is, I’d want that reminder of violence, of violation, out of me at once. She needs to decide what is right for her as a victim of crime and not have the state dictate to her what she will do, making her cease to be a free citizen. Totalitarianism is never right, even when done in the righteous cause of morality.”
So if a woman is raped in a shopping mall, does she have the right to burn it down so she doesn’t have a reminder of the violence that happened to her? If you say no, why not? The government should not be able to dictate to her what she will do, or she will cease to be a free citizen! Oh, the shopping mall isn’t hers to do with as she pleases is it. Someone might get hurt if she burns down the shopping mall. Well I guess she can have her abortion because it is HER body and noone is getting hurt. Right? Oh wait, she isn’t aborting herself. The baby inside her ISN’T her body. It is a unique and SEPERATE human being. SHE DOESN’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO DESTROY THAT BABY. It may be legal but it isn’t a God given right as described by our Constitution.
I don’t question either of your commitments to the pro-life cause, but I’ve already stated my position many times, and the other point, for which both of you either refuse to see, or worse, find acceptable, that the state would forceably prevent a crime victim from any action other than carrying her rapist’s spawn to full term. That neither of you sees that a state-imposed totalitarian action to impose your personal view of morality in this action, infringing on the rights of a victim, is wrong is deeply troubling.
And for the other point, do I believe termination “solves the problem” ? It solves the punishment of carrying your rapist’s crime to term. Is it a wonderful solution ? Nope, it’s terrible. But the only thing more terrible is telling the victim, a woman, that she hasn’t the right - when she hasn’t done anything wrong to get herself in such a predicament - to decide for herself what to do.
We argue as Conservatives about individual freedom, and you take that away when you put the rights of criminal sperm ahead of a female citizen. And there’s nothing more for me to add here (other than, again, to reemphasize I oppose Roe, I think it was a horrible decision, and that abortions borne of convenience when no criminal behavior resulted in pregnancy, are utterly inexcusable).
Exactly.
Once again you’re using same old pro-abort argument of “imposing your morality on others.”
Protecting the baby’s life in this instance is not any more “imposing my personal view of morality” on her than protection the baby’s life in the instance where she wasn’t raped and wants the abortion would be “imposing my personal view of morality” oh her.
All laws exist to impose society’s view of morality on people. We punish murder because we believe murder is morally wrong, we punish theft because we believe thievery is morally wrong. etc.
In order to never impose morality on people we’d have to get rid of all laws.
In the end, you think asking a woman to carry the baby for 9 month even if she doesn’t want to is worse than allowing her to kill the baby. I don’t, I think killing a baby is worse, much worse.
You’re arguing with a pro-lifer, just so you know, and I will reiterate, again, that I do not heartily endorse abortion under any means, only to retain the right - for a human female victim - under this circumstance - in the immediate aftermath of the crime. You still refuse to acknowledge you’re endorsing using coercive state means to force a victim to do what YOU want them to do, not what is necessarily best for their own physical and psychological well-being, and putting rapist’s sperm ahead of a fully developed human being. Now, if she were seeking to get rid of a VIABLE fetus, months into gestation, you’d have a different response from me, because it has gone too far, but a clump of cells hours after the crime with some acting as if you’re butchering a fully-developed infant is patently ludicrous.
How will we get substantial pro-life legislation passed (and the execrable Roe overturned) if some of you insist on ramming a non-negotiable, under-no-circumstances poison pill into it that the bulk of the public will simply not support, let alone legislators ? You guys give the radical abortionists ammo here by making the rights of a crime victim secondary or without importance at all, don’t you see that ?
You can call yourself a “pro-lifer” all your want. But all your tactics are out of the pro-abort’s playbook.
I am not asking the government to coerce anyone to do anything, I am asking the government to protect the life of a human being.
Calling a developing human being “the rapist sperm” is really typical of what all the pro-aborts do, denigrate the value of the baby by pretending it’s not a human being, just a clump of cells or a sperm.
Well, it’s neither, it’s a human being. Whom you think it’s okay to kill. I don’t. Even in difficult circumstances.
Does that mean that if a comprise were to be made where abortion is outlawed with the rape exception, would I be in favor of it over the status quo? Of course. That would represent a major victory for the pro-life cause. Political compromises are sometimes made for the greater good. But I will never compromise the principle. If a woman who was raped have an abortion, it is still murder, and it is still wrong.
I don’t call myself a pro-lifer, I am one. I do not think it’s OK to kill a fetus, only that you have no right to deprive the victim of rape/incest an option not to proceed with carrying the act of violence to term. It is a sad and tragic thing, but in a society that values rights and dignity, until such time as we can develop a method where females are immune to pregnancy under such conditions until they so choose of their own accord to become pregnant, this has to be legally an option.
I still remain deeply troubled that your and Christianmom’s arguments don’t stop to fully consider the grown human woman victim’s rights, and that they not continue to be a victim of an act of violence, which you insist they must be while claiming otherwise. And coercive state tactics is what you’re endorsing here, in the name of morality, and protecting a clump of cells in the wake of the crime, and reducing, indeed, sentencing a rape victim to a forced babymaker for a criminal for 9 months.
You don’t like the language, but that is what you’re endorsing here. I don’t think, frankly, it’s too far afield from the anti-gun rights people who would deprive innocent citizenry from defending themselves against criminals. They’re “life”, and shooting them would be murder, too (and that, well, you should just die or be crippled so as not to cause harm to them). Well, I’m sorry, but forget that.
Despite my hesistation about wading in, I still think this thread provided us with a valuable discussion as to what is too far to go in the name of the pro-life movement, and using/endorsing coercive methods by the state in order to achieve said moral goals is very wrong, especially against grown human females who are victims. Being immoral in the pursuit of morality is not very respectable (see Zero trying to shove his health scare plan down our throats all in the name of utopian morality - coercion by the state against people of free will). The pro-aborts will rightly get away with tagging you as extremists that care nothing for female crime victims and your reducing them to second-class/non-entity status below that of a clump of cells that may (or may not) reach viability. And all the time you attack my position, refusing to see my point (and I have seen yours, yes, abortion is wrong - we know that it is), you also refuse to see that I want Roe overturned and virtually all other abortions outlawed (where two persons willingly participated - free will). Let’s work for that.
Believe me, I see your position, I just don’t agree with it.
Your fundamental problem is that you refuse to see the baby as just that, a baby, a human being with an unalienable right to life..
You seem to think it’s always about the parents. About holding them responsible. If they got pregnant voluntarily, then the have a duty to stick with it, if they didn’t, then they don’t.
I’m telling you that all fine and good, but the reason I oppose abortion is not because I want people to be responsible, it’s because I don’t want babies to be murdered.
And your analogy with the the self defense argument is downright laughable. The baby is not harming the woman. The baby is not perpetrating an attack on the woman, self defense only applies to situation where a person is being attacked. Harming some innocent third party is not self defense.
I don’t like the language because it’s the language of the pro-aborts. You’re using the exactly same defense that they use to defend all the other abortions. What if they had sex voluntarily, and she got pregnant, but a week later he raper her. Would it be okay for her to abort also? After all, aren’t you still forcing her to deal with a pregnancy with a rapist? Would that still be her rapist’s baby that’s in her body. Wouldn’t she still suffer constant mental anguish of being reminded of the crime perpetrated on her? What if he didn’t rape her, he just humiliated her and dumped her? What if he just beat her up real bad. Why should she carry the baby that’s going to bring all that up again.
You call yourself a pro-lifer, but you fail the first rule of being one, that of recognizing that the baby having an unalienable right to life. If the baby doesn’t have that right to life. Then abortion is fine under all kinds of circumstances, why leave it only at rape, why not make it available for whatever reason. But if the baby does have that right, then all the other stuff don’t matter.
So tell me, does that baby have the unalienable right to life, or not?
It is life, but a small clump of cells is not equal to a full-grown adult. That's where you start losing the argument, and I've had such an argument with the pro-abort types. When it reaches closer to the point of viability, hence the stopping of a beating heart, than the argument carries weight.
"You seem to think it’s always about the parents. About holding them responsible. If they got pregnant voluntarily, then the have a duty to stick with it, if they didn’t, then they don’t."
The subject of this thread/discussion is the victim of the rape.
"I’m telling you that all fine and good, but the reason I oppose abortion is not because I want people to be responsible, it’s because I don’t want babies to be murdered."
Nobody except evil people militantly exploiting the cause and abortionist butchers like Killer Tiller want that, but the question remains, what length will you go to to ensure it doesn't happen, even in the case of rape victims ?
"And your analogy with the the self defense argument is downright laughable."
Nonsense. Laughable was the ludicrous argument about the location of the rape, which I didn't respond to because of its absurdity.
"The baby is not harming the woman. The baby is not perpetrating an attack on the woman, self defense only applies to situation where a person is being attacked. Harming some innocent third party is not self defense."
A rape victim ? That's awfully presumptive on your part. I already told you I know someone who was very close to me who came within an inch of being raped by her own father. If she had been impregnated and couldn't terminate at once, she'd have killed herself. The rapist's "deposit" can be extraordinarily psychologically harmful to women. You want to make the argument that terminating is, too, you can, but don't say it doesn't cut both ways. When you've been raped, and it doesn't bother you carrying the produce of it to term, then you can claim otherwise, but even then, you'd only be speaking to yourself. I only know I would want it out of me immediately. To even be reminded of that, to wake up every day knowing what's in me would probably make me want to harm myself in order to get it out. You're not taking that into account, at all.
"I don’t like the language because it’s the language of the pro-aborts. You’re using the exactly same defense that they use to defend all the other abortions. What if they had sex voluntarily, and she got pregnant, but a week later he raper her."
That's not a product of rape. And I'm talking about termination within a day of the act, not weeks nor months later, when the horse is out of the proverbial barn. When it's viable, it's murder.
"You call yourself a pro-lifer, but you fail the first rule of being one, that of recognizing that the baby having an unalienable right to life. Then abortion is fine under all kinds of circumstances, why leave it only at rape, why not make it available for whatever reason. But if the baby does have that right, then all the other stuff don’t matter."
Then by your definition, a large majority of pro-lifers aren't, because they cannot defend the wrongness of state coercion against a crime victim, which you continuously ignore. So you can call yourself 100% pro-life, but you're also, by that definition, fully approving of fascist-statist, big government tactics, to ensure female crime victims have ZERO rights, all to ensure they will and MUST carry the genetic material of a criminal to full term.
"So tell me, does that baby have the unalienable right to life, or not?"
A viable fetus under ALL circumstances, yes. But a clump of cells trumping the rights of a victim of rape ? No. You want to talk her out of termination ? Go ahead. But you cannot reduce a victim's right to nothing, to being a second-class citizen, at the mercy of the state, a totalitarian state that doesn't give a damn about their person beyond it being a vehicle to grow a baby without considering the harm it could cause it. This is a victim's rights issue, too, and you won't recognize that. But I've made my case, you won't change my position here, and I'm sorry you won't comprehend why I take it, and why you won't see that my admonishing your stridence here is going to cost the movement substantially, because you insist on putting cells before the victim. A clump of cells is not worth more than me, and is not worth more than you, and is certainly not equal to. As it develops to viability, its worth and value increase to the level of full-blown humanity, otherwise it is merely a work in progress, that may or may not become fully human, if it survives to that point. Do I hope they do ? Yes. Do I wish nobody would abort, including rape/incest victims ? Yes. Just because I wish to preserve the right of a victim doesn't mean I militantly tell them to terminate each and every pregnancy, only that I have no right to tell a victim what they MUST do by force of the state. Period.
Ahh, the old “viability” canard that the pro-aborts love to bring up.
Really, you’ve hit them all tonight, from “not viable” , to “clump to cells”, to “father’s sperm”, to “stop imposing your morality on me” to “keep your fascist laws off my body”, you sure you’re not getting this off the NOW website?
Viability is one of the most flawed arguments.
A fetus is 100% viable, when left alone. A fetus is only “not viable” when it is forcibly removed from the environment it is designed to be in that stage of its human existence. Which makes it no different from you or me, if I took you out of the environment that you’re meant to be viable in at your current stage of existence, which is normal atmosphere. And forcibly stuffed you in a vat filled with liquid, which is what the fetus’ environment is like, you’d drown and die. Does that mean you’re “not viable”? And therefore you’re not really a person entitled to full human rights because once removed from the current environment and put into another you’re not capable of surviving?
See how absurd that is?
Anyway, we were discussing the rights of a rape victim, the central subject, and you wish to discuss anything but that to shore up your desire to use totalitarian tactics against women victims of rape/incest in order to enforce your viewpoint, and fire some cheap shots on top of it. So our discussion is concluded.
rapist’s spawn, rights of the criminals sperm? If that is what you think of an unborn baby no matter how they came to be, then you have more problems than an argument about intrusive government.
Abortion is wrong, evil, and horrible every time. It harms the woman every time. It is almost always fatal for the baby. If the baby does survive, they are left to die.
A WOMAN HAS NO FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO ABORTION. Therefore no one is infringing upon her rights. However, humans DO have a fundamental right to LIFE.
The state is not punishing her (if they didn’t allow abortion), they are protecting the baby’s right to LIFE. ABORTION IS MURDER OF AN INNOCENT LIFE. People who argue that abortion is wrong except in the case of rape are not being consistent.
Carrying a baby isn’t a punishment. It is a natural consequence of the horrible thing that happened to her. The baby isn’t a horrible thing, the rape is. So you think the state should infringe on the right that the baby has to LIFE so that the mother can “be rid of the rapist’s spawn”. Why does this particular baby NOT have a right to Life but every other baby does? You never answered my question. Why do you oppose abortion?
Is it totalitarian to have a law against murder? Abortion is murder. A baby is a human from the time of conception, it doesn’t magically happen later. So being consistent that murder is wrong, then abortion for any reason is wrong.
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