Abortion: A moral quagmire

Yes, I think by law anti-abortionists should be required to adopt any crack baby or rapist's baby if that is there won't be abortions. I would only be willing to abolish abortion if a national registry of opinion were to be established. Anyone in favor if its abolition would be required by law to adopt any kid the state puts at their doorstep. If you refuse you are either fined or sent to prison. If you are going to burden society with your opinion you should have to pay dearly out of your pocket for it.

You're dealing in shibboleths, not realities.

First, why do you lump crack babies with babies conceived through rape? The rape is indisputably a crime committed against the mother; doing crack is a woman's volitional choice.

Second, you don't need the coercive force of law. There are more adoptive parents than there are babies to adopt. If you go to ParentProfiles.com, for example, you can find parent profiles of couples who are specifically willing to adopt children conceived through rape. When Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Wilke wrote their book Why Can't We Love Them Both? in 1999, there were about two million couples waiting to adopt.

SoothingDave is right in calling your bluff. The specter you raise of a glut of unadopted children is baseless.

I could honestly not blame a man for killing every member of a jury that had his wife executed for aborting a baby that resulted from rape or incest.

She took an innocent life. Should she be free to kill any other children the rapist may have? Does where they are in the growth cycle matter?

Doing the right thing is rarely easy, comfortable or even without great pain. The right thing is still the right thing.

In any case I doubt it would ever become a death penalty case as she, it would be argued, was under severe emotional stress at the time.

a.cricket

Doing the right thing is rarely easy, comfortable or even without great pain. The right thing is still the right thing.

In their bookWhy Can't We Love Them Both?, Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Willke address the truth you cited:

She had a problem. Abortion permanently removes the problem. Or is there emotional aftermath?

In recent years it has become clear that these women can and do suffer from Post-Abortion Syndrome. When PAS does develop, a woman, so affected, can carry the same burdens of guilt, denial and depression that a woman who aborted a "love" baby often does. Why is this? At least two dynamics seem obvious. Remember that the rape was done to her. She was not responsible. She was the innocent victim and should bear no guilt. But, by contrast, the abortion will be done by her. She agreed to it. She was a volitional participant in a second act of violence: the killing of her own unborn child. And it is her own unborn child. This is the other inescapable fact of biology that probably is a factor in the development of PAS. The newly-conceived baby is certainly the "rapist’s child," but he or she is also her child, for half of the new baby’s genetic material came from her. She may try, but, inside of her, she cannot deny this biologic reality, however unwillingly it happened and however upsetting it may be. And so, to kill this little one by abortion is to participate in a violent, lethal act that destroys a baby who is partly her own flesh and blood. In loving charity, we should never remind her of this. But we don’t have to, for she knows it instinctively and all of her maternal feelings may well rebel when faced with being a part of this killing.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.