Posted on 02/26/2003 1:04:55 PM PST by Remedy
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The child even though it's inocent, does not have a right to live in her body for the next 9 months. Sad for the child, but that't the correct answer.<<<The Moral Question of Abortion First, the child is not an intruder. He is precisely where he should be, in the place appropriate to the first phase of his life. That an argument comparing a woman's own child to a burglar or other intruder is even put forward is significant for what it reveals about the mentality of its proponents. That a woman looks upon her own child as a burglar or an intruder is already an evil, even if she then refrains from killing her. Imagine the mother of a born child looking upon her as an intruder in her house, being in the way, restricting her freedom. We would perceive this as a terrible selfishness. It is the same thing when the child is smaller, and in "her house" in another, more intimate sense, her own body.
What is forgotten in this mentality is the great gift and privilege of being a mother, the gift of being allowed to nurture a new human person. Also forgotten is the deep responsibility we have to each other, as members of the human community. This applies not only to helping a neighbor in need, and other obligations we have to born persons; it also involves our obligation to our own children. The woman who now looks upon her child, in her own womb, as an intruder, was once herself such a child in the womb. She would not have wanted to be looked upon as an intruder by her mother. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
The woman has the right to be on this earth, in a place appropriate for her. In exactly the same way, the child in her womb has the right to be on this earth, in a place appropriate for her, for her protection, nourishment and development. So, contrary to Thomson, the child does have a right to be in the womb, as Thomson herself had this right when she was in the preborn stage of her existence. Thus the analogy to a burglar, or stumbling intruder, breaks down; and with it any argument that tries to justify expelling the child from the womb as if she were an intruder.10
Second, even if the child were an intruder, that would justify only her removal from the woman, not killing her. As already noted, I cannot throw an intruder out if this means killing him by throwing him off a cliff. And that is of course what abortion is: killing the child. Abortion is wrong because it is so much more than a mere removal. It means cutting the child to pieces, burning her skin, etc. Who would do such a thing to a born person who was an intruder?
State Homicide Laws That Recognize Unborn Victims
Homicide Based on the Killing of an Unborn Child -- In this essay, Alan Wasserstrom surveys the history of laws which prosecute feticide--the destruction of a human fetus--as homicide.
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If you don't support abortions to save the life of the mother, you must.<<<The Moral Question of Abortion The Health and Life of the Woman
Is abortion justified when it is deemed necessary for preserving the health or life of the woman? Cases where the woman's health or life is threatened by pregnancy are now extremely rare, perhaps so rare as to be virtually non-existent. For example:
According to one obstetrician, "After many years' work in several large gynecological hospitals, I have never yet seen a woman's life in danger, necessitating abortion." In contrast, he adds, "I have seen two extremely sick women offered abortions because of serious heart-lung disease: both refused, and both delivered normal children, normally... Similarly, Dr. David Decker of the Mayo Clinic states that there are "few, if any, absolute medical indications for the therapeutic abortion in the present state of medicine."58
To evaluate such cases, I suggest the following three principles. The first two have already been noted.
When a woman is pregnant, her obstetrician takes on the care of two patients - the mother-to-be and the unborn baby. If, toward the end of the pregnancy, complications arise that threaten the mother's health, he will take the child by inducing labor or performing a Caesarean section.
His intention is still to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby will be premature and perhaps immature depending on the length of gestation. Because it has suddenly been taken out of the protective womb, it may encounter threats to its survival. The baby is never willfully destroyed because the mother's life is in danger.59
One person is saved, the other person would be saved if that were possible. So, one saves one person and regretfully fails to save the other. The other is not killed. To apply a medical procedure to person A instead of to B - where both need it to survive but where it can be given only to one - is to save A, and to unwillingly withhold treatment from B. Unwillingly withholding treatment, in such a situation, differs sharply from doing something that kills. So, if it is the child who is to be saved, treatment is unwillingly withheld from the woman, but she is not killed. Conversely, if it is the woman who is to be saved, treatment is unwillingly withheld from the child, but he is not killed. No abortion is performed. To withhold treatment from the child - because it cannot be given both to him and to the woman, and the woman is selected instead - is not to abort the child.
If two people are bitten by a poisonous snake and I have an antidote serum for one but not for the other, I give it to one and withhold it from the other. I regretfully cannot save him but must let him die. I have not killed him. So too with the mother and child.
Difficult situations failing under these principles typically involve removal of the child. What kinds of "removal" are justified, and what kinds are not?
Removal, to be justified, must be genuine removal. It cannot be a de facto killing, which is then labeled "removal."
It is extremely important to be clear about these matters, specifically the three principles and the justified and unjustified forms of removal. The failure to be clear on these things accounts for the fact that a large majority of people who see the wrongness of abortion for all the reasons indicated here, nevertheless want to make an exception for the life of the woman. They fail to distinguish clearly between justified removals - where no one's death is intended - and abortion, which is intentional killing. Or they fail to see that not saving the child - because both cannot be saved, and one tries to save the woman - is radically different from killing the child by abortion. If one wants to save the woman (instead of the child), and one is not clear about these things, confusing them with abortion, one is likely to consider these procedures forms of abortion, and thus to favor abortion when necessary to save the life of the woman.
The view defended here is not, as so often charged, an extreme view. It is simply the result of a careful analysis of such cases by applying the two basic principles that all persons are to count equally, and that we may not kill one innocent person to save the life of another.
Abortion for rape is wrong because it destroys the innocent child. It is also wrong because it is an assault on the woman. It poses grave risks of harm to her, psychologically, physically, for possible future pregnancies, even for her life. Women are the second victims of abortion, in addition to their murdered babies. What is needed is a positive approach, of true understanding, loving support, and counseling. Abortion is not a solution to the problem of rape - it destroys one person and poses grave dangers for another.
The Deep Connection
Abortion is wrong because it is the destruction of a child. It is wrong because it is an assault on a woman. There is a deep connection between these two. The woman and the child, though absolutely distinct as individual persons, are nonetheless intimately joined together, not only physically but in a meaningful personal way. The child is entrusted to her, sheltered and secured in her being. She carries the child in herself Abortion is a violent attack on this intimate union. The child is forcibly ripped out, against his instinctive clinging to remain in his secure resting place. In this way, abortion is also an attack on the woman. Such an attack is bound to take its toll, physically and psychologically. That abortion is bad for women is what we should expect; it would be strange if it were not so. When it seems not to be, when women say they are better off having had an abortion, one wonders whether this optimism does not mask a deeper hidden wound. Sometimes they realize it later, as Nancyjo Mann did: "The abortion killed not only my daughter; it killed a part of me."38
Dan
Biblical Christianity web site
I would never give a genetic edge to the strategy of rape.
I agree with you 100%. My best friend in high school was raped and was luckily not pregnant afterward, but to see the anguish she went through for a year anyway, and the immediate aftereffects of feeling absolutely soiled and violated by a filthy predator, hardens my opinion on this one. I would not want to carry in my body anything that came from a violent criminal. Staunch pro life folks will probably call that selfish, and on some level it is.
As for the people in the support group because of their origins, my heart goes out to them and I am happy that they have persevered in life, but I think that they NEVER should have been told the circumstances of their birth.
Over the years, I have become moderately pro-life (thanks to FR). But even in my most fierce pro-choice days, I felt that pro-lifers making exceptions for rape or incest was intellectually dishonest.
I think that the child/fetus is blameless and innocent. All pro-life arguments hang on the fact that the child is a person in its own right, and deserves to live, regardless of the inconvenience to the mother. So as to rape, it is probably the worst inconvenience... to have a baby that you don't want growing in you. But it is only a difference of degree. The baby is still innocent.
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however I find it disingenuous to make a differentiation between abortion and "removal". Both of them are homicide, the killing of a human being and should be treated as such.This is a second request to answer POST#38.
In addition:
Biblically, abortion is murder/(homicide #3).
Your view on abortion appears to be a mixture of ROE/feminist propaganda & Biblical reasoning.
You seem to have a problem with definitions &/or the distinctions made, described and explained in post#42. Post#42
It is extremely important to be clear about these matters, specifically the three principles and the justified and unjustified forms of removal. The failure to be clear on these things accounts for the fact that a large majority of people who see the wrongness of abortion for all the reasons indicated here, nevertheless want to make an exception for the life of the woman. They fail to distinguish clearly between justified removals - where no one's death is intended - and abortion, which is intentional killing. Or they fail to see that not saving the child - because both cannot be saved, and one tries to save the woman - is radically different from killing the child by abortion. If one wants to save the woman (instead of the child), and one is not clear about these things, confusing them with abortion, one is likely to consider these procedures forms of abortion, and thus to favor abortion when necessary to save the life of the woman.
Kill - To cause death or extinction; be fatal.
murder - The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.
homicide
1. justifiable, as when the killing is performed in the exercise of a right or performance of a duty;
2. excusable, as when done, although not as duty or right, yet without culpable or criminal intent
3. felonious, or involving what the law terms malice; the latter may be either manslaughter or murder.
Constitutional Persons:An Exchange on Abortion Roe had nothing whatever to do with constitutional interpretation. The utter emptiness of the opinion has been demonstrated time and again, but that, too, is irrelevant. The decision and its later reaffirmations simply enforce the cultural prejudices of a particular class in American society, nothing more and nothing less. For that reason, Roe is impervious to logical or historical argument; it is what some people, including a majority of the Justices, want, and that is that.
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There are also situations where, as in any homicide case, self defense can be a factor<<<Apparently, you disagree with Patriotic1
Thanks for a more contentful answer. But it still isn't "there."
I agree, and it is a good point that EVEN IF all abortion but for rape, incest, and imminent threat to the life of the mother were eliminated, the vast majority of abortions would be eliminated. That why, though I don't ideologically agree with people of that position, I can work with them.
But you still think that a baby conceived by rape can be killed. Your position is that both the baby and its mother are human beings (you're right). And so, I'll slightly re-focus my question:
If a woman pregant by rape (but not in imminent danger of death through the pregnancy) wants to have her child killed, why not kill them both?
Try to explain your position, please. If it makes you feel better to call me names again first, make yourself happy.
But please try to answer the question.
Feel free, after answering, to ask me the same. I'll give you a real answer.
Dan
This is not the Old Testament, I emphasize, but St. Paul. One can understand his words as referring only to lawfully constituted authority, or even only to lawfully constituted authority that rules justly. But the core of his message is that government—however you want to limit that concept—derives its moral authority from God. It is the "minister of God" with powers to "revenge," to "execute wrath," including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty). Paul of course did not believe that the individual possessed any such powers. Only a few lines before this passage, he wrote, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." And in this world the Lord repaid—did justice—through His minister, the state.
Your position is fatally flawed at several points. I suppose I'll stick with perhaps the largest and most obvious.
You oppose the death penalty — except in the case of one of the rape victims.
A rapist does his crime. He always leaves at least one victim. If a pregnancy results, he has let two victims.
In your scenario, one victim is allowed to carry out the death penalty on the other victim. This is why I asked you if you thought we shouldn't go ahead and kill them both.
So you solve what you perceive as a problem by permitting one victim to victimize the other victim. But I ask Why? Why that victim, and not the other?
The baby no more asked to be conceived than the woman asked to be raped. The baby no more deserves to be punished than the woman deserves to be punished.
You yourself ruled out cases where the baby poses an imminent physical risk to the mother. So it is actually the mother, in your scenario, who is the attacker; and the baby is sheerly a victim — once by his father, and now again by his mother. Poor kid!
This would seem to be your way of rationalizing killing.
I say embrace both victims with compassion. I say care about them both. I say protect them both. I say neither victim is really helped by being turned into a vitimizer.
Dan
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