The rape exception for abortion prohibition.

[Arkady]

Setting aside the disgusting right-wing rhetoric that brought this issue to the forefront, I'd like to say that I have a strange sort of sympathy for the abortion hard-liners who wouldn't allow women to terminate pregnancies even if raped. My grandfather was one of those hard-liners, and one of the few political things we could agree on is that it was intellectually inconsistent to think it was OK for the government to ban abortion, but not to do so in the case of rape.

Here's a thought experiment. A woman is in a coma, in a hospital for a few weeks, then recovers. A few weeks after that, she finds out she's pregnant, presumably by her husband, with whom she had sex after coming home from the hospital. Nine months later she has the baby. However, around the time her baby reaches grade school, it starts to look very distinctly different from her husband, and she grows suspicious and has a genetic test run. The test shows the child isn't his, and so the only possibility is that she was raped while she was in a coma. Should the government let her kill the child?

I think we can all agree that as horrible a thing as this is for the woman, it doesn't touch the child's own individual moral right to life in any way. Well, in the same sense if a fetus has its own individual moral right to life, how can its conception as a product of rape touch that right?

The only way to justify a rule against allowing abortion is if the fetus has a moral right to life (since any lesser justification simply could not stand up to the woman's moral right to control her own body in such a fundamental manner). So, if it has that right, then it's a right that persists regardless of conception circumstances. And if it doesn't have that right, then the woman should have the right to an abortion without the government needing to know why she doesn't want to continue the pregnancy. I can't see any consistent middle ground between those two positions. Either way, rape is not a factor.

That leads me to what I view as the only intellectually rigorous way of looking at the abortion question. It should be about determining whether a particular fetus has that key "something" that gives adult human beings (but not, say, human sperm cells, or human tumors, or other animals) an inviolable right to continue their lives. I can take seriously any abortion argument that starts from that perspective, but when they start from somewhere else, they miss the point completely, for me.

So, for example, it's not enough to point out that a fetus can some day become a full-grown human. So can a sperm and egg.... or, in fact, any human tissues, thanks to the science of cloning. Potential is not enough to create a right to life. It must be something inherent in the thing at the moment, which makes its life sacrosanct, not the mere potential for it to have that "something" at some later point.

 

[OldGaffer]

My thinking is that the woman and her Doctor have final and only right to make any decision regarding pregnancy. The rest of us need to stay out of it.

 

[NightSwimmer]

You're right, of course. If someone's opposition to legal abortion is based upon a religious belief in the presence of an immortal soul within a fertilized ovum, then the circumstances under which the fertilization of said ovum occurred should be irrelevant.

 

[GordonGecko]

Politically, it's unpalpable for 'pro-lifers" to say "No abortions...ever...even your own father rapes you and gets you pregnant."

In part because it even works against the RIGHT....think about it. Some of our local "Birthers"...how would they feel if the GOP ran the show and told them that if their daughter was raped by a BLACK guy....she couldn't get an abortion?

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

In my view, forcing a woman who has been impregnated as a result of a rape, to carry the rapist's child to term, is tantamount to a second rape, carried out over a period of nine months.

I think HER rights supercede any presumed rights of the hypothetical immortal soul of the fetus.

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

Politically, it's unpalpable for 'pro-lifers" to say "No abortions...ever...even your own father rapes you and gets you pregnant."

In part because it even works against the RIGHT....think about it. Some of our local "Birthers"...how would they feel if the GOP ran the show and told them that if their daughter was raped by a BLACK guy....she couldn't get an abortion?

LeRoy: Well, gee, maybe we could write an exception into the law that would allow for abortions in the case of a rape by some black buck.

Because clearly that's an entirely different moral universe there, Gordon.

 

[NightSwimmer]

LeRoy: Well, gee, maybe we could write an exception into the law that would allow for abortions in the case of a rape by some black buck.

Because clearly that's an entirely different moral universe there, Gordon.

Well... They are the cursed race of Ham.

 

[Minotaur]

Science describes life as the moment of conception. That does not mean a life exists or that one can deliver a baby a few minutes after conception. It just means living cells.

Late term abortions are the ONLY abortions I have issues with because unless it is for medical reasons, I do think we cross the line. If a fetus can live outside the womb and the mother is healthy, it should not be aborted. That takes us into areas we really don't belong in and that brings a society moral compass into it.

That aside, whether by rape or choice, the decision to have an abortion or not is not mine to make for women outside my own body. The entire concept that has bubbled up for decades is one where some wish to create a law against women and one would think at some point segments of society would present a case that is so good and airtight that it can be accepted by society. To date it is just pissin' in the wind attempts to control women.

I don't believe in abortions and so I never had an abortion. I never had a situation that changed that though as I also had a life that never challenged me in that area. It never occurred to me that my personal stand and life had to be imposed on all women who have their own realities that include rape ot poverty or any number of real life issues. It would be immoral for me to demand all women think like me.

Next subject:

Should male masterbation be outlawed due to the loss of potential life? Should sperm be bronzed or have funeral's conducted for it?

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

LeRoy: I'll have you know that MY sperm win gold medals, not bronze.

 

[OldGaffer]

I would guess there are very few late term abortions that are just whims of choice.

 

[KnotaFrayed]

Setting aside the disgusting right-wing rhetoric that brought this issue to the forefront, I'd like to say that I have a strange sort of sympathy for the abortion hard-liners who wouldn't allow women to terminate pregnancies even if raped. My grandfather was one of those hard-liners, and one of the few political things we could agree on is that it was intellectually inconsistent to think it was OK for the government to ban abortion, but not to do so in the case of rape.

Here's a thought experiment. A woman is in a coma, in a hospital for a few weeks, then recovers. A few weeks after that, she finds out she's pregnant, presumably by her husband, with whom she had sex after coming home from the hospital. Nine months later she has the baby. However, around the time her baby reaches grade school, it starts to look very distinctly different from her husband, and she grows suspicious and has a genetic test run. The test shows the child isn't his, and so the only possibility is that she was raped while she was in a coma. Should the government let her kill the child?

I think we can all agree that as horrible a thing as this is for the woman, it doesn't touch the child's own individual moral right to life in any way. Well, in the same sense if a fetus has its own individual moral right to life, how can its conception as a product of rape touch that right?

The only way to justify a rule against allowing abortion is if the fetus has a moral right to life (since any lesser justification simply could not stand up to the woman's moral right to control her own body in such a fundamental manner). So, if it has that right, then it's a right that persists regardless of conception circumstances. And if it doesn't have that right, then the woman should have the right to an abortion without the government needing to know why she doesn't want to continue the pregnancy. I can't see any consistent middle ground between those two positions. Either way, rape is not a factor.

That leads me to what I view as the only intellectually rigorous way of looking at the abortion question. It should be about determining whether a particular fetus has that key "something" that gives adult human beings (but not, say, human sperm cells, or human tumors, or other animals) an inviolable right to continue their lives. I can take seriously any abortion argument that starts from that perspective, but when they start from somewhere else, they miss the point completely, for me.

So, for example, it's not enough to point out that a fetus can some day become a full-grown human. So can a sperm and egg.... or, in fact, any human tissues, thanks to the science of cloning. Potential is not enough to create a right to life. It must be something inherent in the thing at the moment, which makes its life sacrosanct, not the mere potential for it to have that "something" at some later point.

I agree Arkady and what you have offered is a process I don't believe some people, if many people go through regarding the issue. To many it seems more simplistic, political and herdlike in mentality, especially since on the other side of the womb or even in the womb life suddenly becomes less precious, when those who claim to hold it sacred are asked to match their thoughts with some financial backing. How precious can life be if those who claim it is so justify wars as well as reasons to NOT support life, once born because it costs too much. How precious can life be if one decides that life should be put to death because it was not behaving in the manner another individual or society felt it should or was taking other lives? If life is precious, how is it humans complain about other humans and their "right" to be here or there or anywhere?

To add to what you have said, what of the transition point. Without some sort of conception, natural or otherwise (another factor in the mix) there is nothing to consider awarding a "right to life" to because it would not exist. While lots of artificial ways to improve the chances a pregnancy and then later survival, there as yet has been no artificial womb developed. Aside from what the development of such would do to the hole concept of human procreation, there remains the question of whose "rights" take prominence when. Without the womb, the possibility of another life, with or without its predominant "rights" is moot, thus is there not some consideration that the posessor of the womb has the predominant right over anything that occurs within it?

In addition, presenting a predominant "right" to that growing within a womb presents some very serious connotations with regard to who then speaks and acts for what cannot speak and act for itself and what that means with regard to decision making. Could it mean those "representing" that which cannot speak and act for itself can physically intrude upon the body of another individual to remove that which is within it, to "save" a "life"????

This leads to viability as an additional matter. While viability has been recorded at a certain earliest time (approximately 5 months or 23 weeks), is that the standard by which "life" should be measured in terms of granting it individual "rights" if not as you have mentioned, at the time of conception (which is when exactly in terms of being accurately measured?). Even if individual "rights" were granted, awarded, considered, etc. to something only when viable for the purpose of allowing some assignment of society as guardian and as a guardian all rights of "protection" (including removal from the womb for said purpose), what liability does society then have with regard to the survivial of that "life"? Essentially, even if it sounds absurd, if society deems that there is some danger to a "life" inside the womb of another life, can society conceivavbly call for the removal of that "life" to place under its own "protection". If so, how is the great variety of viability measured and if the removal of that "life" is premature and that "life" expires, who is held liable?

I go back to the position I have always held, which is life begins at birth and separation. There is a biological reason for the naturally signalling of the time of birth. Will there be exceptions? There seem to be exceptions to pretty much anything. If a birth comes early, we have developed artifical means to increase the odds of it surviving, just as we have developed artificial means to increase the chances of pregnancy. Based on our failure to as yet, develop an artificial womb, not to mention the implications it would have on the entire concept of natural versus mechanical procreation, there seems to be an area regarding procreation that human beings cannot and perhaps should not, make effort to assert artificial definitions assign rights.

The numbers of warlike conflicts, the murder rates, the numbers of children that are starving and living in poverty while others fight to hold onto huge fortunes seem to indicate that before humans obsess about a "right to life" before physical birth, they have A LOT of work to do to prove they truly care about "life" AFTER physical birth.

As well, at what point is one person's "rights" discarded in favor of another's? What actual harm comes to another by allowing the owner of the one biological necessity for any new "life" to be possible own the rights to their own body and what goes on inside of it until such time as a new individual is delivered and made separate totally as a new and separate individual???

Why not assign individual rights when there is absolutely NO question that those being assigned those rights are separated from any other life?

What consequences to any other humans does NOT doing so produce?

How is it possible that society or any other human being could claim more attachment, more right to ownership and decision making, to what is occurring inside someone else's womb, than the owner of that womb? Were society and other individuals granted a superior right over someone else's physical body, what are the potential implications of that?

 

[Minotaur]

Then we need to consider having it gold leafed.

 

[Minotaur]

I 100% agree. The personal decision is hard in the early stages and exceptional in late stages. Late term or the ability to live outside the womb is the only area we may be able to draw a line on as being an option made available by necessity as opposed to choice.

 

[Arkady]

You're right, of course. If someone's opposition to legal abortion is based upon a religious belief in the presence of an immortal soul within a fertilized ovum, then the circumstances under which the fertilization of said ovum occurred should be irrelevant.

I suspect that even most of those who claim to think there's an immortal soul in a fertilized ovum don't really believe that. I've seen too many supposed pro-lifers turn to in vitro fertilization when they have trouble conceiving -- and in vitro inevitably creates a lot of fertilized ova that won't live. My wife and I did in vitro, and even though we succeeded on just the third cycle, I think in the process at least a dozen fertilized ova died (as I recall, they implanted several in each cycle, and there are others still sitting in deep freeze).

In fact, if a person REALLY thought that a fertilized ovum had a soul, he or she would abstain from having sex other than at the most fertile time of the month. If you have sex too late in the cycle, the egg can become fertilized but have almost no chance of catching on in the womb, so, having sex at that point is almost certainly dooming an immortal soul to early death. A person who REALLY thought that a fertilized ovum had a soul would also abstain from sex in any other situation where there could be expected to be a high rate of failure for a fertilized egg to survive (e.g., no sex with someone who has known fertility problems or previous miscarriages, given the extreme risk of creating an "immortal soul" that won't make it even to birth.) And a person who REALLY thought that a fertilized ovum had a soul would be taking supplemental hormonal treatments to minimize the risk of an egg not implanting (if it's really a question of "life or death" for that fertilized egg, then taking on some medical risk for the woman to save her "child" would be a no-brainer).

If one REALLY thought that each fertilized ovum was a human soul, any kind of attempt at reproduction would be a morally questionable thing, given the way the reproductive system works. Estimates are that 60%-80% of fertilized embryos fail to implant in the uterus (and thus quickly die), and of those that do implant a third miscarry. The vast majority of those miscarriages are so early the woman never even knows she's pregnant. But, knowing what we know about the process, a sexually active couple not using birth control, who REALLY thinks a fertilized embryo has a soul, should probably be in a perpetual state of mourning for all their "lost children," until a successful pregnancy actually occurs, since it's reasonable to think that in a lot of those unsuccessful months an "immortal soul" was created and then promptly destroyed. And even the healthiest of couples would, if they thought like that, get female fertility screening prior to engaging in any unprotected sex, since there's always a chance the woman's womb is not hospitable, and thus that any successful fertilization would be dooming an immortal soul to early death. It would be morally reprehensible to engage in "trial and error" before seeking professional help, if "error" meant killing babies.

Since people don't behave as they would if they REALLY thought a fertilized ovum had an immortal soul, I conclude they're lying about that belief.

 

[NightSwimmer]

I suspect that even most of those who claim to think there's an immortal soul in a fertilized ovum don't really believe that. I've seen too many supposed pro-lifers turn to in vitro fertilization when they have trouble conceiving -- and in vitro inevitably creates a lot of fertilized ova that won't live.

I would like to take this opportunity to mention that some of Mitt Romney's own children availed themselves of in vitro fertilization.

Mitt's got his grandchildren -- the rest of us can just go fvck ourselves, I guess?

 

[Arkady]

A"pro-life" position that allows for an abortion exception is consistent not with the notion that abortion should be prevented because of the sanctity of the life of the fetus, but rather with the notion that abortion should be prevented because God wants women to be punished if they don't stick to His sex rules. Since "legitimate rape" (i.e., forcible rape), is, in the minds of conservatives, the only non-intentionally-procreative sex where the woman did nothing wrong, it is, for some of them, an acceptable exception to the general rule against abortion, since they figure God doesn't want the woman punished in that case.

As such, the rape-exception issue is one of those little windows into the conservative mind that tells you what they really care about (that they're anti-sex, not pro-life). You can also see it in the very close crossover between opposition to abortion and other sexual hangups. There's no particular reason abortion opponents should be any more likely than anyone else to be anti-porn, anti-birth-control, and anti-homosexuality, for example. In fact, they should be LESS LIKELY to have a problem with those things, since each can be expected to decrease the incidence rate for abortion (by giving outlets to the sex drive that don't create unwanted pregnancies). Yet you'll find that, in reality, those who are anti-choice on abortion are also far more likely than an average person to have problems with those three things. That's because what bothers them about abortion isn't the killing of the fetus -- it's the removal of God's punishment for non-procreative sexual pleasure. They dislike porn, birth control, and homosexuality because they all, likewise, can be seen as allowing genital fun for a purpose other than expanding the church's membership.

 

[Boltlady]

My thinking is that the woman and her Doctor have final and only right to make any decision regarding pregnancy. The rest of us need to stay out of it.

For society to dictate that a whole segment of a woman's life be under gov't control is nothing short of slavery. When a woman wants to be pregnant she is perfectly willing to endure all of the uncomfortable and sometimes painful aspects of it. She is willing to jeopardize her career, take the financial hit, deal with a misshapen body and the ordeal of trying to reconfigure it after the birth, and deal with the imbalance of hormones which can be psychologically difficult. That has to be her choice. Those things would be very difficult to deal with if she does not want to be pregnant for whatever reason.

On the other hand, those who are so into the development of the zygote or fetus into an actual baby need to find a way to remove it without killing it and develop it by other means. I would bet that most woman would prefer that choice. Perhaps a very large test tube of some sort would do the trick. Then if it was meant to be it would be. That way it could be paid for by those who believe so strongly about it's rights and they could assume the responsibility for it.

 

[NightSwimmer]

Exactly, Arkady.

If they cared about the "sanctity of life", then they couldn't simultaneously hold the positions that they do regarding capital punishment and war.

It's all about authoritarianism. Nothing more... Nothing less. Republican "sanctity of life" begins at conception and ends at birth.

 

[Woolleybugger]

You are on the right track but will end up in the same place everyone who tries to define what it means to be a human being ends up sooner or later. The key is to define what a human being is. My bet is no one has done this yet with enough clarity to provide legal definitions for abortion, euthanasia and care to the truly traumatized or mentally incapitated. If you can define what it means to be a human being at 6 months, then how do you use that definition to decide whether to let a comatose adult die who has no brain function at all? The questions get tricky very quickly. I just think the only sane answer is get the state out of the business entirely, make this a personal issue not a public decision. That is the core of the privacy argument.

 

[KnotaFrayed]

I would like to take this opportunity to mention that some of Mitt Romney's own children availed themselves of in vitro fertilization.

Mitt's got his grandchildren -- the rest of us can just go fvck ourselves, I guess?

I agree, some seem to think it is wrong when there is outside or artificial intervention in one direction, yet are more than willing to accept artificial intervention in another direction.

So it's not OK for a woman and her husband living in poverty to NOT want to try to raise a child under the same conditions because she got pregnant in the same way rich ladies and their husbands do, the unplanned way, BUT if a rich woman and her husband WANT to get pregnant, but can't naturally, it's okay for them to decide to make use of artificial aids and means to "create" a life.

If society can decide whether or not people have a right to their own decisions regarding reproduction, does or would that include society deciding upon whether someone can make use of in-vitro??

Once again, are there not enough lives, which are clearly individual and separate from another life, in peril for anyone to obsess and spend huge amounts of time on arguing that point at which humans have individual rights. Since the dawn of humanity, humans become separate and individual when they physically become separate and individual. Is there something wrong with continuing on with that demarkation line?