The word "stray". Is abortion a "stray" bullet? Do you blame the woman for being raped? Should she be put to death as well?
'It's a child not a choice...but not if you were raped'
- Thread starter visceral_instinct
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The word "stray". Is abortion a "stray" bullet? Do you blame the woman for being raped? Should she be put to death as well?
Rape is similar to a "stray bullet", at least in some cases.
I do not think the topic of rape, or abortion, can be successfully discussed within a materialist/reductionist framework without ending up in serious ethical dilemmas or without accepting a materialistic value system.
I do not think the topic of rape, or abortion, can be successfully discussed within a materialist/reductionist framework without ending up in serious ethical dilemmas or without accepting a materialistic value system.
I love how you use the word 'child' generically to mean the contents of a uterus.
If you were talking about a fully formed baby in late pregnancy I'd at least understand where you were coming from.
But using the term 'child' to mean anywhere along the line from 'zygote' to 'baby' and giving it rights that trump that of a woman is disingenuous and unfair.
Why should a zygote get rights that override those of a woman? Or those of 8 cells, or 16? Or something that still only consists of ectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm? That isn't just disproportionate and illogical. It's insulting to her humanity.
Which is a hopeless and sinister thought, of course. But this is the consequence of operating within a reductionist framework.
it's very easy to say that a child should be born from rape just as it is easy to say that animals in shelters should never be euthanized.
it just would not be a good precedent for children of rape to be born for many factors. one is the knowledge that they were a product of rape, they will most likely be abused or rejected by the mother and therefore have to be adopted, that is even if they are adopted.
the other issue is that you don't see rape as a natural occurence as a rule in nature. there is probably a beneficial reason why one would mutually choose based on certain characteristics. rape would probably produce individuals that are genetically even more fractured or with competing internal issues than what lifeforms already have to deal with.
it just would not be a good precedent for children of rape to be born for many factors. one is the knowledge that they were a product of rape, they will most likely be abused or rejected by the mother and therefore have to be adopted, that is even if they are adopted.
the other issue is that you don't see rape as a natural occurence as a rule in nature. there is probably a beneficial reason why one would mutually choose based on certain characteristics. rape would probably produce individuals that are genetically even more fractured or with competing internal issues than what lifeforms already have to deal with.
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It's long been widely observed that the preponderance of anti-abortion ideology has little to do with the fetus/child (all that categorical moral stuff is just for rhetorical zest) and almost everything to do with controlling female sexuality.
In that context, an unwanted pregnancy is justified punishment for failing to conform to the sexual mores of the patriarchy. So unless the woman has some excuse for such (i.e., rape), she deserves to be punished by carrying the pregnancy to term. Notice that the fetus is not a "child," or even any kind of person with agency, in that formulation. It's simply an object of punishment for controlling the woman. It's only when confronted by people that don't approve of this ideology - indeed, that want abortion to be legal - that all of the heady words about "life begins at conception" get trotted out. The rest of the time, it's a non-issue. You don't see them digging graves and holding funerals for miscarried embryos, for example.
These sorts of eugenics arguments also apply to "poor people," "gays," and "the blacks," note.
There is no "child," during the phases when an abortion would normally take place. What you're doing is treating a clump of cells as an unwanted physical artifact of an attack - no different than scar tissue from being shot, for example.
Now, if we were talking about taking already-born children and imprisoning them for their fathers' crime of rape, that would be "basically considering the child as co-conspirator in the crime." Allowing a woman to control her own body is not an imposition on anyone else.
The pertinent "biblical notion" to the debate is found in the following two facts:
1) Abortion was commonplace during the time of Christ.
2) Christ didn't see fit to bother saying anything about it.
Which is to say that it seems pretty clear-cut that Christ didn't consider abortion a pressing moral issue. And note the total absence of actual Christian theology in the "religious" objections to abortion - instead it's all a bunch of openly patriarchal stuff that's been shoe-horned into conservative churches in the intervening millenia. When did "iron my shirt, bitch!" become a key plank of Christianity, exactly?
D&C is simply one type of abortion. You are selling a distinction that doesn't exist, in order to enforce a prejudicial phrasing. Go wash your mouth out with soap.
point out of context. nature plays eugenics. i'm sure you picked your spouse for certain characteristics, that's still eugenics.
WillNever
Valued Senior Member
I agree with the OP, in the sense that it's got to be all or nothing.
Supporting the right to life except in cases when the child is a product of rape seems very unprincipled. It isn't the child's fault of that it was conceived in that way, so why does it have less of a right to life than other children?
That position is illogical.
Supporting the right to life except in cases when the child is a product of rape seems very unprincipled. It isn't the child's fault of that it was conceived in that way, so why does it have less of a right to life than other children?
That position is illogical.
We don't - that's why they explicitly say "by all the means of measures available to us."
We also don't know that rocks don't feel pain, but are simply incapable of responding in a way that can be assessed.
I also don't know that you have a real subjective consciousness and commiserate ability to suffer as I do. You could all just be a bunch of robots sent to torment me, and no act of egregious genocide would carry any moral import whatsoever.
Well, of course, just think back to your own experiences as a fetus and what sorts of sensations you... what's that? You have absolutely no consciousness of anything that occurred while you were in gestation, nor indeed for years afterwards? And nor does anyone else? And, indeed, such plasticity seems built-in to standard human development?
Not to be fatuous - it's a difficult question, which doesn't admit easy answers. But the assertion of human sentience, of subjective experience of pain and suffering, seems in direct tension with the fact that none of the manifold human consciousnesses that we have access to includes such a stage, and so it remains a matter of speculation even amongst conscious humans.
WillNever
Valued Senior Member
Much agreed.
By the way, if anyone was wondering, abortion is very wrong in my eyes -- and I'm completely non-religious. Would any of you like to have been aborted?
True enough, but we have some idea that society isn't supposed to do the same, at least in the immediately relevant sense. Nature plays at lots of things that, were I to do them, I would run afoul of society.
The term "eugenics," as relevant here, implies a systemic policy - individual mate selection is only "eugenics" in a stilted sense (directly, on a very small scale, or systemically but without direct agency - "the preference against unfit mates results in a eugenic effect.").
what makes you think that a child that is a product of rape would like to be born? what makes you think everyone wanted to be born just because you did? what makes you think that this child will not suffer mentally and emotionally just from that knowledge and from the mother's rejection?
it's so easy to say, let everyone be born. okay, are you going to be the one to force this woman to have the child, tie her down so she doesn't hurt herself or the fetus? make sure she takes care of herself and make sure that child has adoptive parents at the ready?
this is a hoot. much agreed about what? a sense of humanity? there are people dropping like flies in india, just like a lot of impoverished places. is that so much better that other lives are inconsequential just as long as some have a chance to make it? because that is exactly what happens or is considered okay collateral damage. the argument is that death or non-existence (abortion) is worse than living but that is a point of view, not really a case for morality.
at least with the one deciding the abortion, it is clear they don't want to or is not in a position to take care of it. but people like you think it's more humane to just let people be born in any situation. that's really not humane either but a social meme.
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WillNever
Valued Senior Member
visceral said:
Think so? Because minimizing the process (not to mention the importance) of fetal development for the reason that it begins with a small number of cells is insulting to humanity on an incomprehensible scale, because all of us started out that way. Yes, even you, when you were just an insignificant mass.
WillNever
Valued Senior Member
The desire to live is an innate drive in humans and animals, birch. You can't live without consequences and risks. Depriving something of its future because of the risk of "you don't know it won't suffer" is ludicrous.
Why is this relevant? We can deter without force.
totally insignficant argument because after it's born, it needs to be taken care of. who is going to take care of these children? or is that not as important to you?
like i thought, not really humane at all. you are more concerned with bringing the life in as if that's a more moral high-ground than what one is actually bringing it into.
that's disgusting.