Why would abortion after rape be ok?

Sorry. I didn't mean that to be a shout, I was emphasizing the key phrase.

We are talking about what the law should be. The law must be specific about under what conditions an abortion is legal, and under what conditions it is illegal. The question about whether the law should prohibit late stage abortions is important and relevant to this discussion. This thread was written to criticize a a moderate (or moderately conservative) position on abortion rights. It is fair to push back. If people are going to take an extreme view on abortion rights, then it is only reasonable to ask you all to accept the consequences of your position.

I would find a law allowing women the right to terminate a viable pregnancy at a late stage (e.g. 39 weeks) to be deeply troubling from both a moral and a social viewpoint.

If this is what you all are advocating, then at least I have to admit that your position is logically consistant (even though I profoundly disagree).

I could be for it once in a million times, but then I would be for it.
I think the law should be careful on this.

yes

To be absolutely clear, I don't think there should be any laws that say anything about abortion.

I don't believe that government should have anything to say about anyone's medical decisions.

That is pure drivel, Beth, unmitigated to boot.

Once more a women body is a woman body and a woman womb is a woman womb and no matter how I feel about the matter it is not my position to said if she need to carry a fetus to term or not.

Next most women care a lot more for the growing fetuses in their bodies then all the male lawmakers in the world happen to and any decision to end a pregnancy late term is both very rare and likely done for extra serious reasons that I am not willing to second guess nor as far as I can do so will allowed lawmakers to do the second guessing.

I love the idea that women for the kicks of doing so will carry a fetus into the late term and then for the hell of it, if allowed to do, so will abort the fetus for no reasons.

Once more I trust women as a class to make those kind of decisions concerning their wombs far more then I trust anyone else.

There are women who kill their newborn babies. If you make it legal to kill a fully developed baby (at 39 weeks) just before it is born, it will happen.

If you are ok with that, then accept it. But don't try to justify it by claiming that a woman would never choose to do it. Some clearly would. The first sentence of your latest post was clear and concise. The rest of the post was irrelevant.

I feel strongly that killing a fully developed baby just before it is born should be illegal (and I support the legal right to have an early term abortion). Most people in our society believe that late term abortions are immoral and should be illegal (as they are).

You're talking about a woman Bill. Not women.

It's a twee indulgence of yours. You're having a cheapskate "I'm not a misogynist" flounce.

It seems to me that once you accept the fetus as a distinct human life, whether this is at conception, at a point of "viability" or upon birth, you should have a hard time making a moral case for ending it's life to satisfy any imperative other than to preserve the mother's life from imminent death, not her well being or quality of life.

Rape is a terrible crime but murder is worse. Having the child of your rapist can, I've no doubt, be a truly horrific experience and one that could be emotionally and psychologically scarring and seen as an extension of the original crime, but most people don't find it morally acceptable to kill an innocent party because their death might spare someone a terrible experience.

Imagine the victim of rape or any other horrendous crime were able to go back in time and kill the criminal's mother or father before he or she was born. Absent Twilight Zone scenarios about the cause and effect paradoxes of time travel, this would prevent the crime from happening, but would it be a moral
act?

If one truly believe that a fetus is not a distinct life until it is actually born, then for them, I wouldn't expect them to have a moral quandary over abortion at any stage or for any reason. Of course, I have a hard time believing that all of the people who lay claim to this belief, actually embrace it, but they have to live with their own conscience.

If one truly believes that a distinct human life exists at the point of conception, then I can't fathom the moral acrobatics required to make exceptions for rape and incest. Here again, I'm not sanguine that everyone who states this belief actually holds it, and as posted before, many who do have conceded to these exceptions for reasons other than their beliefs...a moral dilemma not readily resolved.

The issue of abortion however is so problematic because in addition to competing beliefs that cannot be proven either way, both sides, if they truly believe what they claim to have no room to compromise.

Most people who haven't taken up residence in either absolutist camp, find an uneasy middle ground wherein they can feel that they aren't supporting the State establishing it's jurisdiction over women's wombs (and in the bargain allowing for the possibility that they or their daughters may want to terminate an unwanted pregnancy) and they don't feel like callous monsters who look the other way when a life that is viable outside the womb is extinguished.

I can imagine a future in which technology and cultural acceptance of that technology renders this issue essentially moot, but it's by no means a sure thing, and, in any case, it's far from now.

At this point in time the issue can only be "settled" temporarily by political means.

I have long been uncertain about how we as a society should address this issue. It certainly doesn't lend itself to easy answers, but I can easily tell you that while I find the absolute Pro-Life position very problematic, I find the absolute Pro-Choice position very disgusting.

There is a big flaw in this argument.

You don't have to believe the fetus is a "distinct human life" to be opposed to abortion. There is room for moderate views.

If you believe that abortion is immoral but not murder, then having a ban on abortion with an exception for rape makes perfect sense.

If you believe that a woman has a right over her body until the point that baby becomes viable, then a ban on late term abortions with an exception for the first trimester makes sense.

I reject the idea that there are only two valid views on this issue. There are lots of people who take perfectly reasonable positions in the middle of these two extremes.

On what basis would abortion be immoral if it is not the killing of a human being?

Do you mean as in aborting a cow, in which case she is de-calf-inated?

As with contraception, frustration of God's will? Depriving the State of a potential worker? Wasteful misuse of medical facilities? Depends what you mean by "immoral".

I am talking about all women as a class and their right to control their own wombs and to me whoever other then the women involved wish/try to control women wombs are mortally no better then a rapist even if they try to do so quoting a bible and setting in a state legislature in a suit and tie.

There are some situations in which governments can and should regulate matters to do with things people choose to do with their own bodies. For example in the UK the govt is looking at more strictly regulating cosmetic surgery companies that sell botox, boob jobs, liposuction etc. Also they try to stop people injecting heroin or snorting coke and although attempting suicide is no longer a crime, assisting it is. You have to be 18 to get a tattoo and the artist has to register him/herself and the premises used. These are just examples.

I'm especially impressed by your further arguments, Beth, wherein you defended your notion,

"I don't believe that government should have anything to say about anyone's medical decisions."

Why would someone be opposed to the elimination of a mass of tissue?

Under what circumstances is it immoral but not murder?

I'm happy that you reject that there are only two valid views on the subject, a view that is merely logical is not necessarily societally valid.

Obviously there is room for ambiguous (what you call moderate) views, but any view that has moral clarity is dependent upon when, if ever, one believes the fetus is a distinct human life.

I agree with this.

While it's nice to say that that everyone should be allowed to do what they want with their bodies, that can be a callous, unwise and yes I'll say it, immoral thing. There is, I believe nothing about which a 100% blanket statement can be made.

That's why I can't say that abortion is 100% wrong, or totally up to the choice of the woman. There are factors that could make each situation one that someone else could step in and disallow it.

I'll be damned though if I could find a reason why a woman should be allowed to abort a 39 week fetus, knowing that all that is separating it from some legal standing on personhood is the fact the baby hasn't been pulled completely out of the mothers vagina.

The law can be wrong.

At one point the law allowed an abortion like this, now it doesn't. The law decided it was wrong to allow it.

Cold comfort to the babies to whom it happened to prior to it becoming illegal.

An aside....

Looking at this image, how can this woman say her baby is pro-choice?

Either she doesn't believe the fetus in her is a person, and therefore it could not have any opinion or thoughts on the matter, or she believes the fetus is a person, but believes it would be all right for her, or someone else to decide to kill the person inside of them.

You're cool with me making your medical decisions for you?

_____


I would definitely not be cool with any government or anyone in this thread having a say in my medical decisions.

Who decides where the line is for someone else is for cosmetic surgery? when does the definition of cosmetic surgery slide into cosmetic alteration?

Who decides what the line is for anyone else's life/death decisions?

nah

can't agree with all the shade of grey stuff when it comes to making decisions about others health care decsions

not your life/not your body - hands off