Posted on 12/28/2011 3:50:05 PM PST by wagglebee
I got into a debate with a pretty good friend about abortion the other day. She’s typically a pro-life gal, but she has adopted (no pun intended) the GOP’s ‘get out of a debate alive’ exception to the rule—that abortion is murder, unless it’s the fetus of a rape victim, then it’s just removal of lifeless tissue.
For some reason, she was completely dumbfounded that I don’t have exceptions to my pro-life stance. My argument is that I don’t need them.
As a former student at a medical college, I’ve taken the Hippocratic Oath in order to participate in clinicals. (Full disclosure: I quit that job in order to save America from idiotic ideas, much like this one.) Because of this, I know there is a “first do no harm” clause. So no, I don’t think doctors should have to let a mother die in order for their baby to live. I think that is up to the mother and her doctor—at least until Obamacare kicks in.
The mother is a patient of a particular doctor. It is that doctor’s job to be an advocate for their patient. I have the same opinion in the case of a young child who is a victim; if delivering a baby is going to do irreparable physical harm to that child, no I don’t think they should be forced to have it. They should be well aware of what that means, but it is that doctor’s job to ‘first do no harm.’ Not saving the life of a patient is first doing harm, and that’s against the oath.
Where I always get into trouble with my “politically correct” friends is in cases of rape. Yes, I am aware that the woman lost her choice in this situation. Most women know someone who has been a victim of sexual assault, (I’m one who personally knows a sexual assault victim), so I’m not devoid of feelings here. However I don’t believe killing the baby is going to make the rape victim feel any better.
Let me cut to the chase here… if we can’t kill the rapist, why can we kill the baby? The baby is innocent. The rapist is a soulless loser who is going to get out of jail in 5 years, and in many cases will repeat the act. If I’m violently attacked, raped, and end up pregnant, killing my unborn child isn’t going to make me feel any less raped and isn’t going to bring me to peace. If my rapist was getting the death penalty… I’d at least feel safer.
I’m not saying rapists should get the death penalty. Granted… I’m not, not saying it either… What I am saying is, that being pro-life, except in the instance of rape, is one of the most illogical “exceptions” to a rule I’ve ever heard.
It’s like saying “This guy has been convicted to serve a sentence of ten years in jail for murdering your brother, but we’re going put his innocent daughter in the electric chair. Feel better?” Obviously that’s not going to make anyone feel better. In fact, I’d feel guilty for the innocent victim getting the death penalty.
I think an innocent baby is about the only positive, pure thing that can come from such a terrible situation. Is it ideal? Of course not. But whether that baby goes to a different home or stays with it’s mother, it is as innocent as the victim.
Critical thinking skills America…let’s use them.
LifeNews Note: Sara Johnson writes for Misfit Politics, where this opinion column originally appeared.
Sorry, but if, as the Latin church teaches, and most bishops in the Orthodox Church who have spoken on the matter agree, a unique human person began at the union of sperm and egg, the end of an ectopic pregnancy is homicide, just as is ending a pregnancy carried in the womb which threatens the mother’s life, threatens the mother with severe disability, was engendered by rape, or simply is contrary to the mother’s whim. The first is plainly justifiable homicide, the last is plainly murder, morally sound policy deals with the question of which of the others are justifiable homicide and which murder.
Absolutely not!
One of the most important functions of a just government is the protection of innocent human life. To the extent that statutory law can reflect this principle, than that law must reflect the intent to protect the child from the homicidal intent of the mother and the abortionist, untill it can be delivered to other caretakers after it’s birth.
Note that even though this philosopy comports with the higher tenants of Christianity, it is not exclusive to it. This is a human rights issue that should be capable of comprehension by the most relentless of human secularists.
I’m confused with what you are saying about ectopic pregnancy. Do you advocate allowing the fetus and mother to die?
Please explain how the rape victim is not sinless.
If I recall my law school definitions correctly, a homicide is the killing of another human being; Murder in the first degree is an intentional, premeditated homicide committed with malice aforethought. One may wish to quibble the current state of abortion being, ipso facto, justifiable homicide by Court decree. But, at its core, and without juris fete accompli, it is murder.
I do like your introduction of the fallopian pregnancy argument, such as it is. Few take the position that a true medical contingency of inevitable death to the mother or her unfortunately placed fetus warrants the same scrutiny as the abortion of convenience.
What really becomes repugnant is when medical contingency is expanded to encompass any duress, inconvenience, alteration of life style, or change in life expectations the pregnant mom feels about the growing human being within her. Some even go so far as to suck the brains out of the nearly delivered child and call in justified. Which brings us back to that wonderfully contrived and nuanced definition of legal abortion and justifiable homicide.
I believe the implication of sin only arises when the rape victim aborts her child.
1. Should a rapist get to reproduce at the expense of his victim? (How is it going to weigh her mind as her attacker’s child grows in her? Suicide, anyone?)
2. Should the victim be put through the anguish, expense, and risk of bearing the rapist’s child? (Pregnancy ranges from uncomfortable, to downright dangerous, you know.)
3. Should the victim or the taxpayer be put at the expense of raising the rapist’s child? (Yeah, there is a money angle, too.)
All in all, if the woman doesn’t want the rapist’s child, then killing it is fine with me. Innocence doesn’t matter here. Hurting the rapist (if this hurts him) and removing his genes from the gene pool can take precedence.
I’d like to kill the rapist, too, but there are too many “unintended consequences” associated with that (like an incentive to murder the victim).
Yeah, I know. Outrageous, unChristian, etc.
1. Should a rapist get to reproduce at the expense of his victim? (How is it going to weigh her mind as her attacker’s child grows in her? Suicide, anyone?)
2. Should the victim be put through the anguish, expense, and risk of bearing the rapist’s child? (Pregnancy ranges from uncomfortable, to downright dangerous, you know.)
3. Should the victim or the taxpayer be put at the expense of raising the rapist’s child? (Yeah, there is a money angle, too.)
All in all, if the woman doesn’t want the rapist’s child, then killing it is fine with me. Innocence doesn’t matter here. Hurting the rapist (if this hurts him) and removing his genes from the gene pool can take precedence.
I’d like to kill the rapist, too, but there are too many “unintended consequences” associated with that (like an incentive to murder the victim).
Yeah, I know. Outrageous, unChristian, etc.
Your argument is the one used by the left and quite liberal. See Post 19.
Abortion of a child conceived after a rape is executing a person who did not exist at the time of the crime.
Radical idea:
Like we have ample funds from vaccine taxes to compensate the unlucky few the are harmed by them (while society vastly benefits), why not have a generous fund to compensate the pregnancy and adoption costs for those victims of rape.
Killing the innocent product of the rape isn’t just.
Maybe we could fund the effort by a tax on birth control (Democrats love counter-intuitive taxes.)
It was in response to: “So, your solution is to kill the only person involved who hasn’t committed any sin?”
Anyone in this discussion an expert?
Anyone in this topic been held down and raped at
knife point?
Anyone here been raped by 3 guys at once?
Anyone here been beat and brutalized by your rapists?
Anyone here end up pregnant and traumatized?
Anyone here lose their mind over the whole thing?
Anyone here feel like they had ants and infection
in their body while the seed of animals grew in their
womb?
Anyone here couldn’t eat or sleep or work or go
to school and just sit and rock back and forth
while your jaw just locked and you couldn’t speak
to anyone and could barely get the story out to cops?
Anyone here have an abortion after all this and just
feel relief?
Anyone here still not regret the decision 34 years later?
Anyone still ready to scream at the memory?
Anyone???
Oh, just me, I guess.
Pray you never have to be in the position
to make the decision.
And don’t judge me, I’ve already been forgiven.
So the victim faces the possibility of breast cancer further down the road or the immediate risks of child bearing. And she gets to choose from depression from carrying the rapist’s child or from aborting it. Doesn’t seem to invalidate my reasoning.
Nothing “liberal” about my argument. Utilitarian, maybe, but not liberal. They stand.
I have a friend who had a botched abortion. It took 20 years for her to get pregnant again. And she heard her little girl cry every night. She still cries. Even with 2 beautiful boys.
And I was raped at age 17. My parents had ME arrested for delinquency. Then gave my rapist a ride home and made me sit next to him. I have no clear memory of the following 2 weeks. Maybe it was 3. I was fortunate not to be pregnant.
All that aside. There are still moral absolutes. And pregnancy from rape is rare. Please see Post 19.
My language is a bit more clinical, because I cannot imagine that sort of anguish.
But, much as I dislike abortion, a child conceived in rape should not have any claim on the mother, and she should be able to terminate the child or bear it, as she chooses.
Your liberal arguments are what ushered in abortion on demand years ago. They ARE liberal arguments. They are based on emotion. And pregnancy from rape is rare. Murdering the innocent is not an answer.
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