muawiyah: “You can treat these as rhetorical questions, but I’d think you’d have to agree that the “rape exception” is a rather difficult exception to administer.”
Yes. I agree a “rape exception” is a difficult exception to administer. However, if that’s what it took to actually eliminate the other 99.9% of abortions, then that’s an exception I’d embrace. We could easily get a political majority to support restrictions on abortion in all but extreme cases, like rape and incest. I would not delay saving the 99.9% in order to save the 0.1%.
Envision Ruthy's pancreatic cancer sweeping back in this week and she's gone by next week. The funny little Latina whose been mainlining all sorts of insulin for 40 years could simply collapse in a heap of broken bones. Then, there's the gal from Harvard ~ she's carrying entirely too much weight. A heart attack is in the realm of possibility.
That's 3. Presuming that happens too late for an outgoing Obama regime to do anything about it, the new guy coming in as President can appoint the people we need giving us a 7 to 2 court.
So, don't rule out an absolute prohibition with no exceptions.
It's impossible to administer. Presuming you've got the perp identified, it's done in a court of law. He's not going to admit to rape so his victim can have an abortion, so you're dealing with a process longer than pregnancy. In the case of incest you've got the minor. But not all rapes are physically violent to the extent you've got overwhelming evidence of an assult. The essential evidence the medical community would have available isn't much different than for consensual sex. To deny any abortion the medical community would have to prove the woman a liar. I'm guessing planned parenthood wouldn't do that very often.
What Paul is proposing is essentially abortion on demand, up to some undetermined point. But with a wink of the eye like most of his policies. This simply isn't a pro-life position.