Arguing Pro-life

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Flavius_Aetius

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I have not been doing this recently but I feel like it’d be good to have a feedback. Anyways before I would occasionally discuss the issue of pro-life/pro-choice with my left Grandmother who lives in the same house. Anyways I seem to do a good job with discussing the morals to killing a unborn baby however I become stumped at how to answer to this.

After about ten minutes into talking the issue of rape and raped minors in particular comes up. So I’m asked. “And what about rape victims who are only (insert minor age) old?” One thing I resent the most is that she places a senario of if my own little sister was in that position; which she knows will get me on a emotional level. (Just to note my sister is barely one!) so basically since I can not nitpick my beliefs saying “Well it’s different for rape victims”(which is not how I feel but saying the opposite will make me sound like I am willing for twelve year olds to go through pregnancy) in the end I’m defeated and resentful because of these cases which I’m sure is a small percentage of people who have abortions.

Another thing is the fact that it is pro-‘Choice’ in which case I lose my arguements because I’m cornered with the question. “So minors in rape cases have to goe through pregnancy with no other option?”

I’m sorry; I’m sure that their are many threads on this but this is just a personal issue that I need help responding too and would appriecate some feedback
 
Flavius_Aetius said:
I have not been doing this recently but I feel like it’d be good to have a feedback. Anyways before I would occasionally discuss the issue of pro-life/pro-choice with my left Grandmother who lives in the same house. Anyways I seem to do a good job with discussing the morals to killing a unborn baby however I become stumped at how to answer to this.

After about ten minutes into talking the issue of rape and raped minors in particular comes up. So I’m asked. “And what about rape victims who are only (insert minor age) old?” One thing I resent the most is that she places a senario of if my own little sister was in that position; which she knows will get me on a emotional level. (Just to note my sister is barely one!) so basically since I can not nitpick my beliefs saying “Well it’s different for rape victims”(which is not how I feel but saying the opposite will make me sound like I am willing for twelve year olds to go through pregnancy) in the end I’m defeated and resentful because of these cases which I’m sure is a small percentage of people who have abortions.

Another thing is the fact that it is pro-‘Choice’ in which case I lose my arguements because I’m cornered with the question. “So minors in rape cases have to goe through pregnancy with no other option?”

I’m sorry; I’m sure that their are many threads on this but this is just a personal issue that I need help responding too and would appriecate some feedback
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Ask her how murdering the baby makes up for the rape? It won’t make the girl feel better, it will make her feel worse, later in life, when she realizes what she did. Rachel’s Vineyard is a group that ministers to women recovering from the psychological effects of abortion.

Why shouldn’t she have the baby and give it up for adoption? There are hundreds of thousands of couples looking to adopt newborns.

God Bless
 
I have a question for you. Let’s say your little sister were raped and became pregnant but decided to have the baby. After the long, arduous pregnancy and painful birth, she begins raising the child, but after a few months, realizes she can’t handle it anymore and needs to do something. She didn’t want the child in the first place and it’s costing her lots of money and every time she looks at the child, she thinks of her raping and it causes her terrible amounts of pain. She tried to get rid of the child, but finding someone to adopt is going to be a long ordeal and will take at least nine months. She doesn’t want to just put the baby into the adoption system, though, because she doesn’t think a child should have to live that life.

It seems her only option is to kill her baby. Don’t you agree?
 
buckr02 said:
I have a question for you. Let’s say your little sister were raped and became pregnant but decided to have the baby. After the long, arduous pregnancy and painful birth, she begins raising the child, but after a few months, realizes she can’t handle it anymore and needs to do something. She didn’t want the child in the first place and it’s costing her lots of money and every time she looks at the child, she thinks of her raping and it causes her terrible amounts of pain. She tried to get rid of the child, but finding someone to adopt is going to be a long ordeal and will take at least nine months. She doesn’t want to just put the baby into the adoption system, though, because she doesn’t think a child should have to live that life.

It seems her only option is to kill her baby. Don’t you agree?
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Killing a baby is NEVER an option.
 
In rape cases can’t you abort the entity as a balocyst? Or take RU486 the morning after just incase?

Doesn’t that get around the whole killing a baby issue?
 
Stay-at-Home Catholic Dad of 3… is me! (and proud to be)

I could be really wrong here and I don’t have a source to back me up but if someone else has heard this, maybe they can give the source… and I realize that abortions as a result of rape are something like .1% (one tenth of a %)

I heard that we as human beings have a right to self defense.
A rape being a crime we can be defenseable by taking a step that may prevent a pregnancy with something like the morning after pill, since fertilization usually does not occur immediately.

I think I heard it on the radio CA Live one night but I can’t be sure and like I said I may very well have heard wrong but I’m pretty sure that is what I heard.

For the men here: What if your wife was raped in a violent way and became pregnant… what would you do?

For the women: If you were raped in a very violent way and became pregnant what would you do?

Paul
 
At this time, that question doesn’t apply to me. More on that in a bit. If I had been raped and all, I would hope that I’d have the strength and support to go through with the pregnancy and put the child up for adoption. But it’s hard to say exactly what I’d do. Now, however, that can’t happen. I had a hysterectomy a few years ago. But, seriously, I feel for those who may find themselves in that position.
 
Does this sound fair?

The man who rapes her gets maybe five years in jail.

The victim continues on with her life.

The baby gets the death penalty.
 
Ok lets look at it from the victims point of view…

I’ve just been raped. Someone has just invaded my body without my permission and has physically,mentally and spiritually hurt me.I’m in serious pain.I can’t stop thinking about what happened.I relive it over and over again. I can still feel the pain.Then I find out I’m pregnant. The idea is repulsive to me. I’m angry and scared. I want this to all be over with.So I decide to have an abortion.

I go in by myself.I am in a daze when I speak to the secretary and find a seat.I hear a lady call my name.I follow her through the door and down the hall to a room on the left. It looks like any doctors office. I sit on the exam table. I answer a few questions and then I’m told to put on a gown. I remove all my clothing. I feel scared,cold and nervous. I keep wondering if I’m making the right choice. I feel like I’ve come this far I can’t turn back now. I have no one to talk to. Deep breath. Theres a knock at the door and the lady comes in followed by a man.She says to have a seat on the exam table.He tells me to slide my bottom to the end of the exam table.He puts my legs in stir ups.My body is exposed to these strangers. Sure my chest is covered but from my whole waist down they can see everything. He slides something in me.It’s cold and hard. I hear machines.He grabs my knee and pushes my legs further apart. Pain unbearable pain rocks my whole body. The lady is standing over me and talking I can’t hear her it hurts so much. The man is asking her for something and she goes to him. I’m in so much pain. Tears are falling down the side of my face.The light above me is so bright I close my eyes. I just want to scream. I ask them to stop.No one hears me.The machine sounds like a vacuum cleaner and is just as loud.Please stop.Please it hurts so much.

It’s over. I’m laying there crying it still hurts. I have intense cramps and I’m bleeding. The man leaves and the lady helps me wash up and get ready. My legs shake so much. I get home and lay in bed crying in pain. I never stop thinking about it.What I did.What they did.I can’t get it out of my head.

I’m 15.In ninth grade.My step father’s brother raped me.In my own house.When no one else was home. And because I had an abortion no one even knew what was going on in the house.
He continued to rape me. Until I got pregnant again. This time I went through the pregnancy.Because I had not asked for any pads my mother figured it out. I told her what happened. He stopped rapping me.

With my family I went through the pregnancy.I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. I got to hold her for a little bit.Then they took her away.My parents had made me give her up for adoption. When all alone in the room I called my only friend. I told her all about my little girl. I cried myself to sleep.

I am that friend.We were so close and we talked about everything. But she was so scared that she never told me about what was happening in that house.She talked about the abortion all the time afterward.She was only 16.In 9 months she had fallen so in love with her baby that to this day she still cries about missing her. She’s 38 this year.
 
At the end of the day doesn’t abortion come down to the question of what is a human life?

And at what stage do we consider a human life a life?

Does potential for life really mean anything anymore considering what we know about how a human develops and conception?

Lets just remember that the most prolific abortionist is actually nature with most conceptions bieng aborted during menstruation. If you think life begins at conception that is.

…

But more to do with the children of raped women. What about the possibilty of mental disorders spread genetically. What if the rapist was a sociopath with a genetic mental tendancy towards the psychotic?

Are you the obligated to have an obortion incase the child may be a psycho?

…

It’s a hard decision that some women have to make, weather raped or merely unprepared for a child, I think we should trust in the goodness of a person to make that decision and try not to force anything on them…
 
Abbadon said:
At the end of the day doesn’t abortion come down to the question of what is a human life?

And at what stage do we consider a human life a life?

Does potential for life really mean anything anymore considering what we know about how a human develops and conception?

Lets just remember that the most prolific abortionist is actually nature with most conceptions bieng aborted during menstruation. If you think life begins at conception that is.
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It has nothing to do with “potential for life” or what someone’s opinion on the matter is. It is a scientific fact that life begins at conception, there can be no arguing that.

But anyway, just to give a brief proof, you first need to start with the question, what is life?

Here’s a definition from dictionary.com:
life
the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.

So basically, to have life is to grow and replicate your own species. Feti, from the moment of conception, begin growing and changing their appearance and structure internally, meaning with no help from the outside. Therefore, they are alive.

Now if they are alive and not human, what are they? I could elaborate on this point, but I don’t think I need to.
…
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But more to do with the children of raped women. What about the possibilty of mental disorders spread genetically. What if the rapist was a sociopath with a genetic mental tendancy towards the psychotic?
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Are you the obligated to have an obortion incase the child may be a psycho?
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So you think we should kill a child because of the possibility that it will have a mental disorder? really?

I have better solution, have the baby and find out later if it has a mental disorder. Then, if at age 20, the child begins to show signs of this disorder, just shoot him/her. Wouldn’t that make more sense? At least then we wouldn’t risk killing those without the disorders.
(yes, I’m being very sarcastic)
…
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It’s a hard decision that some women have to make, weather raped or merely unprepared for a child, I think we should trust in the goodness of a person to make that decision and try not to force anything on them…
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You’re absolutely right, we have no right to force that on them. I guess with that logic, though, that means we won’t be able to punish rapists or serial killers anymore either. In fact, the entire judicial system would just have to go, because who are we to force something on those people? I mean, it is their choice after all…
 
buckr02 said:
It has nothing to do with “potential for life” or what someone’s opinion on the matter is. It is a scientific fact that life begins at conception, there can be no arguing that.

But anyway, just to give a brief proof, you first need to start with the question, what is life?

Here’s a definition from dictionary.com:
life
the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.

So basically, to have life is to grow and replicate your own species. Feti, from the moment of conception, begin growing and changing their appearance and structure internally, meaning with no help from the outside. Therefore, they are alive.

Now if they are alive and not human, what are they? I could elaborate on this point, but I don’t think I need to.
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But we kill non human life all the time… We feast on it infact… An embryo doesn’t have conciousness it doesn’t have a nervous system. And it has less cells than the brain of a fly. Surely the then the killing of a fly should present us with a greater moral dilema, but it doesn’t why not?
So you think we should kill a child because of the possibility that it will have a mental disorder? really?
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I have better solution, have the baby and find out later if it has a mental disorder. Then, if at age 20, the child begins to show signs of this disorder, just shoot him/her. Wouldn’t that make more sense? At least then we wouldn’t risk killing those without the disorders.
(yes, I’m being very sarcastic)
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I was just throwing an idea out there as to why someone might logically want to have an abortion of her rapists child…
I’m both for and against a GATTACA like world… On one hand we would have selective breeding and a great gene pool… But then on the other hand we would have far less problems to solve, and say for example restoring sight to those with no use of their eyes, that technology might help us in the future… So yes and no…
You’re absolutely right, we have no right to force that on them. I guess with that logic, though, that means we won’t be able to punish rapists or serial killers anymore either. In fact, the entire judicial system would just have to go, because who are we to force something on those people? I mean, it is their choice after all…
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But is killing life really a crime? Like i said we do it all the time. Would you make everyone become a vegetarian as well? I do not argue with you that it is life but is it a crime to kill life? Does it containing human DNA or the potential to develop into a human make it special? Wait hold on even plants are life, we can’t kill plants either…

I think you now need to elaborate on the point of they are life but their not human so what are they and what makes killing them a crime?
 
Your grandmother has a false arguement. The infrequent exception is being used as the basis of general discussion. Usually abortion is a back up plan for when people are having recreational sex during a time when they shouldn’t be and then do it recklessly.
 
Abbadon said:
But we kill non human life all the time… We feast on it infact… An embryo doesn’t have conciousness it doesn’t have a nervous system. And it has less cells than the brain of a fly. Surely the then the killing of a fly should present us with a greater moral dilema, but it doesn’t why not?

I was just throwing an idea out there as to why someone might logically want to have an abortion of her rapists child…
I’m both for and against a GATTACA like world… On one hand we would have selective breeding and a great gene pool… But then on the other hand we would have far less problems to solve, and say for example restoring sight to those with no use of their eyes, that technology might help us in the future… So yes and no…

But is killing life really a crime? Like i said we do it all the time. Would you make everyone become a vegetarian as well? I do not argue with you that it is life but is it a crime to kill life? Does it containing human DNA or the potential to develop into a human make it special? Wait hold on even plants are life, we can’t kill plants either…

I think you now need to elaborate on the point of they are life but their not human so what are they and what makes killing them a crime?
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I find the above and the points you raised in your earlier posts in this thread to be very compelling and worth much consideration. Unfortunately, they won’t get that here because most folks “life”. Yet there are many vaiations of life. Sentient beings are often sacrificed seemilingly out of hand by the pro-life people who would do all they could to protect developing life in-vitro. Once a child is born, life becomes pretty cheap. Infants suffer from illness, hunger, etc, yet most pro-lifers will say that since life involves death, oh well. One pro-life told me quality of life was not an issue. In other words, if newborns starve to death soon after birth, that’s sad but just a fact of life. Somehow all of the energy goes into protecting pre-sentient in-vitro life. I find this somewhat twisted and more than a little hypocritical.

As for the argument that all life is holy, doesn’t that include those who have been born? And what about non-human life? Animals are sentient beings (I am a vegetarian), insects, reptiles. To take the life is holy ideal one step further, since death is a natural part of life, then isn’t all death holy? Life is only transitory after all.

Bear in mind that I am bipolar with a tendency toward depression and have, for the past year and continuing who knows how long, going through a very dark and difficult time. I decided long ago that life was generally more trouble than its worth so my questions to its value are on a very personal nature. People tell me I have to go on but I can’t imagine why.

I also, many years ago, had an abortion. I did not expereince any physical discomfort at the time and was happy to be able to keep food in my stomach (I was sick 24/7 and lost weight every day, nothing allieviated he nausea and I could keep down not a thing, even water- all I did was lay around and vomit). At times in the decades since that happened it has bothered me a bit, but I believed then and believe now it was the thing to do and I do not regret it.
 
Abbadon states:
But is killing life really a crime? Like i said we do it all the time. Would you make everyone become a vegetarian as well? I do not argue with you that it is life but is it a crime to kill life? Does it containing human DNA or the potential to develop into a human make it special? Wait hold on even plants are life, we can’t kill plants either…
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Come on Abbadon,

Do I have to distinguish between a fly and a human being for you to open your mind and grasp the concept of abortion. We are not talking about the life of a fly, nor a plant, nor even a cow. They worship the cow in some country’s, does that make the cow God? I can’t even believe that someone thinks the way you do some 35 years post Roe vs Wade. The fact is the conceptus is a human being. It is human and it is being, it is living.

Human life begins at conception. It is the point at which a moment before you did not exist and the point at which a moment after you did. And at that point in your existence, you did not merely posses the potential to become human, you were human.

Can you prove me wrong on this point?
 
Swan said:
I find the above and the points you raised in your earlier posts in this thread to be very compelling and worth much consideration. Unfortunately, they won’t get that here because most folks “life”. Yet there are many vaiations of life. Sentient beings are often sacrificed seemilingly out of hand by the pro-life people who would do all they could to protect developing life in-vitro. Once a child is born, life becomes pretty cheap. Infants suffer from illness, hunger, etc, yet most pro-lifers will say that since life involves death, oh well. One pro-life told me quality of life was not an issue. In other words, if newborns starve to death soon after birth, that’s sad but just a fact of life. Somehow all of the energy goes into protecting pre-sentient in-vitro life. I find this somewhat twisted and more than a little hypocritical.

As for the argument that all life is holy, doesn’t that include those who have been born? And what about non-human life? Animals are sentient beings (I am a vegetarian), insects, reptiles. To take the life is holy ideal one step further, since death is a natural part of life, then isn’t all death holy? Life is only transitory after all.

Bear in mind that I am bipolar with a tendency toward depression and have, for the past year and continuing who knows how long, going through a very dark and difficult time. I decided long ago that life was generally more trouble than its worth so my questions to its value are on a very personal nature. People tell me I have to go on but I can’t imagine why.

I also, many years ago, had an abortion. I did not expereince any physical discomfort at the time and was happy to be able to keep food in my stomach (I was sick 24/7 and lost weight every day, nothing allieviated he nausea and I could keep down not a thing, even water- all I did was lay around and vomit). At times in the decades since that happened it has bothered me a bit, but I believed then and believe now it was the thing to do and I do not regret it.
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I don’t think you will find many prolifers who readily accept the idea of people dying (e.g. of disease, starvation, etc) out of time. That is certainly not the impression I get on here anyway.

As far as your seeming to hold the lives of non-human beings on a par with that of human beings, I must ask: Have you had your immune response disabled yet? You kill millions of microbes and parasites daily, you know.
 
Swan writes,
Yet there are many vaiations of life. Sentient beings are often sacrificed seemilingly out of hand by the pro-life people who would do all they could to protect developing life in-vitro. Once a child is born, life becomes pretty cheap. Infants suffer from illness, hunger, etc, yet most pro-lifers will say that since life involves death, oh well. One pro-life told me quality of life was not an issue. In other words, if newborns starve to death soon after birth, that’s sad but just a fact of life. Somehow all of the energy goes into protecting pre-sentient in-vitro life. I find this somewhat twisted and more than a little hypocritical.
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Firstly, Swan, you engage in a primary diversionary tactic trying to support your indefensable position by changing the subject. You won’t focus on the issue at hand and you enlarge the topic as if we are talking about all life. We are talking about human life. That is all. Whether you believe an embryo or fetus is sentient or not is of no relevance to me. Sentience is not the gauge we use to determine whether the life in question is human or not. If that were the case, any person undergoing surgery would be fair game in your book.

That we were created carnivores is not the issue either.

Secondly, you mis-characterize the ethics of “most pro-lifers.” I would say you don’t have a clue what “most pro-lifers” would say about anything much less hunger and poverty in the world. What country do you find infants starving to death? Not in America, unless you are talking about those infants who happen to survive abortion and are left to die of exposure and neglect because “no one (supposedly) wants them”.

That one pro-lifer told you that “quality of life is not an issue” hardly speaks of the community at large. However, I would support that pro-lifer’s postition as we are talking about life and death here not the quality of life for those you deem worthy of living. By your logic we should be legally righteous in exterminating anyone whose quality of life you deem to be un-appealing. Is this concept ringing any bells in your brain? The truth is, a life well lived is subjective. I would rather live in poverty than live with the stain of the sin of murder on my conscience. I would rather my child live in poverty and know hunger than have the ideas which rattle around in your mind be a part of his mind-set.

All of us will someday be required to make an accounting for the life-blood spilled during our existance on the planet. I’m prepared to account for every steak I have consumed. Are you prepared to account for the 40 some-odd million children whose life-blood has been spilled by people who think and believe as you do?
 
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