Rape, abortion and rights

[aux1]

Under the pro-life legal theory, the embyo/fetus/child is a separate person starting from conception.

But this means that if woman has no right to abortion, the state essentially forces her to provide her body for the use by another person.

The counter-argument to this is that if woman consents to sex, she implicitly consents to carrying the child, so her right to bodily autonomy is not violated.

HOWEVER, in case of rape there was no such consent, so by denying abortion, the state is forcing the rape victim to provide her body for use by another person, i.e. the child.

If the state can do this, then the state does not recognize person’s bodily autonomy. So,
the state SHOULD also be able to force any person to donate blood (or kidneys or whatever) for the benefit of someone else.

See also the “famous violinist argument”: You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you. (quoted from Wikipedia).

 

[PetrusRomanus]

You forgot to mention the option of adoption.

And abortion will not undo a rape nor prevent further rapes.

 

[aux1]

You forgot to mention the option of adoption.

And abortion will not undo a rape nor prevent further rapes.

That’s irrelevant to the argument, which is: if the state can force a woman to carry an unwanted (unconsented to) pregnancy, why can’t it force YOU to donate blood or kidneys?

 

[SamH]

That’s irrelevant to the argument, which is: if the state can force a woman to carry an unwanted (unconsented to) pregnancy, why can’t it force YOU to donate blood or kidneys?

Actually the state highly regulates the donation of blood and kidneys.

 

[PetrusRomanus]

That’s irrelevant to the argument, which is: if the state can force a woman to carry an unwanted (unconsented to) pregnancy, why can’t it force YOU to donate blood or kidneys?

Not all that irrelevant.

Why is carrying out the pregnancy seen as so much worse? Why is this such an issue in the first place?

 

[marymary1975]

That is the favorite argument of every pro- abortionist, however abortions due to rape in the US Are 1%, I repeat ONE percent!!! So to me that is a strawman. Second my question would be why the State is punishing a child for a crime he did not commit? Abortion is an area which is full of inconsistencies in the USA and given those inconsistencies I don’t think your argument is valid. Your main argument is the bodily autonomy but then why the State can prohibit suicide and can regulate what you eat or why the State can prohibit a pregnant Woman to ingest certain drugs? The entire abortion thing is nothing but pure hipocresy

 

[Zimm3r]

The issue of adoption really does not fix the problem, which is, “Is it lawful to force a woman to provide life saving care to another?” (in the case of pregnancy being used as a host, in the famous violinist it is the case of your kidney)… adoption only provides for whether the law can force you take care of the child after the 9 months, then adoption is a solution. Now here is my moral splitting of hairs to solve this, in neither case would the person be killing the other if in these cases they just induce birth and remove the dialysis. Your action isn’t killing the kid (99.9% the kid dies but not because of you giving birth but do to other complications and same with the violinist both times there isn’t a 100% chance of killing the parasite when the host removes itself therefore just deliver the child and remove the tubing)… Course you could then argue shooting someone or stabbing someone doesn’t mean you killed them but other complications though in those two cases you are more directly responsible.

 

[Jeanne_S]

That’s irrelevant to the argument, which is: if the state can force a woman to carry an unwanted (unconsented to) pregnancy, why can’t it force YOU to donate blood or kidneys?

Apples and oranges.The nascent life on the womb is a separate human being.Which by the way is how all of us started out In our mothers’s womb! That a child is conceived through rape doesn’t diminish the value of that life. Don’t even bother with the usual staw man arguments for abortion.All life is a gift from God,the author of life.Too bad this fact is lost on so many today who think that if the mother doesn’t want the baby,it not a baby,get rid of it.Funny how when a baby is wanted,it is called a baby from the very start.

 

[Zimm3r]

That is the favorite argument of every pro- abortionist, however abortions due to rape in the US Are 1%, I repeat ONE percent!!! So to me that is a strawman. Second my question would be why the State is punishing a child for a crime he did not commit? Abortion is an area which is full of inconsistencies in the USA and given those inconsistencies I don’t think your argument is valid. Your main argument is the bodily autonomy but then why the State can prohibit suicide and can regulate what you eat or why the State can prohibit a pregnant Woman to ingest certain drugs? The entire abortion thing is nothing but pure hipocresy

It is an issue that needs to be addressed for 1% of legal cases or close to that. Sure if the person proposing it was saying it was all cases it would be a strawman argument. Why is the mother punished for a crime she didn’t commit carrying a child certainty isn’t an undue burden. The laws I guess could be considered inconstant, just need a better lawyer to argue them to constancy . I don’t think it should be able to stop suicides (same for eating ignoring Blumberg) or drug intake until you violate someone else’s rites (in the case of the fetus’s rights remove it from the host). It isn’t hypocrisy for the reasons you list, maybe for other reasons but those haven’t been stated from what I can tell.

 

[marymary1975]

That’s irrelevant to the argument, which is: if the state can force a woman to carry an unwanted (unconsented to) pregnancy, why can’t it force YOU to donate blood or kidneys?

why the State can allow an abortion based on I have the right to choose over my body but why it can forbid me from ingesting certain drugs or foods in my body if I choose and why denies the right of people to kill themselves if that is what they choose to do with their body? Moreover why it does not consider a crime if a woman kills her own unborn baby but if someone else kills the baby then they charge that person with murder? The answer to those questions is the answer to yours.

 

[Zimm3r]

Apples and oranges.The nascent life on the womb is a separate human being.Which by the way is how all of us started out In our mothers’s womb! That a child is conceived through rape doesn’t diminish the value of that life. Don’t even bother with the usual staw man arguments for abortion.All life is a gift from God,the author of life.Too bad this fact is lost on so many today who think that if the mother doesn’t want the baby,it not a baby,get rid of it.Funny how when a baby is wanted,it is called a baby from the very start.

I don’t think he / she stated that life is not valuable but you can look at it as the opposite the life of the mother and her rights of bodily autonomy. Even in the case of accepting it is a life doesn’t really change that the mother is still being forced to carry to term.

 

[Jeanne_S]

It is an issue that needs to be addressed for 1% of legal cases or close to that. Sure if the person proposing it was saying it was all cases it would be a strawman argument. Why is the mother punished for a crime she didn’t commit carrying a child certainty isn’t an undue burden. The laws I guess could be considered inconstant, just need a better lawyer to argue them to constancy . I don’t think it should be able to stop suicides (same for eating ignoring Blumberg) or drug intake until you violate someone else’s rites (in the case of the fetus’s rights remove it from the host). It isn’t hypocrisy for the reasons you list, maybe for other reasons but those haven’t been stated from what I can tell.

The fetus isn’t a parasite,so your argument is full of holes.

 

[Ophelia23]

That’s irrelevant to the argument, which is: if the state can force a woman to carry an unwanted (unconsented to) pregnancy, why can’t it force YOU to donate blood or kidneys?

Why does the state force us all to pay taxes to provide care, assistance and housing to children who are already born? You could easily argue that the children were “unwanted”, otherwise the parents would be caring for them. But there are many children in foster care and state-run facilities sustaining their lives. If we take your argument, then where lies the difference? Is it that these children who are outside of the womb are visible and THAT is what makes them have more value?

Whether the child is inside of the womb or outside of the womb, whether they are wanted or unwanted, they are still children. And the state already does require us to care for those who have been born when we had nothing to do with the consent of the pregnancy.

In other words, your argument is only good if you are denying the humanity of the child. And the only difference between a child who has been born vs a child who has not yet been born is how much light of day they see.

 

[Zimm3r]

The fetus isn’t a parasite,so your argument is full of holes.

How isn’t it, it requires a host for life, and if it isn’t parasitic then induce labor and let it live on it’s own volition by being adopted or given to the state for foster care.

 

[po18guy]

That’s irrelevant to the argument, which is: if the state can force a woman to carry an unwanted (unconsented to) pregnancy, why can’t it force YOU to donate blood or kidneys?

It will. Just be patient.

 

[robwar]

Under the pro-life legal theory, the embyo/fetus/child is a separate person starting from conception.

But this means that if woman has no right to abortion, the state essentially forces her to provide her body for the use by another person.

The counter-argument to this is that if woman consents to sex, she implicitly consents to carrying the child, so her right to bodily autonomy is not violated.

HOWEVER, in case of rape there was no such consent, so by denying abortion, the state is forcing the rape victim to provide her body for use by another person, i.e. the child.

If the state can do this, then the state does not recognize person’s bodily autonomy. So,
the state SHOULD also be able to force any person to donate blood (or kidneys or whatever) for the benefit of someone else.

See also the “famous violinist argument”: You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you. (quoted from Wikipedia).

I was raised in a pro-abortion home because my cousin was taken to have an illegal abortion before 1973. When I was in 8th grade, I got into an argument with a Catholic over rape and abortion. What this boy said was that a child conceived in abortion should not be killed just because he was conceived in a rape, the child is still created by God and shouldn’t be punished for the way the child was conceived, that all life is precious to God no matter how it was conceived. That hit me even though at the time I was pro-abortion. It also planted a seed in me which lead me to the Catholic Church. I am not sure what to say to you but that for whatever reason, known only to God, all life is precious to Him, no matter how it was conceived. There are many testimonies from women who have been raped and decided to choose life and even from the trauma, never regretted this decision to have the baby. Then there are women that choose abortion only to not just live with the trauma of rape, but the murder of their baby and a 2nd violation of their bodies in an abortion. Abortion stops a beating heart, no matter how that heart was conceived.

 

[Zimm3r]

Why does the state force us all to pay taxes to provide care, assistance and housing to children who are already born? You could easily argue that the children were “unwanted”, otherwise the parents would be caring for them. But there are many children in foster care and state-run facilities sustaining their lives. If we take your argument, then where lies the difference? Is it that these children who are outside of the womb are visible and THAT is what makes them have more value?

Whether the child is inside of the womb or outside of the womb, whether they are wanted or unwanted, they are still children. And the state already does require us to care for those who have been born when we had nothing to do with the consent of the pregnancy.

In other words, your argument is only good if you are denying the humanity of the child. And the only difference between a child who has been born vs a child who has not yet been born is how much light of day they see.

But none of the foster children force themselves on unwilling hosts and to such a degree as pregnancy

 

[ellzeena]

Aux
Rape is a heinous crime, a dreadful violation in every way, and it affects a woman’s life for the remainder of her existence in one way or another. She is the innocent victim of a slime ball (the rapist).

The blastocyst/zygote/embryo is equally innocent. It did not ask for conception but rather was GIVEN LIFE for whatever reason (and we do not know those reasons, at least not now, sometimes in retrospective!)

Do two wrongs make a “right” (pun intended!) There are childless couples praying for a baby. The raped woman now has two traumas: the violation of her person (and all that implies) and the voluntary death of her unborn child (she volunteers). Abortion has serious and lifelong effects, as well, on the woman.

You CAN love the unborn child you carry, no matter how that child came into existence. Yes, you can.

 

[Ophelia23]

But none of the foster children force themselves on unwilling hosts and to such a degree as pregnancy

And neither does the fetus.

The rapist forced himself on the woman. The subsequent child is absolutely innocent and blame free.

 

[Zimm3r]

Aux
Rape is a heinous crime, a dreadful violation in every way, and it affects a woman’s life for the remainder of her existence in one way or another. She is the innocent victim of a slime ball (the rapist).

The blastocyst/zygote/embryo is equally innocent. It did not ask for conception but rather was GIVEN LIFE for whatever reason (and we do not know those reasons, at least not now, sometimes in retrospective!)

Do two wrongs make a “right” (pun intended!) There are childless couples praying for a baby. The raped woman now has two traumas: the violation of her person (and all that implies) and the voluntary death of her unborn child (she volunteers). Abortion has serious and lifelong effects, as well, on the woman.

You CAN love the unborn child you carry, no matter how that child came into existence. Yes, you can.

But the issue is whether she should be force to do so, there is no question that there could be those who do wish to carry it to term and even keep the kid but can this be forced on them.