Vylo

This thread was started here http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=57118

It turned away from separation issues and entered the realm of morallity so let's continue any discussion about it here.

Dr. Retard

Many pro-lifers make an exception for rape-induced pregnancy. They think terminating those pregnancies should be legal. But the most common moral principle of pro-lifers is: "It should be illegal to kill fetuses, since they possess a full-blooded right to life". And when you terminate a rape-induced pregnancy, you are indeed killing a fetus. So what gives? How might you defend this rape exception, while accepting (controversially) that fetuses have this right?

The best way I can think of appeals to the fact that rape-induced pregnancies are imposed upon the victim by force, whereas other pregnancies are the joint result of the woman's choices and the (mis)fortunes of Mother Nature. This means that the rape victim has a claim to self-defense, a claim that might entitle her to terminate the pregnancy imposed upon her by the rapist. Pregnancies are, after all, exhausting ordeals of pain, suffering, and inconvenience -- just the sort of thing we may defend ourselves against.

This line of defense crucially turns on just how extensive our right to self-defense is. For example, if someone maliciously throws an innocent fat man on top of me, so that I will be crushed to death if I do not immediately vaporize him with my death ray, is it permissible for me to vaporize the poor guy, just to save my life? May we slaughter the innocent, just to save ourselves from the aggression of others? Intuitions differ here. When it comes to aborting a fetus, the question is "May we kill a fetus, just to save ourselves from the ordeal of a pregnancy aggressively imposed upon us?" And, bearing in mind that we are assuming that fetuses have a full-blooded right to life, let's ask "May we kill an innocent person, just to save ourselves from this imposed ordeal?" Look at a far-fetched example: Suppose that the fetus were somehow linked to some unknown guy in Russia, so that when you killed the fetus, the guy in Russia would also die. May we kill the Russian, just to save ourselves from this imposed ordeal? I trust we agree that No, this would be far too much; yes, we have a right to self-defense, but not a right so extensive as to license the killing of innocent people (at least in cases very close to the rape-induced pregnancy case).

So how else can the pro-lifer defend the rape exception? Here's a conjectured position: When a woman consents to sex and becomes pregnant as a result, there is something fitting and proper about the woman accepting the pregnancy and bearing the child. In contrast, when a woman becomes pregnant from rape, there is nothing fitting about the woman accepting the pregnancy and bearing the child. This somewhat strange position is the only way I can make sense of (metaphorical?) talk about how "the woman needs to take responsibility for her actions". After all, for me (a pro-choicer), it looks like the typical woman seeking an abortion is taking responsibility for her actions -- her choices unfortunately led to an undesirable result, and she's getting help from a professional so that her problem doesn't get worse. This looks to me as innocuous as someone who foolishly sunbathed without sunscreen and then got sunburned, who then decides to use aloe vera to soothe the burn. Or someone who ate sugar all the time, didn't brush and didn't floss, who then decides to see a dentist about the toothache. I see nothing fitting about losing a tooth or bearing the pain of sunburn, just because you screwed up, rather than going out and doing something about it.

But, in any case, this position defends the rape exception only if it is joined by the claim that fetuses do not have a full-blooded right to life. After all, if fetuses did have such a right, it would be seriously wrong to kill them, even if they were the result of rape, as was suggested by the case of the Russian guy. But if fetuses don't have a right to life, then it seems the position can't justify criminalizing your typical case of abortion. Look at it. Let's say it's fitting for a woman to accept a pregnancy that she got herself into. It follows that, if she gets an abortion, she's doing something non-fitting or improper. It does not follow that she's doing something that ought to be against the law. After all, it's presumably improper for me to grease a cucumber and jam it up my butt. But that doesn't mean it should be against the law for me to do so. Just because something is improper doesn't mean it ought to be illegal. So, if you want to justify making abortion illegal for women who got themselves into the pregnancy, you need to do more than say that abortion is improper. You need to point to something else about abortion to justify criminalizing it, and you need yet another principle if you also want to justify the rape exception.

So I don't see how a pro-lifer can defend a rape exception.

long winded fool

I'm pro-life and I've never heard a logical argument for having abortion be legal for rape victims and not other women. If a human fetus shares the same inalienable human right to life as all other humans, then this right would logically supercede all the rights of its mother short of her own right to life. This would include her right not to be "forced" to bear the child of her rapist. The logical pro-life position seems to me to be that abortion should be illegal in all cases except self-defense, i.e. when the mother's life is put in immediate jeopardy by her unborn child.

yguy

If it is true that a fetus has an inalienable right to life, it is certainly true that abortion always counts as homicide - but homicide is not always murder. Abortion by a rape victim could be considered manslaughter or some such.

Dr. Retard

Well, why shouldn't it count as murder? Why only manslaughter? Is there some reason for treating it less severely?

yguy

The pregnancy wasn't her doing. If that isn't an extenuating circumstance, I don't know what is.

Dr. Retard

Are you willing to endorse this as a general rule?: If you have a problem, and you deal with it by killing an innocent person, then, if it turns out that the problem was aggressively and illegally imposed upon you by someone else, then that counts as an extenuating circumstance? Suppose Joe kills an innocent person to get their money, and it turns out that the reason Joe was in such dire straits was that, a few months earlier, someone stole all his money. Does that count as an extenuating circumstance? After all, Joe didn't have to deal with his problem by killing an innocent.

yguy

As far as that goes, he could have dealt with it by means of thievery rather than murder. The raped woman has no options at this time other than carrying the rapist's child - which she is likely to despise - or abortion. I don't see an anology that is comparable to this special case.

Dr. Retard

The analogy (like most analogies) isn't supposed to be comparable in every respect. My point is that you need some principle like the following:

It's typically murder to deliberately kill innocent people, just to solve a problem you're stuck in. But, if the problem was imposed upon you through some criminal act, then that counts as an extenuating circumstance, and it's only manslaughter.

Of course, I don't know exactly what your principle is. That was just a guess. Anyway, if you apply this principle to the Joe case, it says that Joe has not committed murder; that seems like a silly result. You can also apply this to the "Russian guy" case, where it says that killing the Russian guy is not murder, and that also seems silly.

So, if this isn't your principle, then let me know what your principle is. Otherwise, your claim about a rape exception will seem kind of ad hoc.

P.S. Oh, and also, your post (ironically) doesn't seem to take adoption into account. Women don't have to raise the children they bear.

yguy

That's exactly what it is.