abortion after rape

[Ted]

Let's think for a second. The classic pro-abortion argument it "oh but what if the woman was a victim of rape, or incest?" What if they were? Let's say that we buckled down and said "okay, fine. Women who were raped or victims of incest can get an abortion." Well, my friends, fewer than 1% of abortions are performed due to rape or incest. Even if abortion after rape was ok, there would still be 99 out of 100 fetuses aborted! It's absurd. This example is brought up by all women and men who are pro-abortion when, in reality, it applies to one out of 100 mothers.

[remedios]

Who cares? This thread was started by someone who is all for forcing raped women to loan out their bodies to the rapist's kid. I answered to show how far afield from reality and the mainstream that poster was.

Point being? Abortion should be available to anyone who wants one.

[remedios]

You miss my point. I am not saying that women should be left alone to abort as they see fit. If the only point I was making was that the rest of the world is horrible so women should be allowed to be horrible, I'd have a piss poor argument indeed. What I am actually saying is that, if you want, in fact, to create a culture of life, if that is your true motivation when arguing against abortion, then you cannot stop at abortion. I am pointing out what I see as a horrible hypocrisy, a two-facedness that I believe indicates a lack of sincerity on the part of many pro-lifers.

In short, I am saying that if you want to be pro-life, then be PRO-LIFE, but do not imagine you fool anyone into believing you if the only thing you care about is whether a woman chooses to keep her baby or not. Because that is not the end of the story of our culture of death.

Women aborting is only one of many symptoms. I wouldn't disagree with you if you said that it ranks as one of the more immediately alarming ones, but it is part of a much bigger problem. Anyone who argues otherwise is either in denial, or is not sincere about valuing life.

[Ted]

I do value life. I'm anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, anti-war-except-as-last-resort. I'd rather not kill people, personally.

[remedios]

War should never be used. No war has ever been faught that did not involve a loss of innocent human life. If innocent human life should be protected, even at the expense of a woman who's been raped, then there is no justification for war. After all, even if we or our ally suffered the equivalent of rape, apparently it doesn't justify taking innocent human life.

[Ted1]

Old Musketeer quote-- "When you draw your sword, you should think not of what you are slaying, but what you are allowing to live."

People need to set priorities. It's the only logical way to maintain a nation.

[remedios]

I'm perfectly fine with a national standard, even a Constitutional Amendment, enshrining the right to life of innocent human beings.

Unfortunately for hawkish conservatives and Democrats alike, you can bet that particular precedent would come back to bite them you know where.

;D

[remedios]

In fact, if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned, budding liberal attorneys the entire nation over will most assuredly make careful note of the specific language used by the court and in arguments made by pro-life attorneys.

What a great day it will be when Roe v. Wade revisited can be used to impose criminal or civil punitive sanctions on companies whose lack of safety regulations result in deaths, or when countries the world over use that same language to criticize completely unnecessary military campaigns waged by the United States. God will truly be smiling on the U.S. when that happens.

[PC]

WOW! I have to say it was a pretty good banter when you guy's started out, but you lost me when it degraded to petty name calling. Shame on both of you. Humans have a highly developed cerebral cortex, that's what makes us different from animals. We have the ability to reason and know right from wrong, we are not governed by the fight or flight impulse througout our daily activities. Yes, we have animal insticts, but we posess the unique ability to reason our way through them. Rape is a horrible act of violence, and I really can't say how I would feel if I were to become pregnant as a result. Even so, it doesn't make a good argument for abortion being legal or not. You're talking (as was stated previoulsy) about a minute percentage of cases. Abortions in cases of maternal and fetal health are also on the rock bottom of the statistic chart. All three reasons total less than 6% of all abortions performed nation wide (Planned Parenthood Statistic). That means statistically 94% of all abortions performed are for birth control purposes. That is wrong. Women have all the rights of choice they want, the right to use whatever method of birth cotrol they want, the right not to have sex.... After that, like it or not, there is a life to consider. It really isn't a matter of choice. The choice occurs before conception. It's a medical fact that babies feel pain and can suffer at 26 weeks gestation, it's a medical theory that babies have the ability to feel pain from as early as 6 weeks gestation. The truth of the matter is that before 26 weeks they're just not sure. So, since no one can say for sure one way or the other, we'll just keep on aborting like always - until someone can "prove the fetus' feel pain". Nevermind the fact that they display the same hormonal response to pain as in adults at 14 weeks gestation - they can't actually tell us it hurts, so it really doesn't count. This is all very amazing to me, what kind of uproar do you think society would be in if we started throwing people in jail with no probable cause or due process and tell them when you can prove you're innocent of whatever crime was commited - then we'll let you out. How can people stand back and heartlessly say that there is no life in a developing fetus? There is more scientific evidence that it is a life than to the contrary. Just because abortion is legal does not mean it is right. Many of our laws are flawed, but we do the best we can with what we've got, and it's better than most. Most of the time in order to protect the innocent we only do a better job protecting the guilty. There are more laws to defend a criminals rights than to defend a victim's. Abortion laws are no different. My baby is awake now, I've got to go.

[remedios]

This debate is not about the morality of abortion or of war, but whether the same moral calculus applies to justifications given for the taking of innocent human life, regardless of the situation in question.

I, the liberal, find myself in the amusing position of arguing against conservatives who hold that we can selectively apply moral standards relative to the situation at hand.

If abortion is wrong, then so is war. PERIOD.

[remedios]

Nevermind the fact that they display the same hormonal response to pain as in adults at 14 weeks gestation . . .

Please cite this study. All studies I have (peer-reviewed, every one of them) cite a minimum age of 18 weeks for this hormonal response. To correct you, the studies on this subject have measured a stress response, not a "pain" response. As evidence of pain can be supported more conclusively by additional evidence, there is no justification for premature judgment on this issue. As it stands now, we can say that the hormonal response a fetus has to what are presumably painful stimuli mimic an adult's hormonal profile in response to ANY stress, including, but not limited to, pain.

The kind of experience of pain that would make abortion more objectionable may not be possible in a 2nd trimester fetus, if for no other reason than it is too early in development for the stress response to be anything but a change in the hormonal profile. Imagine a person with no higher brain function. If their hand is held to a flame, the same change in hormones will occur, but they cannot properly be said to have experienced pain.

My sources (note, the first study was performed by the doctor who testified to Congress as an expert witness when it was considering the so-called "Partial Birth Abortion Act."):

1. Simons SH. van Dijk M. Anand KS. Roofthooft D. van Lingen RA. Tibboel D. Do we still hurt newborn babies? A prospective study of procedural pain and analgesia in neonates. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. 157(11):1058-64, 2003 Nov.

2. Giannakoulopoulos, J Teixeira, N Fisk, and V Glover Human fetal and maternal noradrenaline responses to invasive procedures, Pediatr Res 1999 45: 494-499.

3. Mahieu-Caputo D. Dommergues M. Muller F. Dumez Y. Fetal pain. Presse Medicale. 29(12):663-9, 2000 Apr 1.

4. Pain and stress in the human fetus*1, Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod, pages 161-165, Richard P. Smith, R. Gitau, V. Glover and Nicholas M. Fisk.

[PC]

I get the distinct impression that you don't actually read your sources. Even if you did, you took what I said completely out of context (which I see you do a lot). Refuting my post by extracting the tiny bit of quote that you did does however, make you absolutly right! I have no desire to be completely redundant, but here it goes anyway - What I said was, "It is a scientific fact (no argument anywhere in the AMA to be found) that a fetus can feel pain after 26 weeks. Because of this research, compelling evidence has come to light that the age of fetal sentience may actually be much earlier than origionally thought, maybe even as early as 8 weeks gestation. Research into this matter is inconclusive at best and requires more study". The Medical Research Council has a pretty in depth report on the matter and will certainly cover the areas that I am not, it also has links to the UK Commission into Fetal Sentience which is very enlightening.

I would also like to point out that it's pretty ignorant to argue fetal pain perception post viability. Plenty of babies are born from 24 weeks gestation on, and guess what? When you poke them, they cry (pain response). I would also like to mention that a good friend of mine had her baby at 21 weeks gestation (during the time frame you indicate a fetus is not a human being), that baby turned 8 in January.

I am not a doctor or a scientist, I generally mind my own business, I am not a liberal or a conservative. I form opinions based on issues as they come up and compell me to find out more. The issue of life, pain, or suffering in a fetus is not conclusive. Until it is conclusive it would seem humane to err on the side of caution (the conservative side, as you call it). I would hate to be the one to have to look back in 20 years and regret my actions because I didn't at least consider all aspects of a situation. I may be wrong and maybe someday science will prove that you are right, probably not, but either way I will sleep at night bacause I never caused intentional harm with my actions or attitudes. You on the other hand are left holding a pretty ugly bag if I am the one who is right.

Which reminds me, about the cow statement in one of your earlier posts - if an abortion is of no more consequence than killing a cow for a meal, why don't we eat the fetus?

[remedios]

I asked you for a citation. You still haven't given me one for the only thing in your post that caught my interest:

Because of this research, compelling evidence has come to light that the age of fetal sentience may actually be much earlier than origionally thought, maybe even as early as 8 weeks gestation.

Compelling evidence? What compelling evidence?

I gave you citations that are unambiguous locators for the information I referred to. You should do the same if you expect me to care.

As for the rest of your post, it's the same recycled moral argument that I've answered elsewhere, except for that last question, about why we don't eat fetuses: because cannibalism grosses most people out, regardless of whether they believe that killing innocent human life is acceptable, in human or fetus form. Ask Mo if s(he) thinks cannibalism o.k. S(he)'ll likely say no, despite his/her penchant for killing of innocent human lives in war.

Go figure.

[PC]

I appologize, I was able to pull up the Medical Research Council web site pretty easily, as well as the web site for the AMA. The study regarding Fetal Sentience (swallow hard) is one I accessed through a pro-life web site www.care.uk.org. The study is published un-biased through this site.

As far as the cow question, it was rhetorical. It sounds as silly as your comparison, so I thought I would post it (sorry for the confusion, sarcasm loses it's effect in writing).

I really don't believe that any study is ever going to cause you to change your opinion, no more than anything you say is going to change any of ours. You are on a conservative web site posting liberal views and belittling anyone who has a differing opinion. If you are really concerned that maybe you don't have all of the facts about this issue and are looking for something to sway you one way or the other and are using this as a resource to get more information, good for you. Unfortunately, you appear to me, to be a moderately educated person that just likes to argue and call people names. Which explains why you have to converse through chat rooms, I doubt very many people tolerate you in the real world.

[remedios]

I am on a conservative website called "rant" doing just that: ranting with the other ranters. Ranting is part of the fun. Don't imagine that I "belittle" other people's views anymore than I have mine belittled.

We're all grown-ups here - we can take it.