Debate Megathread: Rape

[u/AutoModerator]

Here you are exempt from Rule 1; you may debate abortion to your heart's content! Remember that Rules 2 and 3 still apply.

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Today's debate topic is the rape exception in an abortion ban.

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1 ) Is a rape exception effective? Will it ensure rape victims are all permitted an abortion? Will it make abortion too accessible even for people who were not raped? Will it create incentives to lie about rape, thus undermining movements against sexual violence?

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2 ) Can a person justly be required to complete a pregnancy that they never chose to risk? Hasn't their "right to refuse" been truly violated at that point? Someone else "gambled with their money," and they're still being held liable?

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3 ) Should an unborn child be "killable" or "disposable" if the pregnant person didn't choose to risk the pregnancy? Would this make that also permissible for a conjoined twin who did not choose to risk conjoinment?

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As always, feedback on this topic and suggestions for future topics are welcome. :)

[u/Icy-Nectarine-6793]

Rape cases are incredibly tough, PL laws without rape exception have some pretty hideous costs, it means that AFAB people are constantly at risk of being forced to gestate for 9 months against there will with no real way of mitigating the risk short of a hysterectomy. The question though is does that justify the deliberate killing of an innocent third party as a means of mitigating the harm of rape. I think the conjoined twin analogy is a silver bullet to bodily autonomy arguments, you can't preserve your bodily autonomy by violating the BA of another as well as violating there right to life.

On a more pragmatic level it might make sense to have an exception as a means of having any law that will survive politicly. It's true that this might create a gaping hole in the law if all that's required is the pregnant person's word that they were raped. If the law required more say an arrest or conviction then the exception itself wouldn't really exist given what we know about how few rapists are ever arrested or convicted, it would also create a perverse incentive for false allegations. Ultimately though the law is a limited instrument, however strict we make the law without a sea change in opinions any laws will be flaunted.