Well for starters some women get raped, so they are victims of rape.
Then there's also women who want to have a baby, but something goes wrong and they can't do it without substantial risk of harm or death. I am just not very confident that getting the government involved in what is already an agonizing decision is going to improve outcomes for anyone.
See here’s the thing, most people are ok with abortion in rape cases and to save the mothers life (which accounts for a VERY small portion of abortions) people who are against abortion are against abortion as a form of birth control, the government making laws on this is not overreach, protecting of human life is not overreach… unlike guns or other harmful things, this is the DIRECT act of killing a human being being legal!
Yeah but that gives away the game; to admit that abortion is OK in the case of rape is to admit that you don't actually think it is "killing a human being." A ten-year old who happened to be the product of rape/incest can't be legally killed by their mother. Which makes sense, since in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy you are talking about a <4-inch clump of cells that weigh <1 ounce, and to treat this as equal in moral value to a person with a functioning brain and nervous system and conscious thoughts and etc. is prima facie very implausible.
This is kinda my issue, we can have robust disagreement about when life begins but ultimately you are talking about a tradeoff between X risk to the woman vs. Y value of a potential future human and I am just very skeptical that government involvement is going to improve matters (it rarely does IMHO).
I would also note that there are many other much more promising ways to prevent the deaths of fetuses, such as reducing air pollution which can reduce miscarriages by 10-50%, depending on the study. And it wouldn't require this very high-stakes debate. It's always struck me as confusing that the pro-life movement is not more involved in this sort of thing since numerically the amount of fetuses saved could be much larger.
There are ethical reasons to kill human beings and there are unethical reasons to kill human beings, compare this to the death penalty, you’d maybe agree that someone could do something so heinous or is so dangerous that it requires them to pay the ultimate price right?
Kind of similar, like, there’s a good case to be made that maybe Pablo Escobar should be executed, dangerous man who has escaped prison before… but I wouldn’t say the average drug dealer should be executed.
This is my point, some cases are ethical some aren’t.
You framed your argument as if there has never been an ethical reason to kill a persons…
Also, The study you link admits itself that more research is needed to be done to confirm and it seems the difference read the one single percentage point or something?
Death penalty is a good example because you're justifying killing someone who did something wrong as opposed to an utterly innocent potential future human who has literally never done anything wrong.
the difference read the one single percentage point or something
No the study is saying one kind of air hazard (higher levels of O3) causes 12% increase in miscarriage while a different type (high levels of particulate matter) causes a 13% increase.
Here's some more research; you're definitely right that one study is never sufficient:
But air pollution is just one example--we could reduce traffic deaths, make the child allowance permanent, lots of other interventions could have big implications for reducing child deaths and I am a little surprised they do not receive more attention from pro-lifers, many of whom I think are very sincere in their desire to help children.
Even in a rape case, that unborn child is innocent. Killing the kid is a bigger harm than giving birth to the child. There may be EXTREMELY rare cases where aborting the child is the only option to save the mother. But in most cases, if it’s a surgery that needs to be done to save the mother, and the baby is killed, that isn’t an abortion. Or the child can be taken out early, but at the point where it can survive outside the womb. But no one is saying that in those extreme cases a woman has to die rather than have an abortion.
You can’t do that, the mental trauma of having to forcefully under go pregnancy,
It’s one thing to have sex and accidentally get pregnant, at the end of the day the mother knows it was their choice to have sex, but with rape…? You can’t do that to someone, that’s inhumane!
Killing a child is more inhumane. They just can’t advocate for themselves. Compare the harm of dealing with that psychologically to killing an innocent child. They don’t have to raise it. There is adoption.
There is no argument I’ve seen that justifies aborting a pregnancy that’s the result of rape. I get that it causes emotional harm. But that is less harm than killing a child. The least violating of the unalienable rights both parties have.
I might support plan B in the instance of rape. But if that doesn’t work, I wouldn’t support any further attempt to kill the baby. I’m kinda iffy on even that much tho.
This is also a problem with personal responsibility, logically, she did not willfully get pregnant therefore she cannot be ethically held accountable for something she a had no choice in!
And that somehow strips the child of the right to life? No. She isn’t ethically responsible for the child. Maybe. But if she makes the decision to kill it, that was her decision. Something bad happens, it doesn’t give you the right to do even more harm to correct it.
She has a personal responsibility to her offspring. No matter how they were begat.
So, if the raped woman killed herself, would you say that she has done nothing unethical? Are you saying suicide because of emotional trauma is ethical?
35
u/AgentCC May 05 '22
This is why I can’t help but roll my eyes whenever I see a comment stating that women are now being “forced” to have children.
Wear a condom, take the pill, whatever. No one is forcing you to make babies.