Stanek weekend question: Should Republicans stop talking about rape?
Conservative pollster Kellyanne Conway had sharp advice for Republicans when she spoke at their retreat on January 16. According to Politico:
It’s way past time: House Republicans need to stop talking about rape….
Conway said rape is a “four-letter word,” and Republicans simply need to stop talking about it in their races for office.
This advice obviously came in the wake of GOP Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin’s rape comment, which not only lost Akin what was foreseen as an easy win, but also played nicely into the Democrat “war on women” meme. GOP Indiana US Senate candidate Richard Mourdock was another casualty for same.
Meanwhile, the pro-life political group Susan B. Anthony List is launching a training program that includes suggestions on how to answer difficult questions. From now on SBA List will only endorse or contribute to pro-life candidates who successfully complete the program.
To that end, conservative S. E. Cupp recently wrote:
Republicans don’t campaign wearing sandwich boards that say, “Ask me about rape.”ť The media cynically ask these questions to elicit crazy responses. In those two cases [Akin and Mourdock], mission accomplished.
So even when we don’t talk about it, liberals will find a way to get us to discuss abortion. We may as well direct the conversation instead of being dragged into it unprepared….
Half the electorate is pro-life. That means we have to talk about life in compelling, compassionate ways that resonate.
We have to stand up for life without standing against women. And, yes, we have to put up better candidates who make sane, rational pro-life arguments. The solution for conservatives isn’t to talk about it less, it’s to talk about it more – and better.
What do you think? Should pro-life political candidates simply become better at avoiding the rape/incest issue, or should they become better at explaining their position?
I have a poll here but encourage you to draw out your answers in the comments section.
What Akin said at the time was nothing short of stupid, and what the SBA List is doing right now is a good way of trying to prevent similar statements in the future in my opinion. What Mourdock said, however, was not stupid at all, but was twisted by some in the media and especially by Democrats and other Mourdock opponents into something else entirely. It’s because of what happened to Mourdock that I consider Conway’s suggestion to be idiotic. Candidates need to better articulate their positions (especially within the narrow confines of debate answers), but ignoring the matter altogether won’t work.
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Republicans need to wake-up and realize Pro-Life with exceptions is Pro-Choice. They need to realize America is ready for a 100% Pro-Life candidate.
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It might well do your cause good to simply avoid the subject. Answer: “No comment.”
Perhaps the question should be turned around. How do we decrease rape?
How do we decrease pregnancies through rape?
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When someone is misrepresenting you, the solution is always to present your case clearly. In the GOP’s case, more clearly. Shutting down and not speaking just creates a vacuum for the other side to fill with whatever their cynical imaginations can dream up (and abortion defenders are pretty damn cynical indeed).
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There’s no way the issue can be avoided, as the media/our opponents (same difference, really) want to talk about it so badly, and therefore will not stop asking. So I see the best solution as to teach canidates to answer this issue without sounding like idiots.
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Democrats rape women and they are idolized within their constituency. Republicans talk about rape and they are demonized.
Democrats support women choosing to kill unborn children and they are idolized. Republicans hold signs of an abortion and get demonized.
They do this to try and keep us quiet so they can rape and kill in secret. We cannot back down.
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Pro-lifers must realize that the “Rape & Mother’s Life” argument is the opposition’s Ace in the Hole argument for abortion. Therefore, as for all debate questions, they must examine their own perspective in depth, then prepare a cohesive defense for that perspective. Every time a politician has been castigated for their conversation on rape, the offensive phrase was stated in response to a question regarding exceptions.
When I teach pro-life apologetics, I demonstrate that from conception to natural death, a person’s D.N.A. does not change — from the first cell to natural death, conception creates a unique individual.
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Whoever wrote the question phrased it terribly – the question in the poll. It isn’t as if “liberals” are trying to trip people up. This is a legitimate issue that people care about – if somebody says “I want to ban something”, it is legitimate to ask for details. So to say it’s just some sort of trap is to turn a naive eye to the American voter.
The focus shouldn’t be on rape, but when it comes up, people need to be able to answer it without sounding stupid, which is what happened in a couple of cases this year.
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Hi Michelle,
The “Mother’s Life” argument is moot. Exceptions have always been made, and still are, where necessary to save the life of the mother.
A big mistake would be to argue a mother’s life is never in danger. Even in this day and age, yes, a situation can arise where the mother’s life is in danger and where, despite the best efforts to save mother and child, an abortion may be necessary to save her life.
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Each Republican candidates could get to know a few prolife rape survivors and people who where not aborted in spite of their mom being raped.
When these candidates are asked loaded questions, they can refer the “gotcha” Democrats to these folks who will be able to answer any questions from experience and from the heart.
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We need a clever sound-bite deflects attention from the extreme cases and back to the real and basic problem.
“Since no child is safe under current law; rape victims can be killed without a trial. Just as baby girls are being aborted, for nothing more than the ‘crime’ of being a girl — and unwanted, because she is a girl. Well, the baby girl is innocent, and the child conceived by a rapist is innocent — and if we are just society, we need to do our best to protect and help these children and their mothers. Killing is never the answer.”
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Mary: Please read the last three paragraphs on this page (not included in the video). There is a difference between terminating a pregnancy early and an abortion. http://www.lifesitenews.com/blog/the-most-heartrending-abortion-testimony-youll-ever-hear-from-a-former-abor
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Dr. Sandra Mahkorn found that 75 to 85 percent did not have abortions.…
http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0002550.cfm
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Mary: Please read the last three paragraphs on this page (not included in the video). There is a difference between terminating a pregnancy early and an abortion.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/blog/the-most-heartrending-abortion-testimony-youll-ever-hear-from-a-former-abor
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Hi Rance,
I work in the medical area so I am well aware of the circumstances you describe. I also saw one case where a woman’s blood pressure in early pregnancy was so out of control, and defied every effort to control it, that a first trimester abortion was performed. BTW, this was at a Catholic hospital. Also, such fetal anamolies as anacephaly may also be aborted early, also in a Catholic hospital.
My point is Rance that the general public does not realize the difference and will only see this as an extreme position and PL people as being callous and uncaring to women who face any kind of danger. You will hear arguments that women with ectopic pregnancies will be left to die if the PL people have their way. Allowing the exception for the mother’s life does not mean that every effort isn’t made to save mother and baby, but rather in the rare exceptions, this is a legal and acceptable option.
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Another thing Rance,
I have watched young mothers die, despite every effort to save them, as well as have seen and treated complications, so I am not of the mentality that pregnancy is something benign. It has to be respected for what it is and the risks it can impose.
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Many thanks, Mary. I “liked” your posts, but I don’t think you can tell who the liker is… If only everyone could know the truth about the abortion issue.
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Hello Rance,
Thank you for the kind words. Believe me, I know first hand how our opponents are only too ready to blather hysterically that PL people don’t care if women die, why look, they even oppose an exception for the life of the mother!
Thankfully we have the technology and high risk maternity care units that were non existent not too long ago, at least when I got out of school. Sadly, they don’t always guarantee the desired outcome.
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We need more people conceived in rape to come forward and help us say, “We deserved the right to live.”
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They are trying:
http://rebeccakiessling.com/index.html
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My mother had an ectopic pregnancy. She says, “I’ve never had an abortion.” I believe this is correct and the fact that it is impossible for an ectopic pregnancy like hers — in the fallopian tube — to be brought to term at this time means that the termination of the ectopic pregnancy should not count as an abortion.
I knew someone whose adult daughter was in trouble late in the pregnancy. A C-section was done and her twins were delivered. Sadly, one had died and the other died shortly afterward. However, this wasn’t an abortion but an early delivery.
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Perhaps we should talk about ways to decrease rape.
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Rance,
If it made a difference, oh that i could “like” your post (January 19, 2013 at 12:12 pm)a thousand times…
Pregnancy is a risk, so is just daily living but we don’t stop either because of the risks.
To save innocent human life is in accord with God’s directives…to deliberately end innocent life for any reason is playing God. Where the two appear to be in conflict requires His intervention through prayer…
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Hi Denise 2:43PM
What you describe are emergency situations that leave no other option. Surgery for ectopic is a pregnancy termination, though it is not referred to as an abortion. I suppose technically it is. Also the emergency C section was an effort to save both mother and babies. Again a pregnancy termination but not an abortion.
Our opponents though would milk these situations for what they are worth to portray PL people as so fanatic, that women would be allowed to die rather than risk any harm to the fetus. I have even heard them blather that ectopic pregnancies would not be terminated, which is of course absurd. But when appealing to emotions, facts are irrelevant.
That’s why we must be ever aware of public perception. Even at work we do not use the term “abortion” around patients or their families, we say miscarry. Any argument that abortion is never necessary to save a mother’s life is not going to be well received and will be milked for all it is worth by our opponents.
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Hi LS,
I’m sorry but when you see a woman with no blood pressure and turning cyanotic because her Fallopian tube has ruptured, there is little time for prayer. Prayer is fine, but I’m afraid there are times when the options are limited and few. Also, when it is our own lives on the line, we may have to make some very difficult and painful decisions. That emergency Cesarean section necessary to save the pregnant woman who has been in a car accident may well result in fetal death, so what should be done?
Of course try to save the baby but what if it is just too early?
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When asked about an exception for rape, I would love to hear a pro-life politician respond with “I’m not in favor of the innocent child receiving a death sentence for the father’s crime.” And I would love for them to simply refuse to be moved off this point with any follow-up questions. Abortion is a death sentence inflicted on the innocent. Always.
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Exceptions keep abortion legal.
We have to continue to educate others and those conceived in rape have their lives as testimony.
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/08/20/woman-conceived-in-rape-responds-to-akin-abortion-controversy/
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“Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arise that threaten the mother’s health, the doctor will either induce labor or perform a Caesarean section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby’s life is never willfully destroyed because the mother’s life is in danger.”
– C. Everett Koop, M.D.
Former U.S. Surgeon-General
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Hi Carla,
With all respect to Dr.Koop, he is a pediatric surgeon, not an OB/GYN. Also, the fact that he personally knows of no such situation doesn’t make it non existent.
He speaks of toward the end of the pregnancy, what about very early like the situation I described?
Even when abortion laws were at their strictest, exceptions were made for the life of the mother and in my opinion should continue to. This fact did not stop our opponents from using this argument for its emotional appeal, or stop people from falling for it, so imagine if PL people come out against this exception? Our opponents would be in hog heaven.
This exception doesn’t mean that every effort isn’t made to save the lives of the mother and baby. I think it is very reasonable. Some may say the life of the baby never has to be taken to save the mother, I vehemently disagree.
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To induce labor early to try and save the mother’s life and also the childs is not an abortion.
Removal of an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion.
The unfortunate result of trying to save two lives is that one may die. We do not TAKE the life of the baby.
We do not intentionally KILL to save. We do not stab babies in the back of their heads and suck out their brains to save nor do we rip their tiny bodies apart to save nor do we suction them out with vacuum hoses. THAT is what abortion does.
We are talking about 1% am I right?
It is this 1% that keeps abortion legal.
Totally disagree with you Mary.
But I am a no exceptions prolifer.
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Hi Carla,
If its so rare what’s the problem with keeping the exception? You may totally disagree with me but you didn’t watch that woman nearly stroke out. Hers was thankfully an extremely rare situation but its just the type our opponents will latch on to. I’m telling you Carla that if PL people come out against this exception, we give our opponents the biggest gift they could ever ask for. And you’ve got all kinds of people out there who are going to fall for this emotional appeal, hook, line, and sinker. I’ve even read totally absurd accounts by people who are convinced that if abortion wasn’t legal, their pregnant hemorrhaging loved one would have been allowed to die. You and I know this is colossol nonsense, unfortunately a lot of people reading these accounts don’t.
What about inducing labor early to save the mother knowing full well the baby won’t survive? I’ve seen that decision come down to the wire, luckily the antibiotics began working before the mother developed a fatal uterine sepsis.
A woman in her first or early second trimester comes in the ER hemorrhaging and must be rushed to surgery? Is her unborn baby still alive? If so, its life may well be terminated to save its mother.
What about the woman who has been in a car accident and its necessary to remove her 4 month pregnant uterus to save her?
Sorry but these are the deliberate taking of one life to save another.
Absolutely I do not support the barbarism of partial birth abortion, and there is no medical justification for it.
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Intent is everything yes? Abortion is the intentional murder of an innocent human being. The intent of an abortion is to kill.
I have friends Mary that have been through it. 19 weeks along a severe infection and her son was delivered only to die in her arms. Not murdered by an abortionist.
I have also helped friends through a pregnancy conceived in rape. Friends that were conceived in rape and allowed to live.
I used to believe in exceptions until I met them.
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I’ve even read totally absurd accounts by people who are convinced that if abortion wasn’t legal, their pregnant hemorrhaging loved one would have been allowed to die.
A just society does not rationalize the taking of human life to pacify those who insist or pretend to believe in the totally absurd.
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But sometimes the absurd fears have to be assuaged, because they seem a lot less absurd when it’s you or someone you love experiencing such a thing. It’s terrible and disgusting that some people would use such instances for political gain, but that’s what it is. And even if the “life of the mother” language included in law seems superfluous to us because we know better, it saves A TON of heartache down the road for “low-information voters”.
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Anencephaly is not an “excuse” for abortion, Mary. You don’t kill a baby because “he/she is going to die, anyway”. In most cases, the baby will die on his/her own. No need to deliberately end his/her life before birth. Most parents who have had a baby with this condition are GRATEFUL for whatever time they had with their babies..with no regrets.
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DeniseNoe says
Perhaps we should talk about ways to decrease rape.
We already know the answer to that: A return to the values of marriage, family, respect for women, and respect for life. In other words, traditional Christian values — everything that the culture of free sex, abortion, and death have worked to destroy.
Working to end abortion is working to prevent rape — and every other degradation of women.
The biggest failure of the pro-life movement: We have failed to the world that the pro-life effort is the greatest love for women, and not just interested in saving the lives of children.
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The point, in my opinion, is not to bring it up or make it a campaign centerpiece but to be prepared – thinking it through in advance – should the question be asked; a response to such a question needs to be principled but respectful and ought to make a point that makes sense to the ordinary hearer (such as, What justice is there in giving a baby the death penalty for her father’s crime?).
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Mary, the problem with the exception is word usage and it being misused. An abortion is the intentional taking of a life. When you remove a living fetus too young to survive because otherwise both mother AND fetus will die. You are not intentionally killing the babe, you simply lack the means to save it. It’s like a car crash where two people are pinned. Both have extreme injuries but one has a very good change at recovery if removed to the hospital and the other has almost no chance to survive regardless of medical intervention. As soon as you shift the car to go after one victim, the movement of the car will almost certainly kill the other. Moving the car to retrieve the victim with the greatest chance of survival might kill the other, but that’s not murder. Likewise, even though he is at death’s door with no hope of recovery, it’s not acceptable and *is* murder if you shot the second victim in the head to kill him *before* you move the car. There is *never*, not *ever* a need to intentionally kill a living human being to save the life of another, even when we are talking mother/offspring. There are rare occurances, however, when medical science is not capable of saving both and treatment to the one unintentionally (but knowingly) leads to the death of another. That’s not abortion any more than battlefield triage is murder. So 1) an exception for the ‘life of the mother’ allows for a muddying of definitions, for the pro-abortionists to define abortion as something it’s not, merely the death of a child as opposed to the intentional killing of a child and 2) they leave open a hole big enough for any doctor and any woman to waltz through. All the woman has to say is ‘if I don’t get an abortion I’ll kill myself’ (whether she means it or not and then doc butcher checks off the box marked ‘pregnancy threatens the mother’s life’. That’s not a hypothetical hole, that’s a real hole which has been exploited in the past. Some attempts have been made recently where ‘life of the mother’ has been defined in such a way that *only* real, physical medical conditions are in consideration, but those aren’t abortions, so why would they be covered under an abortions bill?
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We have an adversary that wants to portray us as the enemy of womankind everywhere. We know such a portrayal is pure slander and lies, but it’s what they want the public to believe. Some conservative 40 year old man who has led a sheltered life, he probably hasn’t thought much about rape. He doesn’t know the language spoken by young liberals (and I’m not talking about English vs Spanish here). He doesn’t know how certain words and phrases are interpreted by the left. The left isn’t going to explain it to him so that he won’t put his foot in his mouth. They WANT him to put his foot in his mouth. They wil be quick, however, to explain their interpretation to the public after that clueless man has spoken. Of course, their interpretation is going to help the public see us as the enemy. That’s how elections are won (and lost) these days.
The press will set up these gotcha questions, because like I said, they want that candidate to put his foot in his mouth. The questions and comments they come up with are calculated for that purpose. We can’t avoid the press, they’ll really write bad stuff about us then, about how shifty we are and what are we hiding, blah, blah, blah.
The response of the Susan B Anthony List is the only possible approach that can work. We have to be ready for these people, and the SBA List is helping to make that happen.
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Hi Carla 5:53PM
I am sorry your friend delivered a dead baby but thankful she survived. Carla, your friend could have died from uterine sepsis. Believe me a uterine infection during pregnancy, or post partum, is nothing to fool with. Depending on the severity and response to antibiotics, I can understand where a very difficult and painful choice to induce an early labor might have to be made. Maybe you would understand exceptions if your friend or her family member had to make this terrible choice, or if your friend’s life was saved by abortion, or lost because she didn’t have one.
You are to be commended for supporting the friends you mentioned through such traumatic situations.
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Praxades,
I was pointing out that there are people who believe that if it was not for abortion being legal, their loved ones would have been allowed to die as treating them would have been illegal. Roe v Wade made this possible and thus save their loved one. People read this nonsense and believe it.
This is totally absurd, but people believe it! Exceptions have always been made for the life of the mother, but our opponents like to play this argument for all it is worth. Why? Because of its tremendous emotional appeal. So what if its a lie that this exception exists only because of Roe?
Now if exceptions have always been made for the life of mother, why should that change? If this is a rare exception, great.
Now stop to think Praxedes, what happens if this exception is removed, an exception that most people, myself included, support? I’ll tell you what will happen. The PL movement will commit political suicide. Our opponents will have ammunition. Babies will continue dying.
Tell me how our cause will be so well served eliminating an exception that has been state law for decades prior to Roe.
Please do not be so naive as to think there is never a situation where a mother’s life could be endangered, it could be some extremely rare condition or medical aberration, like the situation I described with the woman’s out of control blood pressure that was threatening her life and was resistant to every kind of treatment. She had a first trimester abortion as the last resort to save her life…in a Catholic hospital.
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Hi Pamela,
I didn’t say it was an excuse, I said they are performed in Catholic hospitals. Maybe the babies are considered legally brain dead, I really don’t know I just know that I’ve seen maybe two such abortions in 30 or so years and its two too many.
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Hi Jespren,
However you choose to word it, the life of the baby may end up being sacrificed to save the mother. We like to think it can’t happen in day and age, it can. We like to think high risk pregnancies can always be safely managed, they can’t. We like to think women don’t die from pregnancy and childbirth, they do. We like to think any and every complication can be safely managed, it can’t.
Look at it this way, if state laws and exceptions weren’t limiting abortions, then why did the PA movement fight so hard to legalize abortion on demand?
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Thanks for your post prolifers. I must agree with Mary, I worked in healthcare for years and although I did not see a medical crisis just like the one she described (I have seen a very rare situation when the life of the mother had to take precedance over the life of the baby) I agree with the judgement call that was made to save the life of the mother.
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Mary,
I agree with you wholeheartedly and thank you for bringing your particular expertise to this matter. If people won’t listen to someone who’s actually witnessed firsthand such instances and can give our movement valuable information we should all take to heart…I don’t know what to add.
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This is a good topic. I have seen other prominent pro-life groups (namely Operation Rescue) suggest that pro-life politicians should refuse to answer when asked about a rape exception. Instead, they should stress that only 1% of abortions happen after the pregnancy resulted from rape and change the subject to one where the pro-abortion position looks much weaker (ie botched abortions, late-term abortions, etc). I don’t agree with this strategy. The interviewer can simply press the question, noting that 1% translates to over 9000 real women in this dire situation every year. Abortion proponents can then easily spin it. They’ll make attack ads stating that [pro-life candidate X] cannot be trusted on women’s health. It also feeds the conspiracy theory that pro-lifers are all too eager to shame the dirty sluts but won’t take their position to its logical conclusions (so opposition to abortion is really all about punishing promiscuity, not saving babies). So I do not think that this is likely to be an effective approach.
On life of the mother exception, I must say that inducing labour on a pre-viable baby is essentially a form of abortion. If the mother’s life isn’t in danger and she does not want to be pregnant, any pro-lifer would object to a doctor inducing labour. We would not consider this any less objectionable than a typical elective vacuum aspiration abortion. Philippa Foot, one of the great philosophers of the 20th Century, used a thought experiment to analyze this case. If an explorer is trapped in a cave where the water level is rapidly rising and a fat man is lodged in the only exit, he is (arguably) justified in blasting his way out with a stick of dynamite. Because the fat man dies either way (he drowns, or he is blown to pieces), there is no serious conflict of interests. One could also consider it a form of self-defence against an innocent aggressor, as was ruled in a case involving infant conjoined twins a few years ago in Manchester (see Lord Justice Ward’s opinion).
Jespren is right to be concerned about making an exception for suicide. There is no evidence that it would be beneficial to anyone’s mental health, and abortion proponents know full well that having abortion legal only in that case is untenable.
http://www.youthdefence.ie/latest-news/top-expert-says-that-legislating-for-x-would-be-logistical-nightmare-for-psychiatrists/
But more importantly, the underlying reasoning behind a suicide exception is ultimately that if Jones wants a green light to do something bad (kill Smith), all he has to do is threaten to do something worse (kill himself and Smith). This is a very emotionally charged subject, but ultimately it is a form of terrorism.
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I’d like to add that life-saving abortion cases cited by abortion proponents often are too good to be true, but that does not mean that they don’t exist.
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Hi Mary
My friend did not deliver a dead baby. She did not have uterine sepsis. She did not have an abortion and would slap your face if you said that to her! Labor was induced and the unfortunate result is that her son died.
Someone correct me if I am wrong but isnt that the principle of double effect?
Abortion does not save lives and I can’t believe you wrote that!
I guess some of us are pro life without exceptions and some of us are pro life with exceptions.
This whole thread makes me sad.
http://benotafraid.net
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Hi Carla,
You said your friend’s baby died in her arms. I misread that as the child being a stillbirth. You said she had an infection now you say it wasn’t uterine sepsis. Since that was an example I was using I assumed that is what you meant. Thankfully she didn’t. You will have to be more specific about your friend’s situation. However the fact remains that if a friend or loved one was forced to make a decision because of, let’s say, uterine sepsis, to induce an early labor, i.e. abort, or died because she didn’t, you might have a totally different perspective.
Where did I suggest she had an abortion? What would she slap my face for? I really think you are overreacting Carla. Is it an insult if I say a woman who miscarried had a missed or incomplete abortion? Those are the medical terms.
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Hi X, Navi, and Prolifer L,
Thank you for your support and kind words. They are greatly appreciated. Life and the decisions that must be made are certainly more shades of gray than black and white. I have been involved in “harvesting” that is removing organs for transplant. Yes transplants are a great thing, I support them, but if I never do another “harvest” it will be too soon. Like aborting the anacephelic baby, am I not involved in killing the patient? He/she was alive until I helped remove their internal organs. In both instances they were alive, but minus brain function. Again, something that could be forever debated and never resolved and I can definitely see both sides of the argument.
I remain convinced this exception could make or break the PL movement and it is better left intact. If the exception is that rare, then what’s the problem?
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Great discussion. thanx folks,
There is a sensitive subject that underlies the discrepancy between Mary and Carla…. or if I may, between REASON [Mary/medical-orthodoxy/modern-science] and FAITH [Carla]. their conclusions seem almost divisive.
I’m With Carla, not because hocus-pocus is easier, but because of abortion. A medical decision to abort means a very-serious-concern [Mary/good orthodoxy] to the attachment-of-highly-trained-professionals to the flippant, whimsical-moods-of-pregnant-teens/young-women. [‘Doug-would-say-that-she-would-know-her-best-interests.] BOTH ARE SPECULATIONS/BELIEFS ON A GOOD OUTCOME. Second, the science backing much of what we call orthodoxy is pure fantasy. IMHO orthodoxy (not-who-pays-the-bills) is in vast need of an overhaul!. We NEED FAITH – religious & philosophical.
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Rape victims make up 1% of those aborting. It seems that 50% of the discussion around legality or illegality is about rape victims who became pregnant through the attack.
Simple arithmetic indicates that it is legitimate to say, “Let’s talk about the vast majority.”
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I am sympathetic to my friends who have lost precious little ones and I have been with them through it. I am sympathetic to those that were conceived in rape and speak out about how their lives matter too. I have much compassion for those that conceived in rape and carried their pregnancies to term.
My friend Mary? If you were to say to her, “Sorry about your abortion.” She would be HORRIFIED!!
You may say I am overreacting. That is fine.
I find this lack of compassion sickening. Truly.
I am done with this thread.
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Denise,
that makes sense, if this was mathematics we’re talking about. Because this is so emotional (IMPORTANT) the 1% might as well be 95% (in importance).
This may seem silly and ‘unrealistic’, but is caring for-the-small that marks all LIFE — human too! We ‘humans’ are small exceptions in all that lives, and ‘living beings’ are an even smaller exception in our universe. [ Fantasy films may have all sorts of extraterrestrials but we have yet-to-find even one single other planet (besides earth) with life … it’s that rare.]
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FAITH assures goodness-in-outcome; medical-science provides speculation (trained). Only FAITH can assure goodness because FAITH assures God’s presence. We may be less than enthused about our decision, and falsely presume that FAITH is inferior. If we choose against FAITH, we choose badly!
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The pro life movement, and, to answer the question above, the Republicans, should never stop discussing rape conceptions. Candidates need to have better responses. There is an effort under way to help our pro life candidates avoid the traps and turn the “extreme” accusations back onto the accusers (the pro aborts and the media).
For future elections, The SBA List will only endorse candidates who are prepared to answer questions about rape and other abortion issues. Also and equally important, there is a new website now open, (with new material being added regularly). Please see http://www.savethe1.com/
The goal of SaveThe1 is to raise awareness of the issue of exceptions and the need to eliminate them, explaining the futility of trying to end abortion while keeping the exceptions alive. There will be personal stories and pro life resources. SaveThe1 will also assist candidates with improving their messaging on this issue.
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I guess I’m just weird because I’m against all exceptions except medical (not psychological) life of the mother situations. Personally, I just think I’m being REASONABLE. Sorry, but I’ve been fresh outta faith for a looong time, and I definitely don’t think we should be LEGISLATING based on it.
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Have there been studies done on rapists relationships with the children they sire?
Do they become better people by becoming Dads?
I think when I introduced something like this before, some people said they believed rapists shouldn’t be allowed to see children, even their own children, unless someone was there to supervise. I believe JackBorsch said, “They might turn their rapist tendencies on the child.”
However, rapists are human beings. They may very well care about their children and even love them.
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Haven’t changed my mind yet Denise! Rapists shouldn’t be around children. You might want to talk to someone who has been raised by a rapist (like me!) before you start spouting off about what good daddies they might make.
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JackBorsch says:
January 20, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Haven’t changed my mind yet Denise! Rapists shouldn’t be around children. You might want to talk to someone who has been raised by a rapist (like me!) before you start spouting off about what good daddies they might make.
(Denise) I’m not being ridiculous or facetious. This is a pretty serious subject. I recognize that these are dangerous men. The truth is that even some very evil people are — at least sometimes — caring toward those to whom they are closely related, especially their children. The reason for this is that dangerous, violent men can — like normal people — see a child as in some sense a kind of extension of himself. For that reason he MIGHT be caring and protective to the child. Yes, this is even true of men who have held knives or guns to women’s heads to rape them and/or have viciously beaten or murdered people of either gender.
I’m not joking about this and saying, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a rapist for a daddy?” However, think about a woman psychopath. She might have murdered another woman or a child. Yet she MIGHT be caring toward her OWN CHILD. In the case of female psychopaths, anyone can recognize that they can be good to their own children even if they commit heinous crimes against other people.
This also applies to men who are psychopathic. They MIGHT be unfailingly kind and protective toward THEIR OWN CHILDREN even if they show cruelty and callousness to everyone else.
Of course, this is only a possibility. Some female psychopaths have deliberately murdered their own children — sometimes for gaspingly callous reasons such as to collect insurance money. Some male psychopaths have raped and murdered their own children.
Human behavior, both of those who are normal and those who are anything but normal, can be unpredictable.
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X, I think you are correct in that political decisions should not be only FAITH based. But just as moral decisions are almost never one-dimensional (often four or five), legalities can be seen and framed from a variety of perspectives. Knowing the ‘spin’ that the Canadian Medical Association has recently put on this very topic: they ruled that a baby does not become a human being until it is born, in defiance of biology texts. So, as refute I think we lost little …. sometimes ‘orthodoxy’ = stupidity =\= truth.
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Hi X,
I assume what you mean by (medical) exception is straight-forward ‘orthodox-medicine’. As above I find medical practice is much too-often beholding to money and less reliable than you or Mary think. In rare (but certain circumstances) the creative power of God is evident – like an unborn baby grasping the finger of a surgeon.
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Denise Noe: Your idea really stinks. There is no way a rapist should have contact with a child he’s conceived in rape. The child has a right to be safe and live a protected life. Being exposed to a rapist would open the child up to abuse. Maybe the guy would be caring toward his own child and maybe not. Why should the child be forced to take the risk? It’s easy for you to say the rapist might be kind to their own child, you aren’t the one who is at risk here.
Plus, have you considered that even if the rapist is kind to their own child, do we want children growing up with rapists and psychopaths for role models? Personally, I don’t. Society does have a stake in how children are raised. If they’re raised badly, society could end up paying the price someday. Therefore, it isn’t only the business of the parents.
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Just a note to Jack and Sweet Marmot: you cannot reason with the unreasonable. Remember that.
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Hi Carla 4:20PM
Never in a million years would I say that to your friend or any woman. My heart would go out to her and any woman who has faced such heartbreak, or has had to make the tragic choice to terminate a pregnancy to save her life.
Carla, I don’t understand why you are so angry with me or find me lacking in compassion. Another medical professional, Prolifer L, who I believe is an OB nurse, has backed me up. Are we uncompassionate? Or do we understand that situations in the medical world are not always black and white, there are many shades of gray. We know from experience the one thing you can never say is “never”. There are medical aberrations, there are conditions that will be resistant to every attempt at treatment, there will be devastating decisions that must be made on the spur of the moment, there are situations that were supposed to go flawlessly, and turned tragic.
I hope you will set your anger aside and see that abortion to save the life of the mother is thankfully rare, but a situation that tragically can occur. I understand and respect that this is upsetting to you. I am not arguing this point to anger anyone. This is a fact of life PLL and I have experienced. We wish it wasn’t so. In the perfect world it wouldn’t be.
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Hi John,
While I respect your perspective, I can only say that you’ve never seen a cyanotic woman in the ER with no blood pressure or doctors struggle to control a pregnant woman’s blood pressure and prevent her from stroking out. Faith is fine when these are situations you only read about, not when life and death decisions have to be made.
Yes faith is fine, but would you tell the accident victim to rely on faith and not call 911?
Obviously the Catholic hospital I work at depends on human judgment and intervention along with faith, especially when a patient with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy shows up or an emergency C section must be performed.
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Denise please, 6:30PM
I am the child of a borderline personality/sociopath. Though not a rapist, at least not that I ever knew, still of the personality type. I assure you these men do not make good fathers. Listen to Jack and myself who have lived this nightmare.
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I am not angry.
Your knowledge and expertise are invaluable Mary.
The INTENT of inducing labor early is to try and SAVE two lives. The unfortunate result is one may die.
The INTENT of an abortion is to kill.
Black and white.
Jack,
I was just going to delete ALL of Denise’s comments about what “rights” a rapist should have. I am sorry to you and Mary and anyone else that has been offended by her posts.
UGH.
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Hi Carla,
I am sorry my friend, and I say “my friend” with great respect and admiration, but under certain dire circumstances an early induction is done to save the life of the mother, knowing the cost will have to be the life of the baby. Shades of gray.
Thank you for your consideration for Jack and myself. I personally do not find Denise’s posts offensive, just appallingly ignorant. Maybe someone needs to tell her not to idealize these men and personality types. They are what they are, and we are all better off if we understand this.
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John,
Of course I also disagree with what the Canadian health care system decided, but they’re not making decisions based purely upon the facts of the matter, but have their decisions tainted by the almighty dollar. I disagree with the nonsensical “medical” decision that human children are not living children until they emerge from their mothers just as much as I disagree with some pro-lifers acting as though a pregnancy has never and will never need to be terminated to save a mother’s life. Both are wrong.
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Denise,
from personal experience, let me tell you: my rapist was my ex-husband, the biological father of my two children.
He made just as good a dad as he did a husband. He has no business in their lives any longer.
Mr. X is their dad now. They prefer it that way. So do I.
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Hi Mary,
there are times and there are some unexplainable events, that are miraculous. this is not the FAITH I’m talking about. it is this assumption of ordinariness that modern medicine promotes. JUST THE ASPECT OF EXISTENCE SHOULD BE AWESOME. I ONCE HEARD A CHILD SAY: “CAN’T YOU HEAR THE GRASS GROW?” He is labelled autistic. Does such a label matter? ..why?
Can you hear the grass grow? When does orthodoxy begin to smell-the-roses of winter?
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Hi X,
I couldn’t be happier for you and your children, that your tragic experience has a happy ending.
My experience involved sudden explosive rage and violence, a battered and bruised mother, insane rages, frequent visits by the police, and manipulation of a child’s mind, mine. It involved our own and an extended family torn apart by my father’s lies and manipulation, the repercussions of which were felt for decades, literally.
Never for one minute romanticize these people Denise. They are human time bombs.
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Hi John,
Again, I respect your point of view.
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You will always be my favorite Mary.
I have learned SO MUCH from you.
We will have to respectfully disagree I guess.
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Hi Mary,
really sorry to hear about what you wen through.
Hi John,
With all due respect, its difficult to see how what you’re saying applies to abortion laws in any practical way. Like, are you saying we should not have life exceptions and really just hope for miracles or something? I honestly don’t get it.
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I would have to side with S.E. Cupp and the SBA List rather than Mrs. Conway. We can’t run and hide from parts of the abortion controversy.
Like those two favorite pundits of mine, we have a disagreement between two on this thread, also. But is this because of semantics? We don’t like the seeming overuse of the word “fetus” – not because it’s inaccurate, but because the clinical term can be a distraction to the shallow thinkers we hope to win over.
In those rare, rare cases where an abortion / termination of pregnancy / induced labor are - I don’t even want to say “necessary” or “warranted” or “unavoidable” – perhaps “understandable” – they are not what we think of as an abortion.
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Hi Mary …. 8:34pm
Nope, never have! But I have seen a young lad (16yrs) banging from wall-to-wall as he walked-unaided down the hallway of a small hospital in Auschaffenburg, Germany. He had been in a coma for one week, from an auto accident. What I witnessed was the early results (two days) of a therapy – that is outlawed in the States.
One of the serious side-effects of orthodoxy is its myopic stance on medicine. Maybe, just maybe solutions are available or soon will be!
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Hi Hans,
Actually abortion is a medical term. We have incomplete and missed abortions, aka miscarriages.
While “abortion” in the public mind may conjure up certain images, and we avoid the use of the word around patients because of this, what you describe is abortion, aka terminations of pregnancy. Whether one chooses to say “necessary” “warranted” “unavoidable” or “understandable” is a matter of semantics.
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Hi Carla and JDC,
Thank you for the kind words.
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Hi John 10:36PM
I have never been one to argue with success. I will warn you though that head injuries are unpredictable at best, and if a certain therapy actually brought a patient out of a coma or not might not really be known. I remember a neurosurgeon who was adamant in never giving a prognosis to patients’ families, however “mild” the head injury. He had made too many wrong predictions either way. It frustrated families, but I could certainly understand his perspective.
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Hi JDC,
– too often I can hardly figure my own thoughts out, heh!
Over some time we PL (and PC) seem to be locked-into orthodox-medical practice that is practiced now (and orthodox-science). It might be time to unlock this mutual-depedence. Perhaps, I’m suggesting something far short of throwing-out-the-baby-with-the-bathwater?
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“Jack,
I was just going to delete ALL of Denise’s comments about what “rights” a rapist should have. I am sorry to you and Mary and anyone else that has been offended by her posts. ”
Oh I’m not offended. Just weirded out by the whole “we should totally have rapists raise their children” thing. I just had to say something if she’s going to talk about me on threads I hadn’t even commented on yet, lol.
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I don’t want my friends hurt by ignorant posts about rape and rapists.
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Again, would anyone deny that a FEMALE criminal could love her children? Of course not. Executed murderer Barbara Graham was convicted of getting her crime partners into the home of elderly, handicapped Mabel Monahan. Graham brutally pistol-whipped Monahan, breaking her skull.
But when her little son visited her in prison, there was no way one could fail to see the love this mother had for her child.
Susan Atkins held 8 1/2 months pregnant Sharon Tate down. When Tate begged for her life and the life of her unborn baby, Atkins brusquely said, “You’re going to die and I don’t feel a thing behind it.” Yet Atkins loved HER OWN baby. (If someone remembers the story of sexual abuse from “Helter Skelter,” that was a lie Atkins told to shock her cellmates.) She nursed her baby and was deeply concerned about him.
If women criminals can love their babies, why is it so off-the-wall to suggest that it is at least possible a rapist might care about his children?
Suppose a rapist sires a child in a consensual relationship. Surely you would believe he might care about the baby he has with a wife or girlfriend?
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Denise, the point isn’t that rapists automatically don’t care about their children or whatever (though from my experiences their “love” is self-serving bs). I do believe my father cares about me in some incredibly screwed up way. That doesn’t change the fact that I never should have been near him as a kid, ever. Why would you ever think it’s a good idea to risk having a sex criminal raise a kid on the off-chance that it might encourage him/her to be a good person? Kids are not fodder for a weird sociology experiment to try to fix some sick sex criminal through the power of love or whatever you are going on about. I actually have trouble believing you aren’t trolling with this stuff.
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@JackBorsch: I’m not trolling, just putting a possibility out there.
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The possiblity you are putting out there is “hey, rapists might love their kids, possibly, and become less rapey if they raise them! let’s give rapists custody of their kids!”. I am pretty sure you are going to get nothing but disgusted answers to that one.
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Getting back to the original topic of the thread, it is probably best for people who want to outlaw abortion to avoid obsessing with pregnancies through rape. “Let’s talk about the VAST majority,” is legitimate.
However, in Eleanor Cooney’s “The Way It Was” about abortions pro-Roe, she writes about a friend who was raped in 1967 on a date and got pregnant by the rapist. In efforts to abort the pregnancy, she took scalding hot baths, jumped repeatedly, and had someone walk on her stomach. She was two months along when she asked a doctor friend for help. He referred her to a prostitute who had a sideline in abortions. The abortionist shoved a catheter through the pregnant woman’s cervix and left it there. The woman suffered 4 days of fever, chills, bleeding, and passing big hunks of tissue.
She went to a hospital with a perforated womb and acute peritonitis. They treated her with penicillin and performed an emergency D&C, “completing” the abortion. Cooney and the woman believe the doctor friend knew she would get violently sick from the abortionist’s treatment but that would allow the hospital to legally perform the end of the abortion. At that point there was no way to bring the pregnancy to term.
She was left sterile and allergic to penicillin. She also avoided men for the next 4 years. I guess the last could be considered a positive result as she was traumatized into chastity.
At any rate, this is in fact the exception. Cooney’s own story — pregnant through impulsive voluntary activity — is probably much more representative.
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Hi Denise,
Maybe someone should ask Cooney if the name Kermit Gosnell rings a bell? One would almost think that when abortion became legal, people like that “doctor” and his prostitute friend only had to buy a building and hang a shingle.
Oh and concerning Susan Atkins nursing her child, so do dogs and cats.
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