Stanek weekend question II: What is the pro-life response to the tragedy of young girls impregnated by rapists?
I received the following email this week, with permission to post:
I am a 46-year-old mother of 2 adult children who just attended a secular college for the first time.
Appalled by my experience, I put together a presentation for local Bible college students to help prepare them for what they would experience when they continued their education at a nearby secular liberal arts college, which many planned to do.
I am also pro-life and my presentation also focused on abortion as well.
After the presentation one of the students told me about a challenge he had already faced. His professor gave the story about the 9-year-old Brazilian girl who was impregnated with twins by her stepfather. She went on to have an abortion because the doctors said her life was in danger, but then her family was excommunicated from the Catholic Church as a result. He asked how to respond to that in the classroom as a pro-lifer.
I am having a LOT of trouble framing a loving pro-life response to this case. We aren’t Catholics so this really isn’t my issue.
I have done some research on the Internet, and there was a lot of hate spewed at pro-lifers at the time (2009). It also seems like pro-lifers have been pretty silent about it. I haven’t found much in response. Do you have any advice for me? I feel like I failed as a pro-lifer on my very first speaking engagement, so any help you can give would be greatly appreciated!
Time magazine has details on this tragedy, as does the BBC.
What thoughts or advice would you share?
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“Tough luck.”
For heaven’s sake, let the girl have an abortion so that she can have a chance at healing away from her abusive family situation. Why would you force a 9-year old to carry twins after being raped by a family member?? Disgusting.
I wrote something about it at the time, but it boils down to this: it is unfair and unjust to execute innocent children for the crimes of their biological fathers. The tragic circumstances of their conception don’t make them less human.
Regarding the specific case, the girl was not in immediate danger of dying. If she was, then the twins should have been delivered (via C-section) whole and allowed to die naturally and with dignity per the principle of double effect. As it was, they were violently dismembered and cruelly killed for a crime of which they had no fault or responsibility.
The best thing to do in this case would have been to carefully monitor the girl, have her carry the babies as long as possible, and deliver them only when the pregnancy did indeed pose immediate danger to her life. If that point is past viability, an attempt to save them and adopt them to a loving couple would have been best. If not, then utilize perinatal hospice until they passed naturally, and give them a Christian burial.
The Church was right to excommunicate the mother and doctors. They executed two innocent children for a crime that they didn’t commit. There were THREE victims in this tragic case — the girl and her children.
Joan and Jane — it is interesting that you advocate executing innocents for crimes that they didn’t commit. In what other scenarios do you find this treatment fair and just?
I am torn on this one. It appears to be a mother’s health issue and a tragic situation. I don’t think those twins could have been viable, but I’m not a doctor. I suppose that if the girl was in immediate danger it could have been acceptable.
JoAnna, what is the ” principle of double effect”? I haven’t heard of it.
Joanna- I see forcing a 9 year old child to carry her father’s twins to term as a life-ruining situation similar to death. This kind of situation makes many women suicidal, at-risk for drug abuse, and a potential lifetime lack of self-respect because the adults in her life did not respect her enough not to abuse her, and further disrespected her by punishing her for her father’s crimes.
How could you?! “pro-life” is a seriously disgusting way to live your life if you believe these things deep down in your heart.
Jack: see here for a Catholic resource, and here for a secular resource.
The problem with the angry response of Catholics with regards to the excommunication is that they lack understanding of the relationship between civil law and God’s law. Civil laws are meant to be mirror images of God’s perfect laws. However, we are human and flawed. Sin has clouded our judgement sin the fall of Adam and Eve. When we pass civil laws that contradict God’s laws, like legalizing abortion in any case, we are more likely to get confused and think that because it is legal in a particular area, it is automatically a law that applies to the state of the soul, therefore granting immunity from sin. This is not true for any civil law, including abortion. This is called distortion, and it is what the devil is most efficient at. He cannot create, he can only distort. And when the distortion takes the place of the truth in the human mind/reason, then he has succeeded. From the articles, it sounds like people expect Catholic doctrine to change because civil law has changed. This will never happen. Abortion, in the case of the nine year old is a sin begotten from sin. It began with the stepfather’s sin of abuse and rape, and ended with the mother of the 9 year old giving in to sin (this could probably be traced back to the lack of formation and preparation for the sacrament of marriage too). Sin does not atone for sin. The lives of the twins were victimized because of sin. The 9 year old could have carried to term, could have delivered via c-section and the twins could have been raised by her mother or given up for adoption. The focus of these articles is completely wrong. The stepfather should be in jail and the child should have been lovingly cared for and nurtured during her pregnancy. Then she should have been counseled regularly to help her heal from the trauma of abuse (God only knows how long that abuse went on). Every life has a purpose and out of bad, God will make good (See the story of Joseph in the bible). Those two lives could have been that families way to healing. Now, there is only more hurt.
Jane – so you do think it is justified to execute two innocent children for crimes they didn’t commit? I find that a sad way to live one’s life as well. In what other scenario would that be just?
It’s OBVIOUS that this girl would be able to carry those babies to rull term since she got pregnant… if not she would have had a miscarriage… PEOPLE USE YOUR COMMON SENSE…
I think in some cases the church is better off when it moves “slowly” – not knowing all the facts of the case; I can’t say if the mother would have been in grave danger carrying to a stage where a c-section could have been performed. This is a matter of faith and if you are Catholic then this is a part of our faith = abortion is the killing of an innocent life. We should show compassion to those affected by abortion – not loathing; and encourage repentence and reparation.
Thank you for the links JoAnna. I am not sure what to think about this situation.
I think there is a lot more to this story then the article states. The church does not excommunicate namby pamby. There is a whole background that is not being told. There were probably other very viable options, other then abortion, and if they consulted the church, but then outright defied what they were told, then that’s a problem. The stepfather should be in jail, and he should be excommunicated for being a pedophile. The child should have been cared for lovingly, and the twins as well. This is where sin begets sin, it only makes the darkness worse.
Jane, you’re getting mixed up.
“I see forcing a 9 year old child to carry her father’s twins to term as a life-ruining situation similar to death. This kind of situation makes many women suicidal, at-risk for drug abuse, and a potential lifetime lack of self-respect because the adults in her life did not respect her enough not to abuse her, and further disrespected her by punishing her for her father’s crimes.”
The fact that this child was abused and impregnated by an adult who was supposed to protect her is the life-ruining situation similar to death that makes woman suicidal, at-risk for drug abuse, and a potential lifetime lack of self-respect. The adults in her life already had not respected her enough to protect and cherish her. They further punished her by killing her first two children in order to hastily clear away the most embarassing evidence of the crimes committed.
This girl now lives with the memory of the abusive crimes and the cherry on top is that she will spend her adult life with much of the same torment experienced by other abortion victims. Had other measures been taken (like those suggested above of monitoring and delivering the babies more strategically in order to give everyone the best chance at life), she would still have the abuse to heal from but at least she wouldn’t carry a false burden of guilt that her children were murdered in her womb (which, obviously, she had no rights or powers to do anything about in this case) or unresolved pain at the children that she’s not granted permission to grieve.
Truly an informative dialogue. Thanks, Jill, for putting this worst possible scenario (well, it could have been a black drug addict with AIDS, which is the scenario usually posed to pro-lifers) ) to the test. There’s an old commandment: Thou Shalt Not Kill.
Joanna- that’s exactly what I’m saying
Jane – do you support executing innocent children for crimes they didn’t commit as a general rule, as well? For example, if a man with a two-year-old son rapes his son’s mother, is it just to then execute the two-year-old for the crimes of his father?
Greetings:
Thank you for your dedication to protect the lives of innocent children, conceived, but not yet born.
The argument to which you refer is a common one pro-abortionists use to try to pin pro-life advocates as an excuse for all other reasons a woman considers abortion. If we limited abortion to these exceptional cases, then, ok, we might make some progress. The question to ask in return, however, is, “Should we kill the child for the sins of the father? Will that set things right?”
We must consider that at conception, a human being is formed. Should we take the life of this person because of the sins of the father or the mother in other situations? Abortion is the taking of a human life, no matter the circumstances under which the child was conceived. After conception, everything thing else is a matter of maturity.
The next question which will come is, “If God is so merciful, then why does He allow such things to happen?” The answer is so that a greater good will come. We don’t always understand at the time, we do not always understand God’s plan, but He gave us freewill to follow His commandments of love – without them, we exist only within a culture of death. In the situation of rape and incest, the pro-abortionist would have us believe that taking the life of a defenseless child is the means to right a wrong.
Whatever the “what if” circumstance the abortionist presents, the answer is found in the right to life of the person which is formed at conception. At conception, the child is a he or she, because the sex is already determined by the joining of conception. We refer to the child as “it” simply because we do not comprehend what is already determined.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” Jeremiah 1:5
Again, the key point is that no matter how the child was conceived, the life of a child hangs in the balance.
I hope this helps.
God bless,
Prayer Soldier
http://www.guardianangelstore.com/article440.html
After the presentation one of the students told me about a challenge he had already faced. His professor gave the story about the 9-year-old Brazilian girl who was impregnated with twins by her stepfather. She went on to have an abortion because the doctors said her life was in danger, but then her family was excommunicated from the Catholic Church as a result. He asked how to respond to that in the classroom as a pro-lifer.
First: excommunication is a “medicinal” treatment, not a “declaration of damnation”, or a declaration that the Church is somehow “washing Her hands of the people involved”. It’s not “the mean old Church being medieval and autocratic” (though some anti-Catholics will go to their graves believing that, despite all evidence and protestations to the contrary); it’s a way of showing the errant party the severity of the evil, the damage done to the Body of Christ, and the urgent need for repentance. The Church never pronounces or issues (I’ll explain the difference, below) an excommunication without the hopes that it will be lifted, as soon as possible.
Second: in the case of abortion, excommunication is AUTOMATIC. The bishop declared what was already in place (i.e. the abortion-cooperating people excommunicated themselves; the technical term is “latae sententiae” [by virtue of the act itself] excommunication, like a doctor who pronounces a patient “DOA”; no one would confuse that with the doctor KILLING the patient). There are cases where a bishop enacts an excommunication by pronouncement (“ferendae sententiae”), but abortion is not one of them.
Third: the Archbishop specifically said that the girl, herself, was not excommunicated (and couldn’t be, since she was not in control of the situation).
Fourth: the Archbishop (and many others) tried, for an extended period of time, to save the life of the two unborn children from murder at the hands of the abortionist; this was not a case where a family “panicked, and made a hurried, anguished decision in the heat of the moment”.
Fifth, and perhaps most importantly: why, in the name of all that’s holy, would any sane person NOT want the abusers of the child (either through the molestation, or through the abortion) punished? Why is this case so much more “sympathetic” than would be any other execution of an unborn child? If the 9-year-old girl had been excommunicated (which is absurd, and she was not), I might see at least some semblance of coherent thought in the abortion-tolerant response… but this is just plain lunacy, and it seeks to conjure a tempest in a quiet teapot.
There was a situation years ago of a 5y/o South American Indian girl impregnated by her stepbrother. Her pregnancy was advanced when her family brought her to a doctor, who was aghast that she was pregnant. The baby was of course delivered by C-section and placed in an adoptive home. Years later I read a follow up. The mother had grown into a mature well adjusted woman who worked as a secretary to the doctor who delivered the baby. Her son, whom she passed frequently in town was apparently also doing very well. There was no maternal/child bond, which is hardly a surprise. Despite this, both seemed very well adjusted adults.
Joanna I want you to step away from the computer for a second, think over your last comment, and (hopefully) realize that it makes no logical sense at all.
JoAnna, I read your links and I tend to agree (in a nonreligious ethical sense ;)). If the young girl’s life was in immediate danger that would change the situation. Otherwise, taking innocent life cannot be justified.
Jane, you don’t seem to understand that abortion has damaging emotional effects in and of itself that are more likely to add to this poor child’s torment, unless it was necessary for her life. I don’t know a lot about Catholicism, but I do know a lot about child abuse. Another action taken that causes a lot of torment would not help this poor girl feel any better or get over what was done to her any quicker.
Please elaborate, Jane. You have said that you agree with executing innocent children for the crimes of their biological father. How are my two scenarios different, other that in one case the children are unborn?
So say you force this child to carry the products of her rape to term. Then do you explain to a 9 year old the agony of giving her children up for adoption? Or does her (clearly unfit) family get to raise the twins? Or will she, maybe at the ripe old age of 10 by then, get to raise the babies? I mean that might be fun, right? Real life baby dolls for a 10 year old!
To term, Jane? Can you please cite where I stated the girl should be “forced to carry to term”?
Lying does not help your credibility.
Explaining to the girl that her CHILDREN (these weren’t “products of rape,” Jane, they were innocent unborn children) were murdered is no less traumatic than explaining adoption. At least with adoption she knows that some good came out of a horrific situation.
Wait, so you want her to …not carry her pregnancies to term? I wasnt “lying,” I don’t understand what you’re saying if you’re not saying that
Jane, no one would advocate this girl carrying to term if it would kill her or otherwise cause her severe damage. It is right to give the babies (who are also innocent victims of this man’s crime, lest you forget) a chance, however small, at life.
It is in no way helpful to victims of abuse to jump straight to abortion. How do you think this girl will feel when she gets older and realize what she was put through by the adults in her life leading her to an abortion?
Maybe she will feel sad, maybe she will feel grateful, maybe she will get a good therapist who will help her understand that the abuse was not her fault, and that the pregnancy was terminated so that she coul have a shot ( however small) at life.
The only way it could really be justifiable if her life was in immediate danger. Getting this abortion isn’t “wiping the slate clean” for her. It is simply throwing a whole bunch more emotional problems on top of the ones she will have from being a victim of horrific abuse. That isn’t helping her. It would only be helping her if her life were definitely in imminent danger, I can’t find any source that states it was. Do you have such a source?
Jane, let me repeat what I said in my original post, with certain points bolded:
Regarding the specific case, the girl was not in immediate danger of dying. If she was, then the twins should have been delivered (via C-section) whole and allowed to die naturally and with dignity per the principle of double effect. As it was, they were violently dismembered and cruelly killed for a crime of which they had no fault or responsibility.
The best thing to do in this case would have been to carefully monitor the girl, have her carry the babies as long as possible, and deliver them only when the pregnancy did indeed pose immediate danger to her life. If that point is past viability, an attempt to save them and adopt them to a loving couple would have been best. If not, then utilize perinatal hospice until they passed naturally, and give them a Christian burial.
“excommunication is a “medicinal” treatment, not a “declaration of damnation” … it’s a way of showing the errant party the severity of the evil, the damage done to the Body of Christ, and the urgent need for repentance.”
What about “secret” excommunications that are not made public or, apparently in some cases, even made known to the recipients? What kind of “medicinal” treatment isn’t even revealed to the people it is intended to “treat” and how can it show them the severity of the evil they are participating in? I ask this only because whenever the subject of Hitler’s Catholicism comes up here, there are a number of people who claim that, contrary to popular belief, the Catholic Church actually did excommunicate Hitler and other Catholic Nazi’s, but did so privately, presumably for prudential reasons (i.e. avoiding retaliation from powerful, despotic political enemies).
Jane:
You’re doing some serious hair-splitting on time and means of death for the feti.
Lol the plural of “fetus” is “fetuses” not “feti”
Please consider this scenerio: A girl of 13 is raped by an adult man of a different race. She is threatened by this man not to tell, so she keeps it a secret until her pregnancy becomes obvious. Her mother tells the girl she needs to have an abortion & if she doesn’t she is on her own. This girl is young, is in 8th grade, has no job, can’t drive, & has no family support. The mother takes the girl to an abortion facilty where they remain for 6 hours. During this time she is given STD testing to see if her abuser has given her a disease. She is given an ultrasound, which she is not permitted to see. She receives counseling where she is told “At 20 weeks, the baby is not formed yet.” When she asked about adoption, she was infromed, “No one will want a bi-racial rapist’s baby.” When she was still unsure, she was told if she did not consent to the abortion, she would die. Believing she will die giving birth to a baby no one will even want, she finally gives in. She was counseled in the room with her mother present (the one pressuring her to abort) & told to sign a statement agreeing that she was making this decison as a free choice…how would you say no when your mom is right there??? Anyway, she was not told anything accurate about fetal development, her options, about the procedure, or her risks. They decided to perform a D&E (live dismemberment) abortion on her due to the gestational age of 20 wks. However, they had failed to include the cost of general anesthesia when quoting the price to the mother, so when it came time for the abortion, the mom only had enough for local. No matter. The abortionist decided to proceed & perform a 20-30 minute long, late-term abortion on a 13 yr old rape victim…AWAKE. Customarily, the cervix would be dilated slowly over 24-48 hours using laminaria (particularly important with a “green”cervix of one so young with no prior live births). Instead, the abortionist opted to dilate her manually with metal rods. He must apply force to insert the rod, remove it, & quickly insert another larger rod until the cervix is opened enough to allow his instruments access to the womb & to allow for the parts of the fetus to be removed. She is on the table, in the stirrups, & the procedure has begun…but the pain is too much for her. The abortionist gets upset & informs the girl’s mother, “She is making my job too difficult” & suggests they reschedule & bring more money for general anesthesia. During the week and half before the rescheduled abortion, the girl is given ACCURATE fetal development info. She learns about the risks of abortion & about adoption. She refuses to go to the rescheduled appointment & instead chooses to continue the pregnancy. She begins prenatal care @ 23 wks where she is again tested for STDs. The abortion facility failed to give her the results prior to her abortion (which would have allowed her to make an informed decision about whether or not to proceed) & in fact, never gave her the results. Her Ob/Gyn however discovered the rapist had given the girl Chylamidia, which left untreated (& especially is inserted up into a womb made raw from the scrapping involved in an abortion) would have made her sterile. At 13 she may have aborted the only child she would have ever been able to conceive & the abortion staff cared so much for her reproductive future, they didn’t even bother to tell her she had the disease.
The reason I know this story is, 1 month after this young lady chose life for her baby, she chose my family to be the adoptive parents. The story above was told to me by this girl & her mother. I had the honor of being in the delivery room to watch this amazing young lady give birth to a beautiful baby girl. There was not a dry eye, I assure you. I really think everyone was half expecting some demon looking thing to come out with horns & red eyes or some “mini-rapist”. Babies who are conceived out of violence are often refered to as “Devil’s Spawn” or “Demon Seed” or a hundred other horrible names meant to dehumanize them & justify their destruction. Her mother came around & helped her daughter through the pregnancy, delivery, & adoption process. The 13 yr old did NOT die not was her baby unwanted, regardless of the circumstances surrounding her conception or her ethnicity. Moments after birth, she told me, “She was worth it!” & befroe we left the hospital the day she signed the custody papers, she thanked us…how incredibly humbling!!! We keep in regular contact & she was able to enjoy her childhood, finish high school & is now a medical assistant in the very hospital she delivered in. She continues to thank us for parenting her daughter, LOVES her daughter, & she is now raising a son (who might not exist if she had not been treated & cured). She gets to watch her daughter grow up & not have the grief & regret of her death as a memory. This young lady at 13 showed more strength & courage than most adults I know…and amazing person & mother!
My daughter is an amazing little person. She is not a “rapist’s baby”…and the circumstances surrounding her conception do not in anyway diminish who she is & the fact that her life is priceless. Both she & her birth mother deserved to be treated with dignity & respect. They deserved better than abortion, which not only leaves the baby dead, but leaves the woman scarred. In these cases, the woman needs treated for the RAPE & the abortion will not “un-rape” her…it will not undo the trauma nor the memories. In a rape, the woman is the innocent, powerless victim. When she aborts her innocent, powerless baby, she becomes a victimizer. How is it helpful to coerce & manipulate a 13 yr old into making the decision adults, parents, abortion clinic staff, & abortion supporters think she should make??? How is that “pro-choice”? When you deprive a woman of accurate information, try to scare her, & threaten to abandon her, in order to secure an abortion, how is that pro-choice??? I find it strange that in every situation those who support abortion proclaim, “My Body! My Choice!” and even “My Baby! My Choice!”…it is hers to do with as she wants. But with rape or incest it becomes HIS baby! That baby is part of her too!!!! Thankfully, my daughter is alive & thriving. She knows about her birth mom & we honor her in our home. We have pix of her, her birth family, her birth, & we proudly show them to our children. We love them both soooo very much.
Rape is an ugly, ugly thing. The rape of a child is evil. But amazingly, children are the living proof that something (some one) beautiful can come from the most horrific of circumstances. She was violated in the worst way, yet she loves her daugher & found the strength to choose like & adoption, dispite the pressure to abort. Does she regret not killing her daughter when she had the chance? NO!!!! She has told me & is so thankful she chose life.
Yes, she CHOSE to have the baby and that is a decision I respect. Women should have the right to CHOOSE what is right for their body, and your anecdote, while sweet, does not reflect every person’s experience
@JackBorsch – I “would advocate this girl carrying to term if it would kill her or otherwise cause her severe damage”,
We take up our crosses, even at the cost of our own lives. We do this with love.
“It’s still infanticide”…?
@dm60462,
I certainly don’t agree with letting her die. It is very regrettable if the twins were to die, but I would never argue that a nine-year-old (or an adult woman for that matter) would have to go with them. I would never agree with preemptively destroying the children for the possibility that she would have problems, but to suggest that she will have to carry them to term even if it kills her makes no sense to me. What JoAnna said makes sense.
Joan wrote:
What about “secret” excommunications that are not made public or, apparently in some cases, even made known to the recipients?
There is no such thing as a “secret” excommunication. Excommunication is the state of being cut off from the Sacraments (and the sanctifying graces which flow usually through them), and it’s either real or nonreal: true, or false. And as I already referenced, there are two ways that excommunications take effect: “latae sententiae” (takes effect at the very instant the particular forbidden act is done with sufficient knowledge and freedom: no pronouncement by a bishop is needed in order for it to take effect, and any such announcement is for the sake of diagnosing an already-present condition… like a doctor diagnosing a case of cancer), or “ferendae sententiae” (takes effect when the excommunication is pronounced by the competent authority). In neither case is any excommunication a “secret”.
What kind of “medicinal” treatment isn’t even revealed to the people it is intended to “treat” and how can it show them the severity of the evil they are participating in?
None at all. See above. (If the person in question were, hypothetically, to bring a latae sententiae excommunication upon himself, without the bishop’s knowledge, that’s hardly the bishop’s fault, is it?)
I ask this only because whenever the subject of Hitler’s Catholicism comes up here, there are a number of people who claim that, contrary to popular belief, the Catholic Church actually did excommunicate Hitler and other Catholic Nazi’s, but did so privately, presumably for prudential reasons (i.e. avoiding retaliation from powerful, despotic political enemies).
No ferendae sententiae excommunications were needed, in the case of Hitler and his ilk; they excommunicated themselves by virtue of rejecting the Faith, persecuting the faithful, etc. You might, however, be interested to know that the Church did indeed attach the penalty of excommunication to Catholics who became Nazi’s:
http://www.zenit.org/article-28937?l=english
Do remember, also, that an excommunication is a SEPARATION from the Church; it would be meaningless to try to excommunicate anyone who was not already in full communion with the Catholic Church. You understand that, yes? It’d be a bit like a formal declaration that George Washington was, in fact, dead!
Jane wrote:
Lol the plural of “fetus” is “fetuses” not “feti”
Actually, the plural is “fetus” (with a long “u” sound); the word is a 4th declension Latin noun, meaning “small boy” (or “small child”). You were aware of that, right?
In reading through some of the comments there seems to be a lot of mis-information and misunderstanding about what excommunication is and who is “doing” the excommunicating. The Church, bishops etc. do not excommunicate anyone. People excommunicate themselves by the choices they make. The Church will only confirm that yes, you have excommunicated yourself by doing xyz. It’s important to actually have a factual understanding of that if you are going to bring your opinion in on that part of the issue.
Oops! I see Paladin has made a wonderful comment on explaining it here. Cheers Paladin!
“Maybe she will feel sad, maybe she will feel grateful, maybe she will get a good therapist who will help her understand that the abuse was not her fault, and that the pregnancy was terminated so that she coul have a shot ( however small) at life.”
Jane, why does she only have a shot at life if the babies are aborted? How does killing the babies undo the rape she endured? How does an abortion protect her from her abuser? (An abortion merely protects the abuser!!!) See, the problem for you is that you have no faith in the grace and power of God to take a horrible situation and bring healing and hope and new life. I do. What this poor girl needed was not to have her babies killed, but to be rescued from the adults in her life who failed her, for starters. Then she needed medical care for herself and her babies. She needed to be shown love and protection, and to be told that her life was not over or destroyed and there was hope for her and her babies. But instead everyone thinks abortion is the answer. Abortion solves nothing.
dm60462 mentioned the cross — but isn’t the greatness of the cross that Jesus freely accepted the injustice that would be done to him? While I understand that one’s spirituality might lead one to imitate various aspects of Jesus’s choice, and I can see how members of a community of faith (such as some of you evidently are) would naturally encourage each other to live out the spirituality that they share while also having a sense of the point beyond which they have to admit that they don’t have so much in common after all (i.e., the excommunication theme, broadly construed), but: the pro-life movement also has this approach of trying to get civil law to allow no room for anything other than this “noble self-sacrifice.” How — or how well — do these two fit together for you all? It seems to me that either you are taking on a burden for your own reasons, out of your own free will (as in, no one is required to submit to injustice being perpetrated upon them, which is why Jesus can be said to have gone above and beyond the call of duty), or you are simply doing what you should, because it is right.
Not really seeing the “love and protection” in the scenario where a young girl’s wishes about becoming a mother after a horrible violation are completely disregarded, with the adults in her life allowing the pregnancy to continue at least until her life is in immediate danger. Oh, and then if her health is in peril, she can be cut open and gutted like a fish–with or without her consent. And “in danger” means “hemorrhaging and gonna die”–doesn’t encompass mental or emotional health, or the possibility of serious long-term morbidity.
It would be one thing for this girl to make up her own mind about the pregnancy (her capacity for which might be limited given being a nine year old who has experienced such trauma), ultimately deciding to give birth. But you wouldn’t care if the kid kicked and screamed her way to the labor and delivery room. It’s funny to me how you think a new baby, some Jesus, and a psychiatrist would heal this situation. I’d just love to sit in on the therapy session in which the counselor explains to this girl that, for nine months, her health, thoughts and beliefs just did not matter–that she was essentially less than a person. How do you explain that kind of treatment away?
Paladin-It’s fetuses, unless you’re speaking Latin, in which case the long u “fetus” applies. If you’re not speaking Latin, it’s “fetuses” and no matter what language you’re speaking, it’s not “feti”
(please look at the etymology section)
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_(biology)
I have not read all the previous responses. I will later when I have time. I just have to ask, was the step-father put to death for the rape? No? Then why were his babies? Why were his TWO BABIES put to death for HIS CRIME.
Certainly the 9 year old girl was a victim. I feel for her. But the abortion put her through risk as well (do we know she will be able to have babies in the future? She won’t succumb to reproductive cancer? etc…) And it didn’t UNDO the rape! She is still a raped, traumatized little girl!
There is no happy ending to this story. This 9 year old was savaged. She was hurt. She was used. ITS DISGUSTING. But now they have added more evil, more savagery. They have murdered two little babies that committed no crime. Abortion is NOT the answer to rape! It did not undo the pregnancy. It didn’t turn back time. That little girl was pregnant and abortion did not change that fact. It just meant there were not be any living children at the end of the pregnancy.
Paladin,
Another Latin lesson, please.Would it be pronounced fe-t (use)? Hippopoto – muse? :)
I certainly knew “fetuses and “feti” were incorrect.
I remember that story of the girl and the twins. Was she returned to her stepfather following the abortion so he could abuse her again? Or is she in protective custody? Did SHE have a choice? Did she want the abortion? I doubt it! It was a horrible crime and there were THREE victims…the girl and her precious babies.
lifer: I remember your story! Was it a planned parenthood or a regular abortionist that gave her inaccurate fetal development information? I remember you telling this story on the AbortionNo website forums.
Hans- fetuses is NOT incorrect, it is the accepted plural of “fetus”
@ Jane: I assume you were refering to my post when you wrote: “Yes, she CHOSE to have the baby and that is a decision I respect. Women should have the right to CHOOSE what is right for their body, and your anecdote, while sweet, does not reflect every person’s experience.”
A “sweet” anecdote? Really? How dismissive of this young girls experiences. Her violation. The manipulation & flat out lies she received from people in positions of power & authority. The violation of her trust in multiple ways. The POINT is, she didn’t have a choice…not really. She was pressured by her mother. Pressured by school caunselors & teachers. Pressured by her peers. Pressured by the abortion clinic staff. Pressured by the abortionist. And in general, pressured by a well meaning, yet misguided population who believe killing your baby if that baby was conceived from an act of violence instead of an act of love, is some how going to make your situation better. This isn’t “sweet”…it is sad. It was one girl, among how many others???, who was LIED to in order to coerce an abortion “decision”. Lied to by the abortion workers who told her at 20 wks her baby was not formed yet. Lied to when they told her no one would want her baby because it was a “bi-racial, rapist’s baby” (what a horrible thing to say & discriminatory!!!!!) Then lying to her saying she WOULD die…not could die, not high risk, not unsafe…they told her she WOULD DIE if she didn’t abort. Then she was denied information about fetla development, the abortion procedure, risks, & options. Where is the CHOICE???? Finally, she would be abandoned in her time of need by those she counted on IF she didn’t do what they wanted her to do & have the abortion. Choice? This scenerio plays itself out in various ways daily…girls pressured & manipulated by parents, boyfriends, husbands, school counselors, etc… They feel they have NO OTHER CHOICE & that is not giving women a REAL choice. Further, you said a woman should have the right to choose what to do with her body…my daughter was the same human being & was just as alive prior to her birth. It was her curly hair & her big green eyes & her silly personality that would ahve been torn apart & thrown out like trash instead of sitting in the living room right now hearing her Daddy tell her a story. I challenge you to look at pictures of abortions to see if you don’t recognize a totally seperate body. A body that isn’t part of the woman & was somebody. How sad that my daughter’s birth mother had to FIGHT & face terrible obstacles just to have her baby. Almost everyone thought it best she abort. When given false information, she consented under the pressure. When she got ACCURATE information…YES, her baby WAS formed. YES, her baby was wanted. YES, there are risks to an abortion. She found the courage to stand up for herself & her baby. It is not pro-choice, or pro-woman to LIE to women & make them feel like their babies are unwanted & should be aborted if they happen to be conceived out of rape.
Megan, the female body is made to carry babies. Even though this girl is so young and was violated, a pregnancy is a natural occurrence for us. Suctioning your children out is not. You cannot unring a bell. You’re not housing foreign objects in your uterus or whatever lunacy Jane said. The girl can never be unpregnant. Even if she never decides to have a baby, she will have always ALWAYS ALWAYS been pregnant once.
PS…The likely scenerio is, she would have gone ahead with the abortion, & instead of needing to reschedule, it would have been completed. Thankfully, there was a stay & my daughter was not aborted. Had her birth mom not received accurate info, I have no doubt she would have returned to the facility & had the abortion at 21 and a half wks. She found out the truth BEFORE the abortion took place & chose life. How many others are denied accurate information on which to make an educated decision & buckle under the lies & pressure to abort only to find out AFTER the abortion that they had been lied to??? Perhaps many of these women would have found the same strength that my daughter’s birth mother did to fight for her daughter’s life if they were trusted with the truth & trusted to make their own decisions instead of being coerced & pressured & manipultated into an abortion that others believe is best for her. Jane is revealing her own prejudice against babies conceived from rape by ardently putting forward the idea that abortion is best for the girl or woman & that those who suggest otehrwise are somehow sick or cruel. What I don’t think you fully grasp is that you are not merely suggesting that children like my daughter somehow “disappear” or are put on hold or are never conceived & therefore never excisted. You are, in all honesty, advocating for their death & destruction. As her mother, I am personally hurt & offended at the notion that her life was some how worth less because she was not conceived out of a concentual act of love. Oh, I’m sure that now that she is here, you would never suggest she not be alive…but she was the same little human BEFORE her birth. If her birth mother would have aborted, she would have aborted HER…my daughter. Her daughter. While you may not care as you are dealing in hypotheticals, I care very much because I live with this little girl & I have a relationship with her birth mom. You can talk about the scenerio…we are living it. If it is about “choice” as you say, what if you met a young girl who was being pressured to abort following a rape, yet she wanted to choose adoption. Would you suggest she abort? Or would you be willing to do anything to make her decision a reality, to the point of adopting and raising her child to adulthood? This is what we did. We wanted her to have a REAL choice & when given a REAL choice, she chose life. And it was a very tough fight. But as she said, “She was worth it.”
Here is my answer to the “rape” card played by pro abortion. If you are going to kill the baby, then after the abortion it makes just as much sense to turn right around and dimember and grind up the mother. One human being was just as innocent of a crime as the other, and if the baby deserves to die for the crime of the rapist, then so does the mother. Makes sense, huh?
Jane- “Yes, she CHOSE to have the baby, and that is a decision I respect.”
Of course. I mean, OBVIOUSLY, when you just referred to what could be the same child a few posts up as nothing more than “the product of rape”. Those are PEOPLE, Jane. People. Although, just to make it fair, I’ll start greeting you as “Hey, product of your mom and dad getting drunk one night and screwing without a condom! How are you today? Isn’t it so obvious that I respect you when I address you this way?!”
To be fair, xalisae (what a beautiful name, by the way), Jane said she respected the decision—not the children. In fact, I don’t see respect for the children reflected in her or any of the pro-aborts’ comments.
Liz, it is my understanding that it was not a Planned Parenthood facility. Thank you for remembering my sweet girl’s story. Please pray for her. Those who sought to end her life based on her ethnicity & paternity were successful in causing damage during the abortion process & dilation. Her specialists agree that while they didn’t kill her, they did manage to hurt her & she will face challenges for her entire life. These challenges are the fault of the abortionist & his staff & those who coerced a 13 year old rape victim into consenting to an abortion based on a crop of lies. Despite her various challenges, she is a very loving & might I add, silly, little thing! She loves her life & we love her!!! <3
Thank you. And, touche. heh.
Don’t kill the innocent children. Heaven will rejoice.
Sorry Michelle but a 9-year-old girl is not ready to have a baby, physically or emotionally. For one, her body isn’t developed enough, and she’s at risk for being underweight and having terrible pregnancy outcomes. Didn’t the article say the girl was in poor health? Oh yeah, that doesn’t matter unless she’s seizuring or hemorrhaging to death! Plus I laugh to think about the squeamish prolifers who want to ban the word “sex” from being used in the public school classroom but somehow think it would be acceptable for a young child (impregnated by her father, no less) to have a baby.
The abortionist and the rapist are ridiculously similar creatures.
If there’s a moral difference, it’s that the abortionist expects a salary for his part in it.
As for a young woman considering her fate when pregnant from a rape, she’d do well to consider whether she wishes to behave like the man who violated her, by turning around and violating innocent life in her own womb.
This is absurd to pro-choice folk, though, who have already embraced characterizations of a fetus as no different than a wart or a cancer, or a parasite. Now they can enjoy how the connotation of “rapist” adheres to the fetus as well.
The pro-choice view depends on the premise that a woman bears no responsibility for a fetus whatsoever, and that the fetus’s presence imposes no legitimate obligation on the woman. However, of course, at a woman’s whim, the fetus suddenly imposes 18 years of financial obligation on a man.
Nah. We can’t have rapists paying for the consequences of their acts. That would be cruel and unusual punishment for the rapist. Better to rape the womb a second time and scrape it free of innocent life.
“How is it helpful to coerce & manipulate a 13 yr old into making the decision adults, parents, abortion clinic staff, & abortion supporters think she should make??? How is that ‘pro-choice’?”
Lifer–that’s not prochoice, and I dont know any prochoice individual who would claim otherwise. But if the table were turned and this 13 year old said, “I absolutely do not want to have this baby,” then you would have nothing to say to her, because there is only one choice in your book, and if it aligns with the woman’s desire, great, and if not, then she’s SOL.
Rasqual: if all life is sacred, then why use the term “innocent”? Should it really matter if a person is innocent not? Or do you think there are instances where depriving somebody of their life is acceptable?
I agree there is more to the story. The church would not just excommunicate, no questions asked. Glad to hear the five year old is doing well as an adult. How was a 5-year old able to get pregnant though?
Megan:
I’m not against the death penalty. Neither do I advocate for it. However, I understand the forfeiture view, and it actually depends on a strong view of the sacredness of life.
An innocent life has not forfeited it’s right to life. That’s a bit of a tautology, because I’m really saying that if a life is not culpable for a forfeitable offense, it retains its right to life.
If presented with this issue I would simply be honest: what little research exists on the pregnancy outcomes of the under 13 age group shows BETTER outcomes for a term or near term birth than in ‘normal’ age groups (25-40). Not only are young bodies more adaptable and flexible, they also heal faster. (Although it was noted that the difference in maternal mortality and morbidity may have more to do with constant medical attention than, strictly speaking age. It’s still valid. A 10 year old pregnant woman is less likely to be injured or killed during pregnancy and childbirth than a 25 year old woman) So the ‘health’ of the mother is no more valid for a 9 year old than it is for the average pregnant women, that is almost never is ending a pregnancy before viability necessary to protect/save the life of the mother (there are a few rare medical instances, but they are *rare*), and never is it needed to protect/save the life of the mother to dismember a baby alive inutero. Furthermore, children like other children, especially babies. Show a model of a 20 week old baby (or ultrasound pic), to ANY 5 year old and they say “that’s a baby”. In fact my 18 month old toddler, without any prompting from me, happily exclaimed ‘maba’ (his then word for baby) at an online pic of a 12 week old inutero baby. Children know intrinsicly what so many pro-choice adults have forced themselves to forget: a persons a person no matter how small! And they don’t look at a human who is less developed then them and say ‘ick’ or ‘gross’ or ‘clump of cells’, after all, they still look distinctly underdeveloped in relationship to their parents, and they aren’t yet politically correct enough to pretend great grandma looks the same as mommy (oh you haven’t aged a day! *rolls eyes* ppl are supposed to age!) Children LOVE babies. How utterly, saddly, horrifically obsurd to think carrying a baby inside and then birthing said baby will be more traumatic than telling them it has to be killed. Most of the very young births I have read about in medical/anthropology literature the baby ended up being raised as the child-mother’s sibling, either by their own loving parents, relatives, or by adoptive families who accepted the mother/baby dyad.
Clearly a 9 year old impregnanted by their parent should be removed from said parent’s care, but compounding the issue by taking away the one thing good about the situation, the baby that child almost assuredly already knows and loves desperately, helps no one but the abuser! And any society that puts the wellbeing of the victim first shouldn’t even consider such a gross betrayal of a child’s natural state of being (loving other children).
In other words: this is NOT a hard question. This is not a rock and a hard place. This is not a no good answer situation. And we do the pro-life cause a grave disservice by being squemish and pretending it is! Even a very young child is in little danger from a pregnancy as long as they have access to medical attention (people with dwafism, for instance, give birth to average sized babies all the time, and young children have a distinct health advantage over most little people for a variety of reasons), and children will naturally be happy about a pregnancy and baby, not depressed and upset. Yes, the fact that they are pregnant means someone impregnated them, and *that* is horrific, the fact that they *are* pregnant is a reason for joy and healing! The actual ‘hard case’ is the 50 year old in failing health who was willingly sterilized 25 years ago, who by a freak of hormones, conceives and is looking at a disabling pregnancy which is both life threatening and long-term health threatening. (It happens, although such a pregnancy has a high rate of miscarriage. I personally know someone who fits such a discription who didn’t find out they were pregnant until after the miscarriage). That’s a ‘hard case’ were you might actually be forced to choose between delivering a baby you know (baring a miracle) won’t survive and crippling or risking the life of the mother. But a 9-13 year old? The underlying crime is hard to deal with, which makes society want to cover it up by getting rid of the child, but the pregnancy itself is hardly something to wring our pro-life hands in desolation and dispair over!
Megan (are there two different Megans, one who is pro-life and one who is not? There seems to be and it’s very confusing):
Sorry Michelle but a 9-year-old girl is not ready to have a baby, physically or emotionally.
Do you think a 9-year-old girl is ready to have an abortion, physically or emotionally?
To the Letter’s Author:
It was a heartbreaking case all around, and a complicated one, so let’s dissect it carefully.
First, excommunication for abortion is not imposed by the Church. he Church ecognizes that the act is so violent and barbaric that one separates oneself from the body of the faithful, in Heaven and on earth, simply by the act of committing it. In the Church, this type of automatic, self-communication is called a latae senentiae excommunication.
Canon law also stipulates that one does not incur the penalty if one is unaware of the penalty. The awareness of the penalty brings an awareness of the gravity of the crime.
Next, the child was not excommunicated. She neither sought, nor was competent to give her full or informed consent to the abortion. Her mother and the physicians incurred the penalty, which can only be removed by the authority of a bishop after full confession, true contrition, and appropriate penance.
As for the medical necessity of the abortion, the child’s life was in no immediate danger. The danger was a projection. An abortion does not unrape the victim, nor does it lessen the trauma of the original rape. Instead, it saddles the mother with an entirely new trauma, which compounds the trauma of rape. It often leaves women unable to conceive children in the future.
The medical goal could have, and should have been to bring the babies to at least 23 weeks of gestation, the earliest that babies have survived outside of the womb, and then do a scheduled C-section if the mother was starting to show signs of being in danger. This was never a serious consideration by the doctors at the time.
But this case is precisely the type of case that proaborts love to use as a wedge issue. Worldwide since 1960, there have been over 1.8 billion abortions. The appeal is made to cases such as this to destroy the principle that all human life is sacred and inviolable. Having won assent to killing some babies, the next retort that arises is that no person can judge which woman can and can’t abort. Then as we have seen, literally, all hell breaks loose.
It is a form of malignant evil that says a nine year old carrying babies to 23 weeks is abusive, but reaching into her womb and tearing two babies to pieces is compassionate.
It isn’t rational. Evil never is.
This card played by aborts are just as insincere as when they play card of what about mother’s life in danger. Even when prolifers do concede the so-called hard case whatever that is, aborts will say they demand right abortion no matter what, not just the hard cases. It is a false card to try to paint prolifers as fanatics, but not sincere in saying abortion is necessarily because of these hard cases. The truth is they want abortion for no matter what reason and they don’t care who they hurt to get that.
Either you’re pro-life and believe that all innocent human life deserves to be protected from fertilization until natural death, regardless of how the life came into existence, or you aren’t pro-life. You can’t be half pro-life, or half pro-choice. You must be one or the other, even in extremely difficult situations like rape pregnancies.
“The danger was a projection. An abortion does not unrape the victim, nor does it lessen the trauma of the original rape. Instead, it saddles the mother with an entirely new trauma, which compounds the trauma of rape.”
And that’s YOUR projection. If every post-abortive woman in this country were ”traumatized” by abortion, then the psych wards of every major hospital would be overflowing with distraught women. Sorry, but every Operation Outcry march on Washington represents only a fraction of the women who get abortions every year in the US. And their–our–experiences are as varied as those of women who decide to carry their pregnancies to term. Thanks for mansplaining how we should all feel though, Dr. Nadal.
“Yes, the fact that they are pregnant means someone impregnated them, and *that* is horrific, the fact that they *are* pregnant is a reason for joy and healing!”
i.e. babies heal rape, so too bad every rape survivor doesn’t get pregnant? Hmm. Tell that to the victims of Rwanda, of Srebrenica.
Actually, Megan, oftentimes rape victims who conceive and give birth heal faster and more fully than those who were raped and never conceived. I’m trying to find the study done and if I can find it again, I’ll post it. That’s not saying that anyone hopes that a rape victim gets pregnant, just that birth is a universally miraculous thing (even when the circumstances are less than ideal, to say the least), as anyone who has participated in one will likely attest to, and that good most surely can come from evil. Not to mention that many rape victims who give birth to the child conceived in rape report feeling that giving birth helped them take back the power they felt the rapist took from them, while those who aborted after conceiving in a rape reported feeling as though the abortion was a testament to the power they felt the rapist still held over them. Also, ignoring that women ARE traumatized by abortin is not helpful to the pro-choice cause. That doesn’t mean that every woman who has an abortion is traumatized, but there are many who are. The women who take part in Operatioon Outcry are not necessarily the only women traumatized. It’s very likely that the numbers are far greater than what is represented by those marches because, as anyone with a psych degree will tell you, traumatized people are usually the ones who repress their feelings. Someone who’s repressing their feelings is unlikely to march with a sign expressing them.
Actually Megan, I say that because *I’ve* been told that by victims of rape, reading first hand accounts from Rawanda, Serbia, China, South Africa, Central America, and yes, even from rape survivors of the U.S.
I wouldn’t have to tell a pregnant rape victim that, judging from their own words, they already know that. There are culture where the woman is blamed for rape and ostricized, and in those cultures a rape-pregnancy is certainly detrimental to a woman’s social standing, and many may want to hide (or abort) the pregnancy to avoid their husband, father, or future husband from finding out they were raped. But in cultures were the victim isn’t blamed or seen as damaged goods because they were raped, women on the ‘front lines’ have repeatedly asked for prenatal care, not abortion, from health agencies (who never listen and continue to send abortion supplies but that’s a different issue), and repeatedly voiced a love and acceptance of the pregnancy and child. Women do not need, or want, abortion to heal themselves from rape. Rapists and societies that want to ignore the rape or pretend it didn’t happen want abortion to ‘heal’ rape by making it possible to cover it up, for everyone but the poor women who now has had both her innocence and child tore from her!
Pro-choice folk can be counted on to leverage the most horrendous exceptional circumstances to marginalize to the maximum extent practical the value of unborn life. If a fetus is not deemed a cancer, a parasite, a wart or the vile spawn of a rapist, their mission is incomplete.
Why pro-choice zealots would ever want to bring one of these deserving-of-abortion freaks of nature to term and celebrate its birth becomes a heckuva mystery…
But Megan’s had an abortion, so she HAS to view it as either a neutral action or an absolute good, or else she might have to actually think about what she’s done, and we can’t have that.
It amazes me to consider how a person can ignore conscience (or stomp on its grave in their own soul, perhaps) with regard to killing an unborn child, but is still able to hear conscience on relatively minor things in life like cutting someone off in traffic.
“Sorry! Didn’t see you mister motorcycle!”
But never:
“Damn! I just killed a human being! Worse still, I don’t feel all that bad about it. There must be something terribly wrong with me!”
Yeah, but to compound it all, not just any human being, but another living human which is their very own biological child…It boggles the mind. Make sure you don’t eat meat, adopt a puppy from an animal shelter rather than buying one at a mill, and recycle, but don’t trouble yourself about ending the life of your own child. Ugh.
Megan
You need to take some of that outrage and decide if in your world there are only room for the feelings of the strongest and the hell with anyone who might be counting on your mercy. Because after all you are really the only one who matters. Unborn babies are just casualties of what you assume to be a right. Based on what the right to privacy. What if the baby decides they have a right to privacy and would prefer that abortionists keep their instruments of death out of their temporary residence. Do you even realize what the world would be like if priority was given only to the strongest.
If every post-abortive woman in this country were ”traumatized” by abortion, then the psych wards of every major hospital would be overflowing with distraught women.
Hmm. Y’know, kids are traumatized by sexual abuse. And divorce. And the death of a parent or family member. But you don’t see them in psych wards. Megan, if you don’t realize we have an awful lot of wounded people walking around, going through life and struggling to adjust, you’re flat out blind.
“Mansplaining”??
BTW, I have a uterus, and I am pro-life. Do I get to speak for anyone? Or is it just those who support murder that get to speak for women nowadays?
In other words: this is NOT a hard question. This is not a rock and a hard place. This is not a no good answer situation. And we do the pro-life cause a grave disservice by being squemish and pretending it is! Even a very young child is in little danger from a pregnancy as long as they have access to medical attention (people with dwafism, for instance, give birth to average sized babies all the time, and young children have a distinct health advantage over most little people for a variety of reasons), and children will naturally be happy about a pregnancy and baby, not depressed and upset. Yes, the fact that they are pregnant means someone impregnated them, and *that* is horrific, the fact that they *are* pregnant is a reason for joy and healing! The actual ‘hard case’ is the 50 year old in failing health who was willingly sterilized 25 years ago, who by a freak of hormones, conceives and is looking at a disabling pregnancy which is both life threatening and long-term health threatening. (It happens, although such a pregnancy has a high rate of miscarriage. I personally know someone who fits such a discription who didn’t find out they were pregnant until after the miscarriage). That’s a ‘hard case’ were you might actually be forced to choose between delivering a baby you know (baring a miracle) won’t survive and crippling or risking the life of the mother. But a 9-13 year old? The underlying crime is hard to deal with, which makes society want to cover it up by getting rid of the child, but the pregnancy itself is hardly something to wring our pro-life hands in desolation and dispair over!
So well said. Worth quoting again.
“BTW, I have a uterus, and I am pro-life. Do I get to speak for anyone? Or is it just those who support murder that get to speak for women nowadays?”
No, you may only approve of “choice,” Kel. It’s your duty as a woman to support the right to kill another human. Otherwise you are not fulfilling your duties to the sisterhood! [/sarcasm]
Seriously though, it amazes me how the pro-choice movement manages to bother both anti-men AND women at the same time. They tend to deride other women who don’t support abortion, and deride men in general (well, they might tolerate some men if they support or provide abortion). It’s flat out rude as well as hypocritical. Not much “choice” when it’s either agree or shut up.
“BTW, I have a uterus, and I am pro-life. Do I get to speak for anyone? Or is it just those who support murder that get to speak for women nowadays?”
Oh no, I was addressing only Dr. Nadal, in whom I see a predilection to control others. It’s my hunch that if he could get pregnant, the right to an abortion would be a given. No, I generally believe the women who post here are speaking from a position of honesty and altrusim, misguided as it might sometimes be.
Oh, and I’ll edit that to include you, Jack, because for the most part you seem to be reasonable.
“For heaven’s sake, let the girl have an abortion so that she can have a chance at healing away from her abusive family situation. Why would you force a 9-year old to carry twins after being raped by a family member?? Disgusting.”
Why always cheer ”DEATH TO THE VICTIM” ?
Then make no comment about what should happen to the rapist?
Why is all the anger and violence directed at an innocent victim, but not one word of anger for the rapist?
Disgusting
“I was addressing only Dr. Nadal, in whom I see a predilection to control others.”
Yeah, right. But those cheering for the death of children don’t want to control anyone. Oh, no. Just want them dead. Much more manageable that way.
I generally believe the women who post here are speaking from a position of honesty and altrusim, misguided as it might sometimes be.
Tell my daughter who would’ve been aborted by pro-choice standards how “misguided” it is.
“So say you force this child to carry the products of her rape to term.”
I actually know some of these “products of rape”. They are real human beings who didn’t deserve to be executed. They lived in an era where their lives were valued. They are now parents and grandparents and very nice folks.
Why hate on victims of rape?
you’re at home and the police come to your house and tell you that you’re going to jail. you have no idea what you did wrong and ask them why you’re going to jail. they tell you that your father robbed a bank and you’re being punished for his crime.
does that make any sense? no.
nor does it make sense to punish a child by murdering him/her for their father’s crime.
only about 1% of abortions are because of rape. that does not justify the other 99% of abortions. also many women who have been raped and got pregnant and gave birth to the baby said that it was like a cleansing. also, many women who have been raped, got pregnant, and got an abortion have confessed that the abortion was worse than the rape.
Well Megan, if you agree that female pro-lifers are generally altruistic and honest, and you see at least one male on the pro-life side as fairly reasonable, would you be able to debate with some or all of us fairly without personal attacks? When I argue with people I attempt to not slam their gender or personality, even if I get sarcastic about their views sometimes. Not saying I’m perfect at holding my temper, but I make an attempt. You might have a better time trying to talk to people about issues if you refrained from getting personal.
BTW, I am not exempting pro-lifers from this. People on both sides can sling mud at each other and it isn’t particularly kind or effective,
Megan,
How many of your children have you killed?
I don’t need to get pregnant to know that murder is murder. I’ve embraced my fatherhood and its responsibilities three-fold, and with an autistic child on top of it all. You killed your baby. Plenty of women have abortions under all sorts of coercion, and for them, it isn’t murder. The pressures brought to bear on them mitigate and attenuate their culpability.
It’s different for you, though. You love it. That’s why you spend hundreds of hours here promoting and defending it.
Or is it that you have a conscience that is screaming so loudly that you have to shout down your own conscience to keep from losing your mind, and spew venom on all who call you on your ugly behavior?
Which is it? What motivates your hundreds of hours of promoting and defending the butchering of babies?
I’m the person who sent the original question to Jill. Thank you all so very much for your helpful postings. You have certainly bolstered my confidence in speaking about pro-life issues in the future, and I have shared your comments with the student who asked the original question. Thanks again everyone!
Abortion does not heal rape.
Why should an innocent child die in the womb of her mother and the perp go free?
Why do proaborts take the most extreme cases and exploit them? Less them 1% of abortions are due to rape. 99% are done for ANY and EVERY other reason.
The violence of abortion parallels the violence of rape and just how did abortion help this 9 year old? Was she sent right back to her abuser? What help did she receive to deal with her rape and the death of her two children?
And proaborts would be yowling like this if the 9 year old wanted to keep her babies?? They would stand right beside this young girl?? Yeah. Right.
ABORT or face a life of misery is the mantra of a proabort.
Thankful, I would invest in the book Prolife Answers to Prochoice Arguments by Randy Alcorn. A must have.
Lifer,
What an amazing story of your precious girl!! Thank you so much for sharing it and God bless you and your family!!
Jane your comments to lifer stand out in stark contrast to those that truly see the hope and the joy that children bring. I am sad for you.
Thankful,
You’re most welcome.
There are no “hard cases”, only hard hearts.
I think abortion following rape or incest is less about the woman & more about US as a society who interact with her. We tend to shy away & avoid things that make us uncomfortable. Rape & incest make us uncomfortable. It makes us upset, sad, disgusted, & creeped out. It makes us want to help, without knowing how. We are left without words of comfort & we feel helpless. Add a pregnancy. Without thinking any deeper than the surface, many “auto-response”…”whatever she wants to do” or “yeah, abortion is the best option. No woman would want to carry her rapist’s baby” or “no woman would want to look at her baby & see her rapist!” or “no woman could love the child of her rapist!”. When the woman continues the pregnancy, it REALLY makes us uncomfortable. What do you say to her? All those questions & traditions we break out when others are pregnant like “You must be so excited!” or “Are you & the baby’s father picking out names?” or even planning a baby shower to celebrate the birth, are now in questions & cause us to doubt. Do you celebrate a baby conceived from a rape? Do you talk to her about the situation? Ignore it? If people know about the rape, they will likely jsut try to ignore it & try to forget. If she is pregnant, there is a growing reminder to the rest of us that she was RAPED & that makes us unsettled to say the least. If she aborts, we can basically just forget the whole thing ever happened…but she never will. She will NEVER forget her rape. She will NEVER forget she was pregnant as a result. She wil never forger her abortion (if she has one). And she will never forget her baby. It will all just be more for her to stuff down & hide. Everyone can pretend. That is what tends to happen. Not just with abortion following rape, but with abortion in general. **The “psych wards” are not filled, but the bars and prescriptions for anti-depressants are.** It is very hard for women who are regretting their abortion to share that regret. Often, it was done in secret. No one, or very few, knew she was pregnant & aborted. Those that did know, were supportive & encouraging her in having the abortion. They may hve given her a ride to the clinic. Maybe helped her pay for it. She may have believed the lies about the fetus being just a clump of cells & that all she would feel is relief & perhaps a sense of empowerment for taking control over “her body” & “her life”. Now she can’t understand why she is angry or sad…or both. Why she feels like she wants to mourn or grieve…can you grieve a clump of cells you didn’t even want? And who can she go to? How can she explain to her friends that she is regretting her choice…the one they helped her make? Why would you feel badly? It was YOUR CHOICE. Why would you be angry? Why would you be depressed? Why would you feel regret? Or sadness? It is pro-lifers who love these women & understand their feelings. Which is easier? Help a woman in a crisis pregnancy, particularly the “hard cases” like rape, by saying “I think a woman has a right to choose abortion” or maybe going a bit further by actually offering her a ride tot he clinic or some cash to help cover the cost? OR coming along side her & making it a realistic possiblity to carry to term by helping meet her practical, material, physical, & emotional needs? Need a place to live? We got that! Need a friend / mentor? We got that! Need maternity clothes & baby clothes? We got that! Need a crib, stroller, carseat? We got that! Need formula & diapers? We got that! Need free medical help or information on how to get medical? We got that! Need parenting classes? We got that! Need help with making an adoption plan? We got that! And IF the woman DOES have an abortion, we don’t ignore the reality that women (& men) often suffer & are hurting. We offer programs to help with healing & recovery. Yeah, we got that too! Which is more loving? Which offers women a real choice? How many pro-choicers are willing to raise a “rapist’s baby”? Or would do anything to give a woman who feels she has no other choice but abortion, a real choice? Would you adopt her baby if she needed a family? Would you take her in & care for her during her pregnancy? Would you personally take on the responsibility or just pat her on the back & tell her as she is walking into the clinic, “you are doing the right thing…bu-bye.”
A coworker of mine had a case similar to this — a young girl was being abused by her parents, she went to her grandfather for help and he raped her and got her pregnant. She did have the baby, and my coworker was shocked and disgusted that she would carry the baby to term.
Anyway, I have a question — what relation what that baby be to the mother? I guess it would be her cousin?
Her uncle. And her son.
it is very sad that people focus on killing an infant instead of punishing the rapist. When a single mom is pregnant it is ‘her baby’ but when she is raped it is ‘the rapists baby?’ …. That is offensive, it is the mother’s baby, end of story. People will argue ANYTHING to do abortion. Plus, studies prove that it is way more traumatizing for rape victims to abort their babies than to keep, so let’s not punish the baby with death, and make the mother relive trauma…. thanks.
Here is a good source that references psychology books on rape + abortion:
There are two answers to this objection. First, a child conceived through rape or incest does not deserve the death penalty for his or her father’s crime. Second, research shows that the victim of either crime is likely to suffer more if she resorts to abortion.
One large-scale study of pregnant rape victims found that approximately 70 percent chose to give birth. Many sexual assault victims see giving birth as a selfless, loving act that helps bring healing from the horrific experience of the rape itself. Women who abort children conceived through rape often report that they didn’t feel that they had any other choice, since everyone around them assumed that they would not want to give birth to the rapist’s baby.
The case against abortion for pregnant victims of incest is even stronger. Incest victims hardly ever voluntarily consent to an abortion. Rather than viewing the pregnancy as unwanted, the victim of incest is more likely to see the pregnancy as a way to get out of the incestuous relationship because it exposes the abusive sexual activity that family members are either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge. The pregnancy poses a threat to the perpetrator, who frequently attempts to coerce his incest victim to have an unwanted abortion.
The idea that the violent act of abortion is beneficial to victims of rape and incest is simply unfounded. On the contrary, evidence shows that abortion in such cases compounds the unspeakable pain that victims experience.
Moreover, given that one-third of one percent of abortions are performed under such circumstances, we might ask why this question is so frequently raised. Do these extremely rare cases justify tolerating the other 99.67% of abortions? Would those who raise this objection really be willing to ban abortion if exceptions were made for rape and incest?
Sources: Johnston, Wm. Robert. Reasons Given For Having Abortions In The United States. http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html
Mahkorn, “Pregnancy and Sexual Assault,” The Psychological Aspects of Abortion, eds. Mall and Watts (Washington, D.C., University Publications of America, 1979) 55-69.
Maloof, “The Consequences of Incest: Giving and Taking Life” The Psychological Aspects of Abortion, eds. Mall and Watts (Washington, D.C. University Publications of America, 1979) 84-85.
Reardon, David, PhD, Julie Makimaa, and Amy Sobie. 2000. Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions, and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault. Battle Creek. Acorn Publishing.
I say she is lucky she was able to have abortion. I hope she is away from her family now, too. I can’t imagine carrying twins of incest, meaning she was raped by her father, probably repeatedly over the years. No girl or woman should be forced to carry the baby of her father. Her life would be ruined before it began. Even when I was a hardcore prolife Catholic (and I was for years) I still believed that there were certain circumstances that supersede the ideals of “no abortion.” I feel that you can be prolife and still accept with sadness, that this was necessary.
Her life would be ruined before it began.
“Pro-choice” = hopelessness. I feel sad for them.
The bottom line is, if the unborn is not a living human being, then no justification is necessary. Abortions are not sad, unfortunate, last resorts. They are not hard decisions to be weighed with the gravest of sincerity. They are not ending a human life, merely removing some unwanted tissue like having a wart, mole, or perhaps tumor removed. No one dies & no one is emotionally or psychologically harmed. Young girls & minors are “mature enough” to engage in sexual activity, so long as it is concentual, and if her birth control fails, then the “responsible” thing for her to do so she doesn’t “ruin her life” or isn’t (as out president puts it) “punished with a baby”, is to catch a ride to nearest abortion facility & have her little problem solved. Ooops. All better now! And boy do I feel relieved, empowered, & liberated! In fact, I feel by this act that I am now egual to a man! Abortion = Equality…now both sexes are “wombless” and can have sex that results in pregnancy & have zero responsiblity what-so-ever. After all, it isn’t a baby (unless you want it o be & were TRYING to get pregnant & it is the perfect time w/ that perfect person). In a rape, it isn’t a baby…it is just some rapist’s seed or spawn, so OF COURSE abortion is the LOGICAL choice. Duh!
HOWEVER, if the unborn ARE living, human beings, then NO JUSTIFICATION, no matter how sad, tragic, & horrific, can justify the intentional ending of innocent human life. To say otherwise is legalizing descrimnation besed on subjective criteria…the opinions of those in positions of power over the ones being deemed less worth to LIFE, LIBERTY, & the PURSUIT of HAPPINESS. After all, it doesn’t say they were BORN with these rights. We were ENDOWED with these rights. The US Supreme Court Justices chose, however, to ignore medical science & instead go with subjective, philosphical opinions of “meaningful life” and “fully human” to strip the rights all humans were endowed with & that Americans are promised, from those who live in the womb.
@xalisae: Prochoice = freedom
Commenters, please refrain from vulgar namecalling and profanity. Thanks.
lifer~ I enjoyed reading your story. Very inspiring! Your daughter’s birth mother is an amazing young woman and I am certain your daughter is very blessed to have you & your husband raising her. :)
@xalisae: Prochoice = freedom
Freedom from what? Being a decent human being and allowing your child(ren) to have their right to live respected? That’s not freedom. That’s hedonism and sociopathy. You seem to be confused.
Xalisae, “freedom” from kissing scraped knees… freedom from waking up to a little child snuggling with you in your bed… freedom from bedtime stories and bubble baths… freedom from soft, chubby arms around your neck and “I love you mommy”. Freedom from watching that first bike ride without training wheels… freedom from pride and sadness as you watch your baby go off to his first day of school… freedom from hot sweaty days at the park and cool, refreshing fun in the sprinker…. freedom from all the joys and yes all the hardships of motherhood. All those hardships are SO WORTH IT for the joys that I’ve described above. But you’ll never hear pro-aborts acknowledge that.
“It’s different for you, though. You love it.”
Distorting the opposition’s views doesn’t help your cause, Gerry. Think about that–your claim that I “love” abortion. Hmm. No, I’m actually neutral on the subject. I can, however, tell you what I loathe: bigmouths attempting to curtail women’s fundamental freedoms.
And Xalisae: if somebody tried to pressure you into getting an abortion, they weren’t being pro-choice, they were being pro-power–just like those who try to force women to continue unwanted pregnancies.
No, I’m actually neutral on the subject.
Did your nose just grow a few inches, Pinocchio?
In reference to any particular woman’s decision to get an abortion. It’s not my business what she chooses, just that she has the option to choose.
“…just like those who try to force women to continue unwanted pregnancies.”
Megan, the unwanted pregnancy argument effectively means that people like me, who were never wanted or loved by our parents, should have never been born. A person’s humanity or rights don’t depend on how much their parents love or want them. My mother had no more right to have me killed in the womb than she did to smother me as a newborn, or beat me to death when I was five, or shoot me now. My right to life and my personhood isn’t dependent on whether my mother wanted me to live. A society that doesn’t protect its most helpless citizens from harm from their own parents isn’t one that is moral.
Rape, that results in a pregnancy, is a good thing. While kids are talking, in grammar school, about their daddies, the child of a rape victim can proudly say that “my daddy was a rapist.” Way to alienate even more folks from the “pro-life” movement.
“Rape, that results in a pregnancy, is a good thing.”
CC, no one thinks that rape is a good thing. Children just don’t deserve to die because of who their father was.
“ While kids are talking, in grammar school, about their daddies, the child of a rape victim can proudly say that “my daddy was a rapist.””
I am glad you think that I should have been killed before I was born, because I can say “my daddy was a rapist”. I am not a product of a rape though, so does that mean I get to live? Children shouldn’t be blamed, judged, or harmed because of who their parents are.
While kids are talking, in grammar school, about their daddies, the child of a rape victim can proudly say that “my daddy was a rapist.”
That’s not even realistic. The child would most likely say “I don’t have a daddy.”
BTW, you’re aware that a lot of those kids in grammar school probably don’t have daddies, either, right?
My father was an adulterer, and I never had to tell my fellow students about it in school, though I knew about it. I guess I’m “the adulterer’s child.” Seriously, how does my father’s character or the fact that he was cheating on my mom at the same time I was conceived change the value of my life?
The circumstance in which a person is conceived does not change the value or worth of the individual conceived.
Megan- Let’s say no one pressured me to try and have me abort, and it was totally my choice, and I had an abortion when I was pregnant with my daughter. How would that make her any less dead than she’d be if I’d been pressured to abort and had her aborted?
@ CC: Rape, that results in a pregnancy, is a good thing. While kids are talking, in grammar school, about their daddies, the child of a rape victim can proudly say that “my daddy was a rapist.” Way to alienate even more folks from the “pro-life” movement.
It is exactly that disgusting mentality that drives women pregnant from rape to abort. The idea that is held by those who support abortion, that her baby is somehow damaged, diseased, demonic, & devoid of value. Talk about judgemental! Looking down their arrogant noses at a defenselss, innocent child & seeing a “rapist’s baby” where every pro-lifer I’ve ever known sees a sweet, loving child with a silly personality & loads of potential. I wish you could see my daughter’s face. I wish you could know her & hear her laugh. Her birth mother was raped at 13 & nearly gave into the pressure (& lies) to abort her at 20 wks. Yet she learned the truth about abortion…you know, the truth Jane has said every woman really already knows so I guess there is no reason to present accurate information to her. (eye roll) And chose adoption for her baby…the one the abortion clinic staff told her no one would want BECAUSE the baby was a “bi-racial, rapist’s baby”…except WE wanted her!!! It is sickos on the pro-abortion side that label & devalue children based on the circumstances of their conception IE rape/incest…NOT PRO-LIFERS who want them to all have a chance at life & love & a family. My daughter was conceived as a reult of rape, but that is not who her daddy is! Her Daddy is her most favorite human being on the planet (a true Daddy’s Girl). Her birth mother is one of the most courageous people I’ve even known. And I am her Mommy. Loving & welcoming all human life, is not alienating. It is embracing.
@ CC…better to be dismembered & dead than face bigotry?
@lifer, yes. That’s why those of us that had bad childhoods or were conceived in less than ideal circumstances don’t deserve to be alive.
I really, really want CC to come back and admit that she thinks that your daughter, me, and anyone else who wasn’t planned and wanted should be dead. She probably won’t admit she thinks that, though.
John said this
“Megan, the unwanted pregnancy argument effectively means that people like me, who were never wanted or loved by our parents, should have never been born. A person’s humanity or rights don’t depend on how much their parents love or want them.”
Jack, differant people have different reasons for being pro-choice. But i don’t think the unintended pregnancy argument means you shouldn’t have been born, it does mean that you had no right to use your mother’s body against her will . I also did not have he right to use my mother’s body when I was a fetus, no one does.
I understand that your side is baffled by my side, because we are baby killers and all. But we are equally baffled by you. You ask, what bearing does the mode of conception have on the value of the child’s life? I answer, none. I ask on what grounds does the child have to use his mother’s body against her will? What is your answer to that
See, it is not just that you want children not to be ‘killed’ if that is what you wanted no one would oppose you, its that you want women all women regardless of whether or not they have consented to the act that made the child ,to use their bodies to keep the child alive and then go through enormous pain to birth him. Why do you think women are obligated to do this? I understand why its altruistic, but why do you think it should be mandatory?
I really am not trying to be ‘smart’ here. I am posing a serious question. In an ideal world i don’t think we would have abortion, where the embro/fetus was destroyed, but we would havea procedure where the embryo/fetus was removed whole from the mother. If it could not survive outside the womb, it would not be anyone’s fault because she wouldnt be killing anything she would jus be exercising her right to not use her body to keep another person alive, the death of the embryo/fetus would be a side effect. Yet i think many of you would have a problem with this, because you believe that women have not only an obligation not abort (what you think is tantamount to murder) but they have an additional obligation to use their bodies to keep other people alive ( even if they don’t want to). I wonder very genuinely where you think this obligation comes from?
Whoops I meant Jack not John!
Thank you for the polite question, Shannon. That’s a rarity in these kind of debates. :) I believe that the basic right to live is more important than body autonomy rights, in a nutshell.
A distinct human being is what is being developed in pregnancy, with a complete set of chromosomes with his or her own unique combination of genes. This human being is living, and barring anything unfortunate will develop until it is ready to be born. It is undeniable, biologically, that a zygote/blastocyst/embryo/fetus is a human, with the DNA providing it with the blueprint to develop and live. If you accept that, and you have to if you think science has any merit at all, then it follows necessarily that this life deserves protection and rights. All humans have a basic right to life and protection from harm just for the simple fact that they are human and living, and are bestowed the rights just by existing. Human rights are not dependent on the emotional, physical, or mental status of the human being in question. They are not dependent on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status or any other category you can think of. There is no category of humans, however impaired or non-sentient, that can be deprived of the basic right to live. The right to live has to take precedence over all other human rights.
The body autonomy rights and the health of the mother arguments do not overrule the right to life, unless the mother is in imminent danger of dying. A pregnant woman, just like any other man or woman, has the right to control over her body and medical decisions. However, these rights, even though they are very important, cannot exceed the right of another human to live. No one has the right to end another life except in extreme cases of protecting their own life. Even then appropriate force must be used. If a woman is going to die because of a pregnancy, and the baby cannot be delivered alive, then removing the baby and causing its death is permissible. It is not acceptable that someone should be forced to give up their life for another. However, anything less than protecting a woman’s right to life is a gross violation of the baby’s same right. If by some crazy situation I was hooked up to another human and was the only thing keeping them alive for several months, I could not ethically disconnect myself even if it was against my consent to keep them alive.
That is the basic reason why I believe abortion is immoral. I know a lot of pro-lifers have other reasons for it (religious or otherwise), but those are my opinions.
Also, this more personal than ethical, but I get really, really offended when people argue that an abortion is better than an unwanted kid or abusive childhood. I dealt with both, and it sucked, but I still think that I deserved to have a chance to live.
I don’t call pro-choicers baby killers or any name like that, btw. I don’t think it gets anybody to listen any better. I am baffled by the pro-choice position, you are right about that.
Shannon, how refreshing to read a calm, well-worded pro-choice argument on this thread that doesn’t drip with disdain for pro-lifers. Thank you.
Okay, you said, “Iask on what grounds does the child have to use his mother’s body against her will? What is your answer to that”
I’ll ask you a question. Sarah and Lacy are conjoined twins. Sarah doesn’t want Lacy to use her body against her will. Does Sarah have the right to end Lacy’s life?
If you answer yes, then your views are consistent. If you answer no, then you admit, like every pro-life person here, that the human right to life takes precedence over the human right to have your body to yourself .
I prefer not to use the “conjoined twin” argument because it seems a little silly, but it was the only analogy I could think to use that would make my point. I’m interested to see what you say.
Andi, I don’t know what your religious views are, but it’s really just ridiculous to say that just because Jesus didn’t explicitly say “abortion is wrong” that he approves of it and would even be glad that someone would have one. Jesus didn’t say “Thou shalt not repeatedly kick you children,” but that doesn’t mean he condones it. That’s a huge jump in logic. The Bible doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not have an abortion,” but it does say, “Thou shalt not kill.” If abortion purposefully ends a human life (the fact that life starts at conception is irrefutable and there is literally no scientific disagreement about it, which is why pro-choicers focus on the “issue” of “personhood”) then abortion is killing and is strictly forbidden in the Bible.
Andi: Jesus was a serious fail if his mission was social justice.
And there are a vast number of issues Jesus never addressed. You’re arguing from silence.
And you’re trafficking in special pleading if you suggest Jesus cared about women’s bodies but not unborn bodies. It’s as if that’s just something you don’t care to mention when citing Jesus as someone you consider sympathetic to women but not, apparently, to unborn children some women wish to kill.
The obligation comes from the same obligation inherent in every parent-child relationship by default-parents have an obligation to provide for and care for their children. The gestating human being shares this genetic child-parent bond with their mother (and father for that matter) and their mothers have default custody of them in utero which cannot be altered without causing that child’s death (which would be just as wrong post-birth, by the way. If a mother went to take her child to a facility to relinquish custody of him/her and something happened on the way which was because of her actions which caused that child’s death, would she not be legally culpable and held accountable in that child’s death?) which would not be permitted in any other circumstance than abortion, and pro-lifers only seek to uniformly protect the child under the law from harm caused by anyone, even parents, at every stage of that child’s life instead of just some as it currently stands.
Does that answer your question, Shannon? Will of parents has nothing to do with it as far as the law is concerned in every instance OTHER THAN abortion. Pro-life is working to fix things in that respect.
Shannon: For that matter, why would a mother be responsible in the least for born life? Positive law alone? If so, then we outlaw abortion. Simple resolution. Not positive law? Then what? Natural law? You’d be willing to broach telic issues? In that case deontology and not mere utility become admissible.
Hell, YOU stake a claim to my body, because as a citizen you are entitled to certain benefits that depend on my taxes.
If you seriously believe in radical autonomy, respect the right of others to be free of obligations to support others in any way at all.
If civilization has come to the place where there’s no social contract between mother and unborn child, then I don’t really think we ought to respect any other, either.
If a premeditated double murder is not grounds for disfellowshipipping/excommunication, then what is?
The 9 year girl, who it seem never had a choice or a voice in any of this and her two pre-natal children were the victims in this tragedy.
The parents and the doctors were witting and willing accomplices in the crime.
Andi,
Jesus didn’t mention rape, spousal abuse, child abuse, born child murder, etc., either. So by your logic, He endorsed those things since He did not come out for social justice against them.
Way to completely distort His ministry. His ministry was NOT social justice, but to call sinners to repentance and faith in Him, as the Savior who would pay for their sins at the cross. He came to save sinners from their sins, not to leave them in their sins, but to call them to turn from their sins and come to Him.
Nothing in His ministry suggests bodily integrity unless you are talking about when He spoke about murder. And He said just the desire, not just the act itself, is sin in God’s eyes.
And He also said marriage as God’s intent is between one man and one woman from creation, and that still stands.
Jesus does NOT support your causes.
Nor is He antinomian, as you make Him out to be by saying He advocated the very things God’s law say is sin like homosexuality. In fact He warned whole cities to repent lest they suffer destruction. He told individuals to repent or perish.
He warned Pharisees for overturning God;s law with their man-made traditions. Your own form of legalism imposed on to Jesus who by the way also claimed to be God thus by extension is the lawgiver in the first place, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Your post is blatantly guilty of all of the above.
Yes principles in His ministry does LEAD to social justice if we live out our Christian faith consistently. But was that His primary mission? No. It was to be our Savior on the cross, dying to pay for our sins, taking our place in death at the cross that we deserve, being our substitute as punishment for our sins, being our redemption, our Mediator for us to God the Father.
“Will of parents has nothing to do with it as far as the law is concerned in every instance OTHER THAN abortion.”
And a person’s body cannot be conscripted to sustain the life of another in all instances EXCEPT FOR in the prolife worldview.
“If by some crazy situation I was hooked up to another human and was the only thing keeping them alive for several months, I could not ethically disconnect myself even if it was against my consent to keep them alive.”
In a society that views autonomy of self as an integral aspect of personhood, it would absolutely be ethically permissible to pull the plug, uncharitable and cruel as that may seem.
“Yet i think many of you would have a problem with this, because you believe that women have not only an obligation not abort (what you think is tantamount to murder) but they have an additional obligation to use their bodies to keep other people alive ( even if they don’t want to).”
So true. I don’t think prolifers here would be very happy if women with unwanted pregnancies induced labor at the earliest possible threshold of viability.
“In a society that views autonomy of self as an integral aspect of personhood, it would absolutely be ethically permissible to pull the plug, uncharitable and cruel as that may seem.”
But see, some may view it that way, but right to be alive trumps autonomy in many worldviews. Autonomy doesn’t exist without the right to be alive, so it can’t take precedence over the basic right to live.
Outside of rape, mothers (and fathers) put the unborn in position in first place of depending on the mothers.
Say you have a guest on your boat and you decide it’s your boat and you push the guest overboard in middle of sea where the only way the person won’t drown is to depend on you to help pull guest back. By logic of prochoicers there the boat owner is not obligated to try to save the guest despite the fact the owner of boat put the guest in position of depending on the owner in first place!
Megan wrote, “And a person’s body cannot be conscripted to sustain the life of another in all instances EXCEPT FOR in the prolife worldview”
Well, given that the unborn are humans, then by your logic, abortion violates your own rule there since the unborn is conscripted to sustain the life of the mother (in the hard cases of mother’s life in danger) by aborting or violating the bodily autonomy of the unborn.
“Well, given that the unborn are humans, then by your logic, abortion violates your own rule there since the unborn is conscripted to sustain the life of the mother (in the hard cases of mother’s life in danger) by aborting or violating the bodily autonomy of the unborn”
The mother doesn’t “need” the fetus’ body in any sense, Punisher (by the way, what an apt name for the cause you support!). If the fetus weren’t there in the first place, the mother’s life wouldn’t even be jeopardized.
And outside of rape, if the mother and father did not have sex, the unborn would not be there in first place. The two put the unborn in that position in the first place. According to your own argument, the mother would need to violate bodily autonomy of the unborn to survive if her life is in danger. Or “conscript” the unborn the mother put that position in the first place for abortion for any given reason even on a whim. Your own rules refute abortion.
Yeah, I would have to agree with Megan on that argument, it really doesn’t hold up.
And a person’s body cannot be conscripted to sustain the life of another in all instances EXCEPT FOR in the prolife worldview.
Wrong. Every single parent out there who uses their body at their job to provide for their children who they must provide for by law as long as they retain default custody has their body “conscripted to sustain the life of another”. Try again.
I don’t think prolifers here would be very happy if women with unwanted pregnancies induced labor at the earliest possible threshold of viability.
We’d like that scenario more than them just being killed without a chance as they are now. Why didn’t YOU try that, Megan?
Pro-choice = freedom, eh?
Reminds me of the feminist teaching campaign by Marlo Thomas for girls: “Free to be you and me!” It”ll have to be updated: ” – unless you’re my child.”
Shannon:
Others have said this, but the reason a mother is obligated to continue her pregnancy when it is safe for her to do so is because she is the baby’s parent.
I have two living children. Every day I use my body to care for them. While they no longer draw physical sustenance from my body (though my son did that, as well, for 14 months after birth, and my daughter for 11), I must use my body to get them from their rooms, to change their diapers, to make and give them food, to play with them, to bathe them, to teach them, to love them. In the middle of last night I had to get out of bed and comfort my daughter and help her go potty, all using my body. Now, all of that was a choice, I will admit, usually made willingly and sometimes reluctantly. I could have chosen to let my three-year-old pee her bed last night, turn on the TV instead of playing soccer with my kids, and give them plain bread instead of a peanut butter sandwich, and I would still be fulfilling my responsibilities. But the fact remains that I have responsibilities. My children are too young for me to leave them alone and expect them to handle their own food and diapers. If I decided to leave them alone for a day, my daughter would probably manage to get food for herself, and maybe go potty if I left the gate open (though my son being able to get into the bathroom would be problematic). My son probably couldn’t get his own food and definitely couldn’t change his own diaper. If I were to leave for the day, it would be child abuse. A 3-year-old and a 1 1/2-year-old require supervision, and help with daily tasks. I cannot just walk out on them; it is not just selfish or irresponsible but illegal. If I did, I might face fines or arrest. Even calling and paying a sitter requires effort. There are many ways I could use my body to see that my children are cared for, but none of them are possible if I do not use my body. So I may not just choose not to care for my children.
Now you might argue that this is different because I have chosen to have children and be their mother. Okay. Suppose I decide that I no longer want to be my son’s mother (purely as a hypothetical). So I stop feeding him, changing his diapers, and worrying about what he does (climbing the couch, playing in the litterbox, trying to open the oven). That’s not okay either. If DSS came to our house, the fact that I had decided I didn’t want to be his mom anymore would not be good enough. I would have to take an action–call the appropriate services so that someone else would take him away and parent him. I still am responsible to see that he is cared for. If there were no foster care openings, and I had to wait hours or days for someone to take my son, in the meantime I would be required to care for him. If it were unsafe for DSS to come to my house at this moment–due to a storm or an impassable road–I couldn’t just set him outside to fend for himself. I am required to arrange for someone else to care for my son, and to wait for a safe time to transfer his care to a qualified individual. There is more involved than simply deciding not to be a parent anymore.
So then, if I were to become pregnant next month, why should the requirements be different? The child I become pregnant with is my genetic offspring (and my husband’s). If I became pregnant, is it unreasonable to require that I care for my child until it is safe for me to relinquish her to someone else? I believe it would be. To remove a child from my body at less than 24-28 weeks would be profoundly unsafe for her–likely fatal. When it became safe for my child to be removed from my body, an induction or C-section could happen and she could be placed with a family prepared to care for her. (Although I have never heard of a doctor who performs early elective inductions or C-sections; for some reason they consider it unethical, as it is much safer for children to be carried until as close to term as possible. It is easier to get an abortion than an elective birth at 28 weeks.)
Some questions for you, Shannon: why are abortions legal after 23 weeks? If abortion is merely about not being pregnant, why stop a procedure and kill the baby rather than removing him as quickly as possible? Do you support abortion after viability? Why or why not, and if you do not support it, what are you doing to stop it? Also, do you support experimentation on “leftover” IVF embryos, whom no one is pregnant with? If so, why is this ethical, especially if there were a woman willing to carry them to term?
Xalisae Said
“The obligation comes from the same obligation inherent in every parent-child relationship by default-parents have an obligation to provide for and care for their children.”
Rasqual said
Shannon: For that matter, why would a mother be responsible in the least for born life?” If you seriously believe in radical autonomy, respect the right of others to be free of obligations to support others in any way at all.
If civilization has come to the place where there’s no social contract between mother and unborn child, then I don’t really think we ought to respect any other, either.
My point is, I understand why you think a mother cannot ‘kill’ her unborn child as she cannot kill her born child. But my point is that when a woman is pregnant she has to not only refrain from killing she has to do another positive duty do whatever it takes to keep the fetuses alive.
A woman with a born child does not have to do this. (You seem to draw parallels between the children so I will as well. If a born baby has any type of problem, even something so simple as it needs a blood transfusion, and its mother is its only match its mother is not obligated to give it to the baby, even if the bay will surely die without it. Even if you think the mother morally should give the baby blood, you don’t think she should legally be obligated to. You always ask why the unborn child doesn’t have the same rights as a born child, and I pose the same question why does the unborn child have more rights than the born child.
Hi Shannon. Nice to talk with you.
You mentioned the possible parallel between using one’s body to sustain the life of the developing fetus and using one’s body to sustain the life of a child who needs a blood transfusion. On the surface these situations do seem to be analogous. However I propose that there are two key components to these situations which is not the same, but which is morally relevant. The first is that when the fetus is inside the mother, it is exactly where it should be, doing exactly what it should do, and the uterus is being used exactly as it should be according to the natural order. In other words, A fetus by definition BELONGS inside a mother’;s womb. The uterus is designed (by God, nature, evolution, whatever) precisely for the purpose of growing a baby. This doesn’t mean that it always must be growing one or even ever HAS to be growing one, but when it IS growing one, it is a violation, a destruction of the final ends of the uterus to take that life out, not to mention a destruction of teh unborn. Contrast that with the blood transfusion analogy or the popular kidney analogy. The purpose of your blood is to flow through your body, to keep YOU healthy. It is designed for you. Now if one wishes to sacrifice some of their blood for a greater good (to save someone else’s lifea), that is fine. But we can see a major difference in two situations where in one you are destroying the final ends of the very action (pregnancy) and in the other you are doing a supererogatory work, one which the body is not designed to do but is still good to do if possible.
The other problem is in the actions and intent. In an abortion, one directly (and usually willfully) engages in teh act of killing a human being as a means or an ends. In refusing to donate blood or a kidney, you are not killing anyone. The person who needed blood or your kidney dies as a result of kidney failure or blood loss (or whatever), NOT because you directly killed him. This is an important distinction. There is also the fact that in most abortions, the very INTENT is to kill the baby. In other words, most abortions are not done just to “not be pregnant anymore” but in order to kill the fetus. If the fetus is not dead, teh abortionist has not done his job. That too is important because in most abortions your desire is to kill someone, while in the blood analogy, your only desire is to not give up your blood, but you do not desire nor will the death of the person who needs it, nor is his death a means or and ends to what you wish to accomplish.
I have very briefly outlined those differences but I think they are morally relevant and important to the discussion of bodily rights in abortion. Take care.
“If by some crazy situation I was hooked up to another human and was the only thing keeping them alive for several months, I could not ethically disconnect myself even if it was against my consent to keep them alive.”
~In a society that views autonomy of self as an integral aspect of personhood, it would absolutely be ethically permissible to pull the plug, uncharitable and cruel as that may seem.
I’m wondering if you would feel the same way if YOU were the one “hooked up” & in some way temporarily dependent on another human being? If you (or perhaps someone you love) were in the weaker position, would you be so vocal in support of the one sustaining you to “pull the plug”? I can see you now, daily reminding him or her, “You know, you have bodily autonomy rights & are under no obligation to keep me alive. Feel free to disconnect at any time. If I die, so be it…it is all about you anyway. I am, after all, the weaker one in this scenrio & the weaker ones have no right to life in relation to the one in the power position.”
I hear pro-abortion feminists often talk about minority rights verses the majority…victims of oppression verses those in power (the oppessor) & how rights are violate by those in power over othes who have not the power. They fail to see that pro-lifers are making that same argument in relation to the unborn. The unborn are defenselss & powerless. They are then easy targets because they have no voice, & although they are fully alove & fully human, have been denied their right to life by those in positions of power who deem them less worthy to live based on subjective & biased criteria. It suites the purposes of those in power to deny the right to life to the unborn…exacting their will & power unto death…because they can. It is hypocritaical to say the least.
Part of the problem is the disconnect between the procreative aspect of sex. Previously, it was understood that having sex could result in pregnancy. This might not have been the goal when a couple decides to engage in sex, but they knew it was a posibility. There was then some sense of obligation to the baby that the couple created in their consentual act. Currently, in our culture sex is for fun. It is recreation, a stress reliever, a bordom eliminator, a good time etc. It has nothing at all to do with procreation & babies…unless you want it to. Then, at the perfect time, when you are both established in careers & have had all your fun and are “ready”, you may then have sex as a way to try to make a baby. This “divorce” of sex from procreation allows for the mentality “I want to have sex with you (no big deal)” but not “I want to have a baby with you (VERY big deal)”. Wishing to have sex, yet not procreate, couples use various forms of birth control. When that birth control fails, couples are shocked! We just wanted to have sex! Not a baby! The baby is then viewed as an invader they failed to repel. The “responsible” thing to do is to get rid of it. After all, we were not trying to have a baby! We just wanted to have sex. And an appointment is made at the clinic to have the invader/baby destroyed & expelled. (According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, approximately 50% of abortions are due to birth control failure.) Is sex fun? Yes, but it can also make a baby…a biological fact that no matter what birth control you use or how deep you thrust your head into the sand, cannot be denied or avoided. (I know the response will be that pro-lifers are prudes who hate sex or are afraid of it. That we want every act of sex, if we have to do it at all, to only be when trying to get pregnant…sex as a job & certainly not any fun! Oh, & that women should basically be clones of Michelle Duggar. Uh…no. ;oD )
@ Bobby…YES!!!!!!!!!!!! Spot on with intent!
:::sigh:::
Shannon, the heart of the issue for pro-life folk is that pro-choice folk MUST argue by using the language that pits mother against child. You do it for unborn life, and when we compare unborn to born children you then merely lateral your ethic of conflict to the family — a mother doesn’t have to do jack to save the life of her own child.
In short, your brand of feminism is incapable of asserting that the world needs more nurture that women historically have showcased. Your brand of feminism has been reduced to “the nuclear option” — women’s rights depend on reasoning where the child and the mother are at odds because the mother does not choose to freely give what the child needs.
So the question remains, why should I pay taxes that support any “safety net” whatsoever?
Please explain this, Shannon. Be consistent in the application of your logic.
“You always ask why the unborn child doesn’t have the same rights as a born child, and I pose the same question why does the unborn child have more rights than the born child. ”
Why would you embrace the politics of a social contract that gives layabouts more rights than I? They can obtain food stamps and welfare that I pay for.
How is that appreciably different?
I have been primarily out of this conversation, having chimed in only once, but, Shannon, I feel the need to respond.
An unborn child does not have (nor are we suggesting it have) more rights than a born child. As others have said parents, by their very nature of being parents, are obligated to provide for their child’s needs until and unless another can be found to do so. But children, by their nature of maturing beings, have a constantly evolving obligation of need. A ten year old, ultimately, needs only *access* to food, shelter, and clothing. They are capable of eating by themselves, and, for the most part, they can even make their own food if the base ingredients are provided for them. Likewise they are capable of dressing themselves provided access to clothes, and can enter and exit shelter as needed provided shelter is provided. But a 3 year old has very different needs. They need, ultimately, finished food, secure shelter, help with clothes, and a level of vigilance and protection not required by the 10 year old. Likewise a 2 month old needs not only finished food but very specific food prepared and served (be that bottle or breast), they need not only help dressing but they must be dressed, they must be helped to clean and relieve themselves, and their movements are still largely, if not fully, reliant upon their caregivers. The level of obligation a newborn requires is staggering in reference to the obligation a parent has to a 17 year old. Yet, should they fail to provide within their obligation to either, and fail to find another to provide what is required, they are (rightly) held legally responsible to what harm did or even may befall their offspring. Yet the newborn has no more ‘rights’ than the 17 year old. They have the exact same rights, to have their biological needs met as a still maturing individual by their caretakers. Now, should a parent decide they can or will not meet that obligation they can try to find another to meet it for them. Be that having a family member raise the child (or meet a specific need), giving the child for adoption, relinquishing the child to the state, or, in cases of newborns, taking advantage of safe haven laws and simply dropping the child off at a hospital or other appropriate place. HOWEVER if the parent can not find another to fulfill their role as caregiver, they remain responsible for the health and well being of the child until such a time that another caretaker can be found. We do not let a parent of a 2 year old off on the child’s neglectful death because the parent says ‘well, I couldn’t find anyone else to take care of him for another 2 weeks and I just didn’t want to wait that long.’
The fact of the matter is that parents are responsible for the needs of their offspring. It’s biologically normal for a younger offspring to need more from their parents than an older offspring. That’s kind of the point of a species that has a parent/offspring bond. The immature offspring relies upon the parent until such reliance is no longer necessary. Does an unborn offspring need even more from the parent than a born offspring? Of course, it’s younger! Less developed! That doesn’t excuse neglegence on the mother’s part, it makes it all the more horrible because she is turning her back on an offspring that still needs so much from her! We all know embryos grow into fetuses, which grow into neonates, which grow into babies, which grow into children, which grows into prepubescents, which grow into adolescents, which grows into adults. Until they get to the ‘adult’ stage they require, both biologically and legally, obligatory care from their parents or providers on a constantly flucuating basis. The travesty pro-lifers are trying to rectify is current society ignoring biological need in the very youngest group of offspring by legally allowing a mother to ignore her obligatory care requirements. A 1 day old infant has the same legal rights as a 10 year old, a requirement that the parents give what care is needed. Yet a single day before (or a month, or 8 months) they don’t have that right, they have no rights, not even our most fundemental, the right to life.
Now I’m not for criminalizing general ‘bad parenting’. A person can be a bad parent without being a criminally bad parent. But their are certain requirements that children have at various ages that *must* be met by their parents. In the inutero age group, that requirement includes the use of the mother’s womb. It’s no more ‘right’ than the newborn who requires the use of her mother’s arms or breasts.
Bobby 10:01 – great post.
Jespren, your post makes me think about nursing in relation to the “bodily autonomy” argument. The scenerio brought up was if one born human was “hooked up” to another born human or in the case of conjoined twins, can or should one have absolute power over the other to the point of causing the death of the “weaker” or “powerless”, “defenseless” or “dependent” one? The pro-abort answer seems to be yes because the one NEEDS the other to physically meet their needs (they are “connected”) & the right to “bodily autonomy” in the pro-abort world trumps the right to life. Now if a born infant needed to gain his or her nutrients from the breast due to some total lack of formula availability (no other food sources for infants other than breast milk), would the autonomy of the woman trump the born child’s right to live if she had to be in anyway inconvenienced by offering her son or daughter her breast milk? After all, breast feeding can be time consuming. Interfere with ones plans, schedule, career, social activities. The woman may have to pump, which is not the most pleasant feeling…and no woman should be “forced” to endure any amount of discomfort, even if it is to save the life of another human being. I am wondering what the response would be to babies dying from starvation because their mothers refused to feed them from their breasts because their autonomy was paramount.
Lifer, there have been plenty of cases where women have chosen not to breastfeed but have then not been able to afford formula (which ends up being more expensive than expected), so they water it down and the baby ends up in the hospital (or morgue). Those women (and frequently the fathers too) are almost always charged with child indangerment, neglect, abuse, or homocide/infanticide. Parents are tasked with providing for their children, if they aren’t willing/able to (breastfeed), th en it’s their job to make sure someone/thing else is able to (formula) or they are charged as is appropriate for their neglect. A more interesting spin on bodily autonomy to ask of the pro-abort crowd is actually the opposite: if mothers have a right to abort a baby because they rely soley upon the mother’s body to sustain them, how does that change once the baby is born? I exclusively breastfed by 2nd baby for 6 months, every fiber and cell of her being came about purely and 100% because MY body had sustained her. In fact, I had to exert far more energy sustaining her and caring for her needs as a 3 month old, for example, as I did as a 20 week old inutero baby! So why, if abortion is based on the concept that mom can do anything she wants with ‘her’ body, can I not kill my 6 month old who was just as much an extention of my body then as she was 12 months earlier? And what about those babies that don’t rely fully upon their mother’s body for support? My aunt’s last child had several inutero procedures before the age of viability including blood transfusions, that inutero baby had cells not created by mom’s nutrients and was not fully reliant just upon mom, making her *less* a part of her mother’s body than my 5 month old! Yet pro-aborts wouldn’t argue that my aunt lost her ‘right’ to abort her child when she accepted a blood transfusion for the baby, no more than (the vast majority) would argue for my ‘right’ to kill my exclusively breastfed infant. Modern medicine being what it is today, there simply is no logically consistant rational for a parent being allowed to kill an inutero child if one does not also believe in infanticide being a parent’s/caregiver’s right.
Hello all, I can’t create a long response as I am on a break from work but will respond in full when I can.
Lifer, you say our side pits mother against child, this confuses me. I acknowledge the very real fact that many women do not want to become mothers. You acknowledge this as well, as you and many others consider it your job to protect the unborn from their mothers.
Also I need to Adress your and every other pro-lifers argument that it is contraceptions fault that babies and sex are divorced. I think you think that contraception has given everyone a free pass, but I think you may be out of touch with how a lot of people view contraception. People dont need contraception to have sex.I just graduated from college and I had a few guy friends who were involved in pregnancy. None of them used contraception. Under your theory shouldn’t these boys be likely to take responsibility, after all they knew what their actionscould lead to. I suppose you think they felt this way because they were always thinking about abortion in the back of their mind? They weren’t they knew before sleeping w them the girls didn’t believe in abortions.
My point in saying this is that the boys didnt take responsibility. This wasn’t because they had a complex plan revolving around contraception and abortion you are giving then too much credit. It was simply because sometimes Men on their own accord don’t want to step up, I wish you would acknowledge that and stop pretending like contraception is a big bad wolf makin people do all these awful things
Shannon, are you okay with late abortion and what are you doing to stop it if not? Do you oppose embryonic stem cell research, when these embryos could be adopted and are not making any woman remain pregnant?
You say that mothers are not required to take a positive action to save the life of a born child, but I have asserted they are–mothers must feed, clothe, and bathe their children or find someone else to do these tasks, and are required to continue this care until it can be safely passed to another if they no longer want the job. Abortion is not just about ceasing the provision of resources to the child; abortion results in the child being dismembered and/or forcibly torn out of the womb. Not only would it never be permissible to do this to one’s own child, I could not dismember someone else’s defenseless child who happened to show up in my house, even if he or she were to eat my food or hit me. Abortion nearly always kills the baby, not just removes him, and kills him in a gory, painful manner.
How do you reconcile a desire not to be pregnant–itself not bad or wrong–with the deliberate dismemberment of one’s own genetic offspring? Why does the mother have no responsibility until birth?
Shannon, are you okay with late abortion and what are you doing to stop it if not? Do you oppose embryonic stem cell research, when these embryos could be adopted and are not making any woman remain pregnant?
I don’t know enough about the effects of late-term abortion on the mother to be okay with it or not. I.e. I don’t know how much it psychically harms her body to get the fetus out, if it is more or less painful than childbirth, assuming it is much less painful and harmful to her body than childbirth, I think it is permissible. If it is equally as painful, the woman has no grounds to get an abortion over delivering the born baby.
Do I oppose embryonic stem cell research, not at all, I don’t really understand how anyone could look at a cell in a petri dish and se something that has as much value as you or me, scary.
You said
“You say that mothers are not required to take a positive action to save the life of a born child, but I have asserted they are–mothers must feed, clothe, and bathe their children or find someone else to do these tasks, and are required to continue this care until it can be safely passed to another if they no longer want the job”
Do you think we could move past the notion of what mother’s must do and instead replace it with a notion of what parents must do? The law does not require fathers to take their children to school and bathe them; it requires that they send a check to someone who does.
I also will not compare giving someone a bath to having them live inside of you, using your nourishment and altering your body in a way that undermines who you are.
How do you reconcile a desire not to be pregnant–itself not bad or wrong–with the deliberate dismemberment of one’s own genetic offspring? Why does the mother have no responsibility until birth?
Young Christian woman,
The same way I reconcile my desire to buy starbucks when that $4 could have been sent to Rwanda and buy typhoid vaccines. I understand someone else’s need, and I understand that I should help them, but I am not nor should I be legally required to. I don’t apologize when I buy overpriced coffee, though an argument could be made that I should, that a man’s life is more important than my mocha latte, (which it is). Still knowing this, I think I should still be able to use my four bucks where I danm well please, do you agree with this or do you think we should first protect other’s right to life before we relish in our own conveniences?
“Why does the mother have no responsibility until birth?”
Because a father has no responsibility until birth. to make a set of laws that only apply to women on the grounds that they are women is sexist and unconstitutional.
Shanon,
There is a foolproof 100% guaranteed way that you can absolutely prevent anyone from ever using “your nourishment ” or “altering your body in a way that undermines who you are”. It is totally within your control. Are you up to it? Do you have the fortitude to live up to your convictions?
@Shannon,
I would support 2000% with a law that requires the father of an unborn child to take financial responsibility and assist the mother of his unborn child with what she needs to get through the pregnancy, if that’s what it would take to make gender equality a reality without having abortion legal. I agree with you that a woman bears the brunt of responsibility, and I agree it’s not fair. I think that needs to be taken in to account and a pregnant woman should not have to go it alone. Men don’t get a free pass in my book, just because we can’t become pregnant doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be as legally responsible for any offspring. We are just as culpable in creating an unwanted pregnancy, and should be held accountable. I just firmly believe that killing an unwanted child isn’t the way to move our society to more equitable laws.
And I don’t have a problem with contraception, btw, and I certainly don’t blame it for the irresponsible and pathetic way that men treat women.
I don’t know enough about the effects of late-term abortion on the mother to be okay with it or not. I.e. I don’t know how much it psychically harms her body to get the fetus out, if it is more or less painful than childbirth, assuming it is much less painful and harmful to her body than childbirth, I think it is permissible. If it is equally as painful, the woman has no grounds to get an abortion over delivering the born baby.
Do I oppose embryonic stem cell research, not at all, I don’t really understand how anyone could look at a cell in a petri dish and se something that has as much value as you or me, scary.
I also will not compare giving someone a bath to having them live inside of you, using your nourishment and altering your body in a way that undermines who you are.
Your post reveals that your pro-choice stance seems to be based in your absolute ignorance-willful or otherwise-of basic human development and biology.
Let me just clarify what Michael means: don’t be raped! I hope you’re up to it.
Shannon:
“ I don’t know enough about the effects of late-term abortion on the mother to be okay with it or not. I.e. I don’t know how much it psychically harms her body to get the fetus out, if it is more or less painful than childbirth, assuming it is much less painful and harmful to her body than childbirth, I think it is permissible. If it is equally as painful, the woman has no grounds to get an abortion over delivering the born baby.”
The difference between abortion and birth is that in an abortion, the baby dies. Putting sharp instruments inside the mother to cut up the baby and pull out the pieces, or turning the baby to a breech position (a more dangerous way to deliver) and pausing midway through the birth to puncture the baby’s skull and suction out his or her brains, don’t seem like they would protect the woman’s safety to me. Before you gave the impression that you believed abortion was essentially about becoming unpregnant, and women should have the right to become unpregnant if they wish. Abortion after viability requires that the baby be killed. If the baby survives, it’s a birth (or a “botched abortion”). That’s why I assumed you were against late abortions. It is also worth noting that late abortions are never medicallly necessary. Tiller (for instance) performed his over a 3-day period, while women awaiting the delivery of the dead fetus stayed in a hotel. Preterm births are performed in hospitals by competent doctors and can take as little as half an hour. If the mother’s life were in danger, there would be no call to take extra time to kill the baby. So if you really believe that women have a right to not be pregnant, not a right to kill their child, you should not support abortions when the baby can be removed without killing.
“Do I oppose embryonic stem cell research, not at all, I don’t really understand how anyone could look at a cell in a petri dish and see something that has as much value as you or me, scary.”
Embryonic stem cell research has had no success; stem cells from unborn babies tend to develop into horrific tumors with things like bone and tooth and hair in them (teratomas) as the cell does what it was designed to do and develops into every type of cell. Stem cells from ethical sources–such as umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, and bone marrow–have many applications and are saving lives today. Stem cells derived from adult cells–induced pluripotent stem cells–show more promise, as they don’t seem to develop into teratomas and they can be derived from the patient, eliminating a need for immune suppression. It seems that those who are still supporting embryonic stem cell research do so for ideological reasons rather than medical or scientific ones–or they are confused by the media, which loves to confuse the issue. Again, though, no one is pregnant with these embryos and any woman who wished to could carry them to term. No one is harmed by protecting their rights.
“Do you think we could move past the notion of what mother’s must do and instead replace it with a notion of what parents must do?”
Okay. If parents do not take care of children, both parents are considered negligent. If a father had custody, he would be required to do the day to day tasks of caring for his child or ensuring someone else did so. The child’s mother would be required to support her son or daughter financially to help his or her father with the expense of raising a child. I was, however, referring to my own experience–my husband works, and I am the primary caretaker of our children. If the situation were reversed–and I know families with working moms and stay-at-home dads–the father would be more responsible for daily tasks. Either way, both parents would be responsible if the children’s needs weren’t met.
“The law does not require fathers to take their children to school and bathe them; it requires that they send a check to someone who does.”
The law requires the same if the mother is a noncustodial parent. Once upon a time fathers were considered more fit and were almost always awarded custody if they sought it. Would that be your preference? The fact that women are usually the custodial parents now represents an advancement in women’s rights.
“I also will not compare giving someone a bath to having them live inside of you, using your nourishment and altering your body in a way that undermines who you are. ”
Pregnancy absolutely does not undermine who someone is! What a horrid, misogynistic idea. Pregnant or no, I remain myself. I was still the same person when I was pregnant. I did not become someone else by virtue of having someone else inside me. That is one of the more offensive things I have ever heard. If I buy food, it is my nourishment. Children are supposed to be inside their mothers for their first 9 months. It is natural, normal, appropriate, and a biological reality. None of us would be here if we didn’t spend our first months in a womb. And the tasks of caring for a born child dwarf the tasks of caring for an unborn child. So I look different, I have some differences in my physiology, and I need to eat a bit more. To care for my born children, I must do heavy lifting, I must spend time to prepare special meals rather than just letting them use what I eat. I have to change diapers–try doing that without using your body–rather than having their waste processed through my system. They need clothing, beds, entertainment. and supervision. Parents have to rearrange their lives to care for their born children in a way that goes far beyond what most pregnant women must do. Yes, it is true that the father cannot gestate. If you find that unfair, don’t blame me, blame nature. It may not be fair, but there’s no way to change that. Gestation is what the child needs. The parent who can provide it must–just as in many cases, the noncustodial father must provide the lion’s share of the financial resources, because he is the one who is able. For those who want children, often the ability to become pregnant is a blessing–and to these couples, it is a blessing men cannot have. For the first 9(ish) months of my children’s life–more, if you count breastfeeding–I could care for them and bond with them in a way my husband could not. Sometimes it is an unwanted responsibility, and sometimes it is a blessing, but any unfairness is not the fault of one sex or the other, and should not alter the child’s rights. As the laws stand, men have no right to choose whether to become parents and care for or provide financial support for their son or daughter for at least 18 years. But I do not propose that men therefore deserve the right to abandon women they impregnanted.
“How do you reconcile a desire not to be pregnant–itself not bad or wrong–with the deliberate dismemberment of one’s own genetic offspring? Why does the mother have no responsibility until birth?”
“The same way I reconcile my desire to buy starbucks when that $4 could have been sent to Rwanda and buy typhoid vaccines.”
One of my main points has been that the fetus is not a random stranger we met on the street. We aren’t talking about whether you have a responsibility to feed every hungry child in the world. A better analogy is buying your $4-coffee instead of formula for your child, because the fetus is the mother’s own child. If mom buys $4 coffess, or if dad buys a $10 bottle of wine, and then the baby goes hungry, it is abuse and neglect. The parents have a responsibility to their child that they don’t have to a dying man in Rwanda, or even the neighbor kid. If the neighbor kid starves to death, a person doesn’t have anyone to answer to but his own conscience. If his own child starves, he is legally responsible.
You also deliberately ignored part of my question. Your coffee analogy, if one ignores the fact that the fetus is the woman’s child and not a stranger, is a good analogy for not wanting to be pregnant. It doesn’t really cover the part of the equation where the way the women becomes unpregnant is the dismemberment of her child. It is not her inaction that means the child might die. No one else might step in instead and provide the child what he needs. Either she takes responsibility to care for her son, or she pays someone to dismember him, ensuring his death. His death is not by passive inaction but by violent action.
This also brings up the question of whether you think it is legitimate to require that our tax dollars pay for other people’s food, housing, and medical care, as someone else mentioned. Are you pro-choice on taxes?
“Why does the mother have no responsibility until birth?”
“Because a father has no responsibility until birth. to make a set of laws that only apply to women on the grounds that they are women is sexist and unconstitutional.”
What if the law referred to a gestating parent rather than a woman? It is biology that dictates who gestates the child. Why support research on breast cancer or prostate cancer? Are those sexist causes? Why support programs that only help smokers, or drug addicts, or people of color? Why support programs that only help people of a certain income level? Many laws or programs do not apply equally to everyone. Almost everyone charged with rape is a man. Are rape laws unconstitutional? Are child support laws unconstitutional? Also, this is not about “forcing” women to do anything. It’s about protecting fetal human beings from being killed. The law would read that human beings are persons with rights starting at fertilization. It would prohibit killling them. Neither a man nor a woman could procure or perform an abortion. There would be no mention of women being forced to carry to term, just like when women got the right to vote the law never mentioned that a man’s vote was now only half as valuable. This is a civil rights issue about a group of children who are being killed.
lapidarion,
Very clever, but wrong. I was not referring to a child conceived during rape… but you knew that, didn’t you?
On that note, since the subject you raise is pertinent to the topic at hand, I have a question for you.
If the crime of rape is so repugnant and heinous (and I believe it is) that it requires forfeiture of a life, why not execute the rapist? I would think that having the guilty pay with his life would bring more closure to and better aid the healing process of the victim.
Young Christian woman
I typed out a very long very detailed response to your very thorough message to me, but I decided not to post it in depth, not out of rudeness but because after deep reflection I realized that it doesn’t make a difference anyway. At the end of the day I think your side is dramatic at best and crazy as worst. No amount of dialogue between us will sway the other. I have spent a considerable amount of time on these sites trying to understand your point of view on motherhood, womanhood, sex and society, and I truly find it scary. My thoughts are being poisoned and it’s not good. In my defense of abortion I forge that there are infinitely more important things than the pro-life pro-choice issue and I am sorry to have spent so much time arguing about something with such little significance, when the world has such greater problems.
BUT, I wil digress for a moment. I do not want you to feel ignored and will answer the one question you feel I didn’t address. You said, “You also deliberately ignored part of my question… It doesn’t really cover the part of the equation where the way the women becomes unpregnant is the dismemberment of her child. It is not her inaction that means the child might die.
This is a very important issue and I agree with you on this in part, which is why I don’t think all methods of abortion are created equal and why women should avoid needing an abortion in the first place. If a woman didn’t use contraception or had a condom break she should use emergency contraception, which could either keep her from ovulating or in some cases just thin her uterine walls so an embryo could not implant. In this situation a woman isn’t actively killing anything, she is merely refusing to let the embryo use her body. The same goes for a chemical abortion. For these reasons, I do believe early abortions are always preferable—in these situations the intent is to keep the woman from being pregnant, not to kill anything. Surgical abortion is different. I actually believe surgical abortion should be made more humane if possible, if the fetus can be taken out whole it should be. But I imagine there isn’t much of a push for this though, as pro-lifers want it all to be illegal and pro-choicer are focusing their efforts on keeping the procedure legal and the means of abortion aren’t important to many people besides myself.
In response to everything else you said—yes parents do have an obligation to keep their children alive or else it is neglect, but parents don’t have to do whatever it takes to do so. If your 4 year old son needs a blood transfusion and you are the only person in the world who can give him blood, you are not required to do so. Most parents would, but the law would not force you, nor should it. Or do you believe his right to life trumps your bodily autonomy and you are compelled to undergo any and every medical treatment your child may need in order to keep them alive?
Yes you are required to use your body indirectly to support your children but no, you do not have to give your children full access to your body even if they will die without it. The courts recognize a difference between making you put food on the table for your kid and making you donate a kidney to your kid, do you recognize this distinction.
I will be around if you wish to com
Shannon, I am glad that you agree abortions which involve dismemberment are needlessly cruel. I am glad you agree that parents should be required to feed and clothe their children. I think another commenter mentioned–maybe it wasn’t on this thread–that a blood transfusion or kidney donation, however medically necessary and lifesaving, are unnatural procedures; that is, they haven’t been naturally occurring for the entire human race throughout its history. Gestation, however, is a natural process that is needed for each human being; no human being alive today has not been gestated in a woman’s womb. Kidney transplants are not something we expect children to need, and they are not a normal part of the human life cycle. The parent in question probably never needed a kidney transplant. The grandparents would never have had kidney transplants. Throughout human history most people have kept their own two kidneys in their abdomen. Gestation, being a natural process, is far more like feeding a child than like donating a kidney to them. Perhaps breastfeeding is an analogy. Today, women have a choice about whether to breastfeed children because there is a widespread (though somewhat inferior) alternative. Before formula became widespread and safe, women who could not breastfeed their children might hire someone else to do so, or feed them by other means at great risk to the baby. But for a woman to choose not to provide breastmilk without finding someone else who could would not be ethical. She would be condemning her child to at best very inferior nutrition which would affect his or her entire life (at worst to death). I would argue that a woman who did not have access to formula has an obligation to feed her child breastmilk at least until that child can eat food safely. (In rare cases men have been able to lactate, and I suppose this would be an acceptable alternative too if possible.) So that would be another case where a woman is required to support a child directly with his or her body. Even this, though, is not quite analogous because another woman could still breastfeed the baby. Pregnancy is not about giving a baby full access to his mother’s body; just the normal, natural process by which all human beings develop. I don’t allow my children to pull my hair when I pick them up or to bite me while I use my body to dress them. They do, however, use my arms when I hug them and my mouth when I kiss them and my hands when I care for them. And even when a child’s needs are outside the norm, not caring for them is neglect–for example, a parent must change a colostomy bag, bathe an older child who cannot yet handle that task, and cannot give a child with a known peanut allergy a PB&J.
My son happens to have a food allergy. I prepare him special meals even though it takes more time, and I buy him expensive alternatives to the things he can’t have. One interesting thing to note is that I don’t do this because I fear if I feed him a grilled cheese sandwich I might end up facing legal consequences. I do it because I love my son. I would die for him. That’s what love is; that’s what being a mommy is. There aren’t any civil or criminal laws that force me to love my son. But I loved him from the moment I knew he existed, I loved him when I first saw his face, I loved him as I nursed him half through the night for his first year of life. I love that boy no matter how much harder he makes my life, because he is my son. And most mommies love their kids just as much. I would never want it required that a woman love her children so much that she were willing to die for them. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that she love them enough to let them live.
I am also glad that you do not think the pro-life/pro-choice divide is the most important issue… because we do. I assure you that I find the “pro-choice” view of motherhood, womanhood, sex, and society every bit as horrifying as you find mine.
Yes you are required to use your body indirectly to support your children but no, you do not have to give your children full access to your body even if they will die without it.
Good. Then I’m glad we agree, since a gestating human isn’t exactly going around crawling throughout all orifices while one is pregnant with them. All they need is the indirect use of a mother’s body to supply nutrients that they process and discard waste that they create, utilizing the placenta, which is their body, not ours.
Happy that you see it our way.