"Except for cases of rape or incest". Why?

KingMerv00

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I've heard some pro-life advocates say that they are against abortion except in cases of rape or incest. Why? Is that baby any less human? Wouldn't it still qualify as killing the unborn?

Just for the record, I'm pro-choice.
 
Well I can give you my perspective from a former Catholic who herself had this opinion, as did many others I know.

These aren't my views on abortion now, to be honest, now, I don't much have much of an opinion about abortion one way or another. I wouldn't consider myself pro life or pro choice. I'm not saying it's not an important issue in a general sense, it's just not one to me, and it's just not one that I think about at all unless it is brought up by someone else.

However, back when I was pro life...


While there are pro life people who think that the fetus' health/life supercedes the mothers, and that it is wrong to abort even a fetus with severe problems/deformities, etc...that's not all of them. I was in the latter group. I always considered the life of the mother to supercede that of the fetus. If the fetus severely endangered her health or life, then I thought her health came first. Same thing if there were serious developmental/genetic issues with the fetus; in such a case, I had no problem with abortion. I also didn't have a problem with the morning after pill or birth control pills. Although I did believe a fetus was a human...I still did view the fetus as a distinct category of human which should not be offered the full scope of rights an actually fully formed human would be, especially not if it would endanger a human who was already here (i.e. the mother). And while I didn't think abortion should be legal as it is, I did not view abortion as the same thing as the murder of a fully formed human.

In the case of rape, I felt that forcing a rape victim to carry her rapists' child against her will would be so potentially damaging to the woman that it would justify an abortion because not doing so would be potentially catastrophic to her mental health. With incest, I kind of applied the same logic as incest is typically from an abusive relationship, with the added issue of risk of genetic defects.

I know you could then say that someone could get pregnant without being raped and, for whatever reason, being forced to carry that child could cause serious mental issues for her as well. But I didn't really think about that much when I held these beliefs, and at that time, I probably would have justified the distinction by saying that well, that woman put herself in her situation so now she has to deal with the consequences, while a rape victim did not.

I'm not trying to defend the reasoning behind my opinions, only explain why I held them in the past.
 
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For some religious people it comes down to punishment. To alot of fundamentalists, women who chose to have sex and get pregnant, deserve to suffer the consequences of doing something that they deem immoral while a rape or incest victim doesn't.

I don't want to say that that's how most pro-lifers think but I grew up in a religious-right atmosphere and I heard that line of thinking from many a person whenever the subject came up. They believed that abortion being available made it too easy for women to be promiscuous, which for some was a greater sin than an abortion itself.
 
Pretty much the same as Schrodinger's Cat back when I believed that stuff. In fact it was following through on that reasoning (about the relative amount of harm done to mother and foetus) that brought be to the more liberal opinion I have now.
 
This whole abortion thing is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

Other people's personal lives are none of my friggin' business. I don't walk in their shoes, therefore I have no right to form an opinion about it, nor do I have the right to tell them what they can and can't do in their personal life.
 
It seems obvious to me that anyone who is willing to make an exception for "rape and incest," is already conceeding that abortion has a pragmatic aspect, and is not merely a moral decision. Thus, there should be room to argue that forcing a poor, single teenager to raise a child might be as harmful to those involved as forcing a woman to raise the child of her rapist.

However, it doesn't seem like pro-lifers of any stripe are amenable to that kind of reasoning. Perhaps, their concession regarding "rape and incest" is a political one, calculated to try to win support from people on the fence. Perhaps some believe that advancing the ball anywhere down the pro-life field is enough of a victory, or that they'll worry about "rape and incest" later.

I have met pro-lifers who don't want any exceptions at all.
 
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I do not have an answer for the OP, but as far as I know, the RCC position is that there are no exceptions.

The "exceptions" thing is a political position.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
Well I can give you my perspective from a former Catholic who herself had this opinion, as did many others I know.

These aren't my views on abortion now, to be honest, now, I don't much have much of an opinion about abortion one way or another. I wouldn't consider myself pro life or pro choice. I'm not saying it's not an important issue in a general sense, it's just not one to me, and it's just not one that I think about at all unless it is brought up by someone else.

However, back when I was pro life...


While there are pro life people who think that the fetus' health/life supercedes the mothers, and that it is wrong to abort even a fetus with severe problems/deformities, etc...that's not all of them. I was in the latter group. I always considered the life of the mother to supercede that of the fetus. If the fetus severely endangered her health or life, then I thought her health came first. Same thing if there were serious developmental/genetic issues with the fetus; in such a case, I had no problem with abortion. I also didn't have a problem with the morning after pill or birth control pills. Although I did believe a fetus was a human...I still did view the fetus as a distinct category of human which should not be offered the full scope of rights an actually fully formed human would be, especially not if it would endanger a human who was already here (i.e. the mother). And while I didn't think abortion should be legal as it is, I did not view abortion as the same thing as the murder of a fully formed human.

In the case of rape, I felt that forcing a rape victim to carry her rapists' child against her will would be so potentially damaging to the woman that it would justify an abortion because not doing so would be potentially catastrophic to her mental health. With incest, I kind of applied the same logic as incest is typically from an abusive relationship, with the added issue of risk of genetic defects.

I know you could then say that someone could get pregnant without being raped and, for whatever reason, being forced to carry that child could cause serious mental issues for her as well. But I didn't really think about that much when I held these beliefs, and at that time, I probably would have justified the distinction by saying that well, that woman put herself in her situation so now she has to deal with the consequences, while a rape victim did not.

I'm not trying to defend the reasoning behind my opinions, only explain why I held them in the past.
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That is my reasoning too.

Rape and/or incest.

I do not think one should use abortion as a way to fix a mistake. That mistake being having sex without protection! (I do not want to get involved with that 1% or so of 'beating the pill'.)

The baby isn't the mistake, ereasing it from existence doesn't fix the root cause, having sex without protection. (Again..not gonna get into beating the pill.)
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
Well I can give you my perspective from a former Catholic who herself had this opinion, as did many others I know.
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I'm not Catholic and never have been. Apart from that, you can tack my name onto that post and have it pretty much dead-on.

That being said, I got into this conversation once without having thought it through enough to get to the issue of severe psychological harm and I did have a problem with it because the people saying it was okay in those situations couldn't explain why in a way that made sense to me. To them it was obvious, and to me it wasn't. Maybe it should have been, I don't know. It seemed like a major disconnect to me and either they hadn't examined it either or they were just unclear. Strange conversation.

Another time someone was more eager than I would have expected when it came to allowing abortion (in a hypothetical discussion) for a child that would be in special ed... I wasn't disputing medical scenarios where the child (or mother) would certainly die or be in constant misery or whatever, but this was about some fairly minor MR. That caught me off-guard since the person's position was still that it was murder in most cases.

The flipside happened as well, when I suggested the whole issue could be boiled down (in a general sense) to when it counts as a person, and if we could somehow determine that in a way people could agree with we could say it is fine before and murder after and be done with it. Someone in the conversation replied that no matter what it would be the mother's right to choose, even if everyone involved agreed that this was a human child rather than a lump of tissue, no matter how far along the pregnancy - until the cord is cut, essentially. Again, I was caught off-guard because I had assumed nobody held that opinion.

But the point is that you can't say "pro-life" and "pro-choice" and include everyone. Everyone has these lines they draw depending on the situation.
 
I'm not for making abortion illegal under any circumstances although I wish a woman would go ahead and have the baby if the pregnancy is the result of consensual sex. Thats just me.

Besides rape and rape incest I can think of other reasons. A baby with Tay sacs disease would be a good reason to terminate a pregnancy. The child has no chance for life and would be better off being aborted. I'm sure there are other situations similar to this.
 
C_Felix said:
I do not think one should use abortion as a way to fix a mistake. That mistake being having sex without protection! (I do not want to get involved with that 1% or so of 'beating the pill'.)

The baby isn't the mistake, ereasing it from existence doesn't fix the root cause, having sex without protection. (Again..not gonna get into beating the pill.)
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That's a convenient dodge, though.

If abortion can't be used to fix a "mistake," and rape does not constitute a "mistake" (why should incest be considered a mistake? If it was rape, then that covers it. If it was consensual, then why?), then failed contraception deserves to be excluded, too, right?

And no, it isn't a huge number, but undoubtedly far larger than the number who get pregnant by rape.
 
Our first response ( a previous Sweet Thang and me) when she missed a period was to abort, but on thinking about it, I said, no, let's go ahead.
She lost it not long after.
Another friend on medication for bi-polar behavior got pregnant, and the doctor said the child would be damaged, both physically and mentally due to the medications.
She got the abortion.
I see children in seriously degraded conditions with loving parents taking care of them frequently at the Mall, and can't justify the idea that there is some big sky daddy punishing someone for a sin. The child didn't/couldn't commit a sin in the womb, so it must the parents that are being punished, but the child is also, with its extreme deformations and mental incapacities.
Which big sky daddy does that?
 
Xephyr said:
This whole abortion thing is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

Other people's personal lives are none of my friggin' business. I don't walk in their shoes, therefore I have no right to form an opinion about it, nor do I have the right to tell them what they can and can't do in their personal life.
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Well from the POV of the traditional pro life mob you've just written the equivelent of:

"This whole murder thing is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

Other people's personal lives are none of my friggin' business. I don't walk in their shoes, therefore I have no right to form an opinion about it, nor do I have the right to tell them what they can and can't do in their personal life."

So the reason you view it is as a non issue is that prior to birth you feel that babies don't count as people.
 
KingMerv00 said:
I've heard some pro-life advocates say that they are against abortion except in cases of rape or incest. Why? Is that baby any less human? Wouldn't it still qualify as killing the unborn?

Just for the record, I'm pro-choice.
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Well to start with such cases make up such a small percentage that they may simply consider it a battle not worth fighting.

Alturnatively it could be argued that the statement falls in much the same category as:

"I'm opposed to killing people except where allowed by the Castle doctrine."
 
Loss Leader said:
It seems obvious to me that anyone who is willing to make an exception for "rape and incest," is already conceeding that abortion has a pragmatic aspect, and is not merely a moral decision. Thus, there should be room to argue that forcing a poor, single teenager to raise a child might be as harmful to those involved as forcing a woman to raise the child of her rapist.

However, it doesn't seem like pro-lifers of any stripe are amenable to that kind of reasoning. Perhaps, their concession regarding "rape and incest" is a political one, calculated to try to win support from people on the fence. Perhaps some believe that advancing the ball anywhere down the pro-life field is enough of a victory, or that they'll worry about "rape and incest" later.

I have met pro-lifers who don't want any exceptions at all.
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The thoughtful ones are usually not the most vocal, so you don't hear about us so often. As I alluded to in my earlier post, I was brought up catholic and my family were quite strongly into the pro-life movement (some of them still are) and I bought into it hook line and sinker when I was younger. But it was exactly that kind of reasoning I was amenable to once I was old enough to give the different scenarios the weighting they deserve and think about the issue in more depth.
 
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I am not now and I never have been a catholic. To me this stance is the proof that they do not mean what they say, I am afraid. If the argument is that one is fully human from the moment of conception there can be no such concession: if it isn't then it is none of their business at all.
 
Fiona said:
I am not now and I never have been a catholic. To me this stance is the proof that they do not mean what they say, I am afraid.
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What stance?

As I mentioned above, the RCC position is that there are no exceptions.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Yes, that would be the official position, however when talking to many pro-lifers, though they wouldn't concede on any other point, many of them would concede on this one.
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Oh, I agree. But why bring catholic into it? This is not a catholic position, it is a subset of pro-lifers position.
 
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