A Win for Those Opposing Abortion

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Okay, so if assume that abortion is akin to murder...how is not akin to murder in cases of rape and incest? Does the alleged child bear the guilt of the rapist or incestuous couple, or what?

Captain, I sense...illogic!

 

-applause.

 

I live in Romania, a country that, under comunism, had a "no abortion" policy. Many(tousends) of unwanting mothers lost their life in illegal abortions, even more unwanted children have been forced into living(poverty+destroyed lives). This has been an horrible experience for us and we will never repeat it. I'm sorry that this kind of laws are forced upon you.

(Sorry my english is pretty rough).

 

But how was it before abortion became a universal cure-all for pregnancy? Did Romania have this same problem under pre-communist rule (sorry, not to familiar with your history)? It sounds to me like poverty was the real problem, not anti-abortion laws.

 

Basically in those cases, I shut up and stay out of the decision unless I'm directly involved. I'm not advocating it, but I won't get in their face about it either...

 

If abortion really were murder, then you should be arguing against it in all circumstances. Since the only crime the child commited was to exist, it hardly counts as a "justifiable homicide". I'm against abortion. Unless carrying the child to term poses a risk to the mother, I'm against it. When pro-lifers support the rape/incest exception , what they are actually are doing is weakening their own argument (that abortion is akin to murder) while offering tons of rhetorical fodder to the pro-choice movement. It cripples the pro-life agenda. If abortion is akin to murder, than it should (almost) always be illegal.

 

I agree with Drew and have never understood this "except in the case of rape and incest."

 

I don't think that's quite fair. Reexamine Gnarf's statement:

He does not advocate abortion in those cases, and to say that he should get in people's faces about it (arguing) is pretty hypocritical. Because I'm pretty sure some would want to cut him to ribbons if he did. IMHO Gnarf is being quite the gentleman in this case, not forcing his opinion into a such a sensitive situation. Just because you don't proclaim it loudly doesn't mean you're making an exception.

 

The point is that the reason that pro-lifers state abortion should be illegal have nothing to do with the parent and everything to do with the child. Pro-lifers aren't against a woman's right to choose. They are pro-life because they feel that the right of the child to exist supercedes the right of the parent to abort. In other words, abortion should be illegal because an unborn child deserves the right to exist. That said, the only time a woman would have the right to terminate the unborn child's existence is when the existence of said child threatens her existence. I understand the reason behind the tacit manner in which pro-lifers handle the rape/incest issue. However, the handling of that issue actually weakens the pro-life stance since it pokes a rather large hole in the ethical framework upon which it is based.

 

In these cases, I am assuming that the health of the mother (psychological in this case) may be compromised by carrying the child to term. I believe that this is not universally the case, but turn a blind eye to the decision if they abort. If I am close to the woman (like if it were a relative or a close friend), I may still mourn the unborn child, but I would pray for the strength to overcome this situation.

 

I have to agree with Fel on this one as well. I don't think that Gnarf is being hypocritical in the least, and his second post really clarifies why he feels this way. The woman my have her psychological health compromised by having the baby, and we don't know what the long-term effects of that will be. The problem there is the only way to find out for sure is to carry the baby to term. Then if the mother does have mental health issues there's no way to go back and say, yeah, maybe she should have got an abortion.

Here's another little fact to consider. Being pregnant has some pretty significant health risks related to it. In fact, a woman's life is in greater jeopardy during pregnancy than it otherwise normally would be. The chance of something bad happening during an abortion is very low. So in almost any circumstance you could argue for abortion on the basis of the woman's health; that it is safer for her to get an abortion than carry the baby to term.

 

While I understand Gnarff's position and why he took it, I don't agree. I find myself just as offended at the idea of a child of rape being aborted as I do about an unwanted child being aborted. Unless the child threatens the mother's health, there is no valid reason to kill an unborn human being.

 

And I'm saying it always does.

% Chance of woman dying while pregnant > % chance of woman dying who is not pregnant.

 

Not really, not if you concider the basic precautions that pregnant women and their families usually take. I'd be willing to bet that, by raw data, a woman is actually less likely to be in a life-threatening incident while pregnant than while nt.

Also, I think we can define a relative degree of threat that needs to be met before abortion comes into the picture as a viable option.

 

But That difference is not as great as it once was...

 

Actually the raw data don't support your view. In fact, if you read the concurring opinion in the Roe v. Wade case, one of the justices wrote that the chance of a woman dying during a 1st trimester abortion was significantly less than the chance of her dying due to complications during pregnancy, and more specifically, child birth itself.

I couldn't find raw data from this year, but on an internet search I found data from the year 2000, and at that time, the chance of a woman dying from complications during pregnancy was 6 in 1000. Granted that's a relatively small number - 0.6% - but that's still a lot higher than the chance of dying from getting a first trimester abortion.

 

I wasn't talking about vs an abortion, but rather vs regular, every-day life. What are the odds that a woman will die while pregnant vs any other random 9-month period of her life (assuming similar age, living area, etc.)

 

Well, the only time you can get an abortion is if you're pregnant, so comparing abortion rates to that of being pregnant is a very rational comparison. In fact, I can't see the logic of comparing abortion to normal, everyday life, when you obviously should be comparing it to the period of pregnancy. I'm confused as to why you even made such an assumption. Regardless of your reasoning, moving on to the second point...

I don't know and it really doesn't matter. Preganancy rates are calculated for women between the ages of 15 and 45 - not saying you can't get pregnant before or after that age - but that's just how they calculate the statistics. As to how many women die out of 1000 per year in that age group, I don't know, and it really doesn't matter. What we do know is that 6 in 1000 die due to complications arising from pregnancy. Any other ways you can die aren't included in this figure, so regardless of how you slice it, your chances of dying increase by 0.6% when you're pregnant.

 

I don't think that Gnarff is being hippocritical, either. The thing is, I think that when we cite ethics to pass a law we need to be uniform in their application. If the reasoning behind the pro-life stance is that it is wrong to take an innocent life it logically follows that the circumstances of the existance of that innocent's life are unimportant.
The only time taking the innocent's life is acceptable is when it directly threatens the life of another if we are to uniformly apply this ethical principle.

 

@Aldeth:
Ok, I was talking about odds of dying while pregnant vs odds of dying while not pregnant. I was never talking about abortion. I don't know where you got that from.
As for risks, you're forgetting that women take more precautions while pregnant than while not pregnant, so while you are adding a 6/1000 probability, you are removing or lessening others. What I'm saying is that the risks that aren't as much of a factor while pregnant, say ODing on alcohol or being crushed to death in a mosh pit, outweigh the added risk from the pregnancy itself.

Anyway, the point is that we can say X odds of the mother dying constitutes a significant threat to her life and Y odds doesn't.