Neither is the question of whether Mr. Doe was raped or not. If you must, assume Viagra or what have you was used to induce the erection.
~Max
Whoever said moral analysis had to be complicated or steeped in legalese?
The only thing is, what are you going to tell Mr. Doe? I mean, I see where you’re coming from. To an extent, I can imagine myself with your viewpoint. But I could never bring myself to face the victim and say he has no rights - should have no rights. It just seems wrong to me.
~Max
Maybe it’s just semantics. To me there’s a big distinction between the hypothetical retroactive justification for why someone was deprived of a right, and whether they had the right in the first place. Your use of the word “grant” and Broomstick’s “many states are not in the business of aborting fetuses without a compelling medical reason” seemed to suggest to me that we were talking about the latter. In practical terms in your scenario, of course, they’re the same, so maybe that’s what you meant. But practical and legal are different.
It’s like, say, the difference between asking the jail to build a chapel and asking them if you can pray. They can make some argument about whether it was OK for them to do what they did/didn’t do, which resulted in you not being able to exercise your right (otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to have a prison), but any resulting litigation is about the state justifying their imposition upon your right, not you arguing that you should have been allowed it. The meaningful action the state engaged in, in your scenario, was fail to drive her to the doctor, not fail to abort her baby.
Why do you think I have to tell him anything? The justice system heard his complaint of maiming and attempted murder, and put that person on death row. That’s how it’s intended to work, and it worked as intended.
What right do you think I’ve denied this victim? Where is it written?
Well, as far as semantics go, I assume that all rights exist in the most trivial sense and that only certain rights are “recognized” or “granted” over other, conflicting rights. So, saying someone has no right just means it’s okay for the government to deny that right. We’re talking about justification for deprivation of rights.
Ms. Moe is asking the jail to let her leave for an abortion procedure - or even to allow her to take abortifacient medications while remaining in the jail. The jail denied her request during the pretrial phase (and convinced the judge) and now wants to deny the request post-trial.
~Max
In his civil case for emergency custody of the unborn child. Mr. Doe would already have verified paternity during the criminal case, and so this would be a very unusual paternal action in civil court.
Note that Mr. Doe is a pro-life activist, and so in addition to being against abortion, he is also against the death penalty.
There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance when I think about this case. I don’t expect you or anyone else to clear my mind, but I do appreciate your perspective.
~Max
Again… why does this matter? The court’s role is to deliver justice according to the law. It’s not to accommodate a victim’s religious or political beliefs about what being a crime victim entitles them to.
All of this stuff about Mr. Doe’s religious beliefs is a red herring. What we have is an offender, a crime, and a punishment that are deeply disturbing to his personal beliefs. They are his personal beliefs, nothing more, they do not have the force of law.
Have you switched from the moral question back to the legal question?
~Max
I am attempting to answer the question you posted, “what are you going to tell Mr. Doe?” That seems like neither a legal or moral question, it sounds like an emotional contrivance. So I am trying to clarify it by asking “what do you think I’m supposed to tell him?”
You further state:
And I’ll repeat the question here… after his attacker has been tried and sentenced, what further rights do you think Mr. Doe is afforded here? What right of his do you think has been infringed by not getting custody of that fetus?
I see it this way:
The woman has to stand trial for the muder/rape, and face the same penalties anyone else would. Those penalties do not include serving as a host mother for her victim.
If she decides to have the baby, she should lose it as soon as it’s born, as she has shown herself unfit by the fact that she is a murderer/rapist and likely in jail for decades. But if she wants the baby aborted, she has that right. The death penalty doesn’t really enter into it, as it takes years before someone is executed anyway.
I think about the poor child. No matter what happens, this would be a screwed up situation for the kid. If she lives with the victim family, one day she may have to come to terms with the fact that her birth mother murdered her half sister and raped her father. And there is no guarantee the victim family would treat her right, as she came to them through such a screwed up, traumatic situation. I know your hypothetical is that the family wants her, but I’d guess 99% of the time the victims would want nothing to do with a child that was the product of a rape and murder of their other child.
If the child doesn’t go with the victim family, she’d be institutionalized or sent out for adoption by another family. In that case, I think it would be the best for the kid if she was given to a random family and her background sealed. Once the child is born, its needs become paramount.
But if there was ever a case for allowing an abortion, this is it. And I think that’s probably what would happen, whether the mom got the death penalty or not, if that’s what Momrapist wanted. If she wanted to carry the baby to term, she’d lose it to the state or the victim family as soon as it was born.
An open question for me is whether the baby could be used for a plea bargain, offering to take the baby to term and give it to the victim family as a show of remorse and as partial compensation in return for a reduced sentence.
From Mr. Doe’s moral (not necessarily legal) perspective, the woman should be forced to carry her pregnancy to term and then the Does should receive custody. This is putting aside the proper role of the courts and the state.
Imagine Mr. Doe tells you this. He explains that he believes the fetus is a person, and that Ms. Moe willingly created that person with the intent of murdering it. That the fetus is Mr. Doe’s child, his last child since Ms. Moe castrated him, sterilized his wife, and murdered his other child in cold blood. Killing the fetus is killing his last child - the Doe line will die out, &etc. That letting Ms. Moe murder his last child is essentially letting her finish her evil plan, and is therefore wrong.
He will admit that Ms. Moe has some interests, after all it is her body and she is the mother. But he will say that her actions have indicated that she does not want to be the mother, and is unfit anyways - maternal rights are null and void. If the child is born Mr. Doe should definitely get custody. And while it is her body, Mr. Doe will say she relinquished that right when she violated his body (the rape and castration), Mrs. Doe’s body (nearly killed, also sterilized), and the younger Ms. Doe’s body (murdered). Therefore, Mr. Doe argues, Ms. Moe cannot morally object; carrying the pregnancy to term is the moral consequence of her actions.
Now Mr. Doe asks you for your opinion. You say (post #38) you cannot agree because you think there is no situation where a person should be able to force someone else to give birth. If and only if Ms. Moe agrees to carry the pregnancy to term, should Mr. Doe be permitted to sue for full custody. You say that just because she castrated Mr. Doe does not mean Mr. Doe should be allowed to use her as a “slave reproductive vessel”.
I think you need to go a little bit further. You have presented your own conclusions but you haven’t exactly countered Mr. Doe’s arguments. I can’t tell you exactly how you should respond, because I’m not you.
I was thinking for myself how I could respond. Personally I don’t think the fetus should be afforded personhood before viability, around 26 weeks or so. I’m not willing to go beyond quickening in any case. In my religion the standard for personhood is even later, when the greater part of the child has been actually born. Mr. Doe and I can disagree on the question of personhood, and I’m comfortable doing so.
That being said, I have to admit that Mr. Doe has a strong interest in the fetus even if it isn’t a person. It is precious to him, and I understand why. He is the father, and this fetus is his only means of procreation. The entire situation is 100% Ms. Moe’s fault, which really sets this apart from the reverse scenario where a rapist father claims paternity rights over an unborn child. I think Ms. Moe’s actions weigh against her maternal rights. Aside from the personhood argument, Mr. Doe makes very good points. I’m sympathetic to him (which is no accident). I’m still concerned that the child might be irreparably harmed due to the circumstances of his or her development and birth, especially if Ms. Moe won’t cooperate (see my post #39). So I’m of two minds on the final question. I can’t bring myself to say it’s wrong to force Ms. Moe to have the child, neither can I say it’s right.
~Max
That’s a really good point.
~Max
He hasn’t made any arguments. He expressed some feelings and a wish. The only possible counters required here are:
- (polite) I’m sorry you feel that way, and I hope you can find some peace in the severity of the punishment.
- (direct) I’m glad your attacker is getting punished. But think your morals are bad and they’ve given you an outrageous sense of entitlement. I have nothing more to say to you on this subject.
In the real world, what person or entity is responsible for telling a victim that he is not entitled to more severe restitution than the law affords, simply because he feels like his suffering should make him exceptional among all crime victims? Who is responsible for explaining that to the victim? Nobody has to do that, so you and I don’t have to do it either.
I’ve known a couple instances of a woman keeping a child born of rape. It is a pretty rare situation, and both of those women were very strongly pro-life. One situation seemed OK at least to an outsider. The other was a train-wreck, but the child had some pretty severe mental illness that might well have been organic in nature and not a result of upbringing. I’m not sure there’s really enough data to say one way or the other.
But that’s one reason I said I’d refer the matter of the child (if the child is born) to family court with an independent lawyer for the best interests of the child, separate from any adult involved.
If Mr. Doe were a real person I wouldn’t be so callous as to explain exactly why he’s wrong - if I thought he was wrong.
Mr. Doe is a fictional character, but you are still under no obligation to explain any further than you already have. I wrote “you need to go a little bit further”, and I apologize for that. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.
~Max
No need to apologize, I took no offense, but I remain mystified as to that line of questioning.
Legality? The law seems clear enough that Mr. Doe can’t have what he wants.
Morality? I can explain why I think my morals are superior and better-reasoned, but ultimately that’s my opinion vs. his.
Empathy and comfort? I mean, I feel for the guy, but not enough to justify special pleading on the above two points.
So I was just curious on what basis you found my response lacking. I did not find “what will we tell him” to be persuasive rhetoric, because all I can tell him is what the law says, and what my morality says, and that I genuinely feel bad for his loss.
I will state here that I think the sterilization subplot seems to be using male castration anxiety to nudge someone into special pleading for law and morality. If so, I won’t go along with it. They can adopt. Contra your odd statement in OP about both of them being “sterilized”, Mrs. Doe is not rendered sterile just because her husband is. Wouldn’t she feel better conceiving by artificial insemination rather than raising the child of her daughter’s killer? Does the wife get any say in this, or is this centered all around castration anxiety?
And really, bloodlines aren’t important. Per the Galton-Watson process, most bloodlines with less than one offspring are statistically likely to end anyway. Not that patrilineage ought to carry any legal or moral weight, IMO.
That’s really what I’m looking for in this conversation, your moral opinions. I see the conclusions, not the arguments you use to get there.
You’re probably right, in part. As I said, it’s no accident that I’m sympathetic to Mr. Doe - I wrote him that way.
I wrote in the OP that Mrs. Doe was stabbed multiple times along with her daughter. She made the miraculous recovery but would not be able to have any more children. The daughter did not recover. I wrote into the hypothetical that Mr. & Mrs. Doe both want to raise Ms. Moe’s child.
~Max
My mistake on that then, I did not see that in the OP. It was a lot to process.
This, exactly, every word. No compulsory pregnancy. No death penalty while we’re at it. My deepest hypothetical sympathies for the victims. And in the event the perpetrator doesn’t terminate her pregnancy, sure I’d give the victims custody, while the perp serves a life sentence. But FYI, OP, there’s no such thing as a custody proceeding for an unborn child.
I used to belong to a vegetarian/vegan message board that officially prohibited meat-eaters from participating, but made all kinds of exceptions. Basically, they were fine with helping parents of newly-turned-vegetarian kids, or folks inviting vegetarians to dinner, or any number of other people who weren’t there to troll. They just had to do something about the hordes of people constructing elaborate “gotcha” scenarios to try to force the board members to admit they might, under the right circumstances, eat meat. (Like what if you were starving in the woods and a bear ate your mom and also the bear was dying of cancer and in constant pain and really wanted you to put it out of its misery and you’ll starve if you don’t eat him and also you’re on a mission to deliver a message across international borders that will prevent nuclear war and if you don’t eat this bear it’ll mean the end of all life on earth are you still going to be a vegetarian then HUH?!?)
I’m not accusing the OP of trolling. I believe he’s engaging in this discussion in good faith. But the absurd premise–she rapes him with the specific intention of getting pregnant so that she can have an abortion?!–strikes me as something of a desperate contrivance to justify forcing a woman to carry to term against her will. And I’m not biting.
You’re right, it is a rediculous scenario. It’s that way on purpose. I spent a few nights refining it, asking myself, repeatedly, “what if…” until it was such a horrible edge case that I was morally and legally uncomfortable with any resolution.
There is a very thin line between what I’m doing here and trolling, and I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt. I’ve taken great pains not to rewrite the hypothetical after it was committed to words, because I’m really looking for the “here’s why” answers - I’m not particularly interested in gotchas.
The best debates are the absurd edge cases that, honestly, nobody wants to deal with. The trolley problem comes to mind, and if I remember correctly it did eventually happen sometime in 2003. I never expect to read something like this case in the news, but my faith in humanity has been tested before.
~Max