You’d have my vote, if I was allowed to vote.
Oh but it is…or about as close as can be. You’re just not thinking it through.
Consider the implications of forcing a woman to carry her rapist’s baby. What that world would look like?
First there is no consensus on when life starts. Is a zygote a life? It is a potential life but hardly anything we would recognize as a human life. Women frequently (very frequently…from 13-82% depending on various factors) miscarry shortly after fertilization has occurred. Do you know of any women who have burials for their dead baby in such a case? Can you think of burials in such a case at anytime in history in any culture?
So, someone claiming it is a human life at the moment of fertilization is simply foisting their belief on others. They are welcome to their belief and if such a woman got raped she is free to make the choice whether to carry or not for herself. Is she free to make that choice for another? Seems to me in the US we tend to reject the notion that others get to make such decisions for you.
It gets worse though.
Imagine a world where abortion is illegal in all circumstances. Your 14 year old daughter is violently raped. A crime we consider among the most offensive that can be committed. Now the state tells her she must bear the child (also note in O’Donnell-Land there is no state supported medical care…you get to pay for the whole thing yourself). If your daughter, beside herself with anguish, self-aborts she will be arrested for murder. That or the doctors determine she is unstable as a result of the rape and commit her to an institution where they can make sure she bears the child (which you will undoubtedly be billed for as well).
There’s more. Imagine you and your wife are trying for a baby. You both really want one and are excited when she gets pregnant. At 5 months your wife miscarries while at home. She is devastated. To add insult to injury though the police will be around to investigate the death of the baby and try to determine if it was murdered or just an accident. Afterall, we do no less when any other human dies…the state looks at it to make sure there was no funny business.
Oh but there is more! Maybe they determine she miscarried because she forgot to take her vitamins or she ate poorly or she had a glass of wine. That is child abuse that led to the death of the child. If the woman does not do everything possible to be healthy and see that she bears the child a case can be made that it was neglect that led to its death and the woman could be prosecuted for murder.
All that is not morally bankrupt to you? Want to poo-poo the above and say it wouldn’t happen that way then tell me how it does work if you criminalize abortions because you define life as starting at the moment of conception?
As it stands now a rape victim is offered the Day After pill which sorts the problem. If fertilization even occurs she will be expelling a blastocyte. It’s that or the above. Which is worse to you?
True evil does not present as horns and a demonic visage with fire and brimstone. True evil cloaks itself in nobility as is being done here. “We are protecting the life of the unborn! What could be more noble and righteous?”
Uh huh…and you get what looks to me as Gestapo-like a state where women are forced to bear babies as anything the Nazis dreamed up.
So yeah…morally bankrupt.
After all, that did NOT occur as a matter of course (at all, as far as I know) in jurisdictions where abortion was illegal, prior to Roe v Wade. But this bogeyman gets trotted out with predictable regularity in these threads, despite been regularly debunked.
And whether or not you agree with this position, if it is completely beyond your ability to fathom a moral position where someone believes the unborn are human lives deserving of protection, and that whether or not they are the product of rape (as tragic and devastating as that is) does not change that status–well, that says more about your “objectivity” than anything else.
“Anyone that would force someone to carry a pregnancy to term is morally bankrupt” is objectively provable in a way that “the human right to live is the most fundamental human right,” how exactly? It is not. Your conclusion will not, in the end, be an objective one (or as close to one as possible, whatever that means). It will proceed from the axioms that YOU hold dear, just as it does for pro-lifers.
Then they are not defining the life as a human life.
If I kill you it is murder. If a woman has an abortion it is not murder (in O’Donnell-land)?
Fine, then they have already conceded that the unborn baby is something less and worthy of less protection.
And if abortion is illegal and a woman self-aborts tell me what happens to her. What is the punishment society will lay on her?
As to the objectivity part it comes in it being objectively wrong for you to impose your beliefs on me. Lacking objective analysis that a baby is “alive” at X-point then it is objectively bad for you to tell me what you believe that point to be and force me to abide by it.
No, they have conceded (and did) that there is no need to investigate miscarriages, except in Internet threads where people like to offer scary scenarios as givens to bolster their “objective” arguments, actual historical facts be damned.
What punishment was previously applied? This was more than a hypothetical, you realize.
Nonsense. Virtually every law on the books has a moral underpinning, one that imposes a particular belief. There are those who believe that a newborn lacks the faculties to be deserving of “personhood.” Peter Singer, a professor at Princeton, for one. Who are we to impose our beliefs on them, if they choose to dispose of their newborns? The short, practical answer: We’re society, and we legislate the moral code we collectively agree on. And whatever code we legislate, it will, by definition, be an imposition in opposition to someone’s will, somewhere. Such is the nature of all laws, not just the ones you find distasteful.
We have laws against taking certain drugs. We have laws against driving without a seatbelt on. We have laws against committing suicide and against assisting someone to do so, even if that person is in agonizing pain. Our current president doesn’t think gay people should be allowed to be married-- he thinks he should be able to make that choice for them.
So, no, “we” don’t tend to reject that notion at all. We do it all the time.
As for your nightmare scenarios… as **Stratocaster **already noted, none of that happened in the days when abortion was illegal, so you’re just making it up to scare people.
See, here’s at least one objective person!* 
*“if I was allowed to vote”…hmm…how much longer till you get out of the state pen? 
Wearing a seatbelt to you is equivalent to being forced to carry a pregnancy, one “given” to you via an assault?
Wow! We’ve got nothing to talk about then if you think your examples are remotely equivalent.
Fine…what happens to women who abort then? Surely if it is illegal there is a punishment associated with it. So, if your wife who was brutally raped finds a way to self abort what happens to her? How does the state even know unless they make a note that she was pregnant and then check later to make sure a baby resulted. If they do not bother then the whole law is a farce so why pass such a thing?
ETA: 2 seconds with Google will find you all sorts of info on abortifacient herbs so not like it’d be hard for women to find alternatives.
FWIW I find the prohibition against assisted suicide obnoxious as well. That said I can see practical problems with its implementation (were it legal such as convincing gandpa who is semi-senile that he is a burden to the family and should knock himself off). Still even that is a far cry from forcing a woman to carry her rapist’s baby.
Also, IIRC, suicide is not a crime in the US but to be fair I have not checked all states on their laws on this.
If you don’t like that example, why do you reject the other examples? Your wife is diagnosed with a type of cancer that assures her an agonizing death. “We” have decided that she can’t kill herself and especially that you are not allowed to assist her in avoiding that agonizingly painful death. Now, the state pretty much turns a blind eye to suicide, but that leaves committing the act up to an amateur who could easily botch things and make them worse.
Further, “we” have decided that certain drugs that might help her are unavailable for her to use since “we” haven’t approved them yet.
How does the state know you don’t have drugs in your house unless it breaks in and searches your house? It doesn’t. Anti-abortion laws can be aimed primarily at doctors. That’s the way it was in the past. Just like selling drugs is a more punishable offense than taking drugs.
We wrote simultaneously so the answer to your first part I already answered above.
As to the state knowing about drugs in my cabinet they don’t. You might have a gun in your house which is legal (as are the drugs you mention). The state only cares about the crime you commit, not one you are theoretically capable of.
And yeah they would stop doctors but as I showed finding alternatives in this day of the internet is far easier than it was in the 50’s. Not to mention access to various odd herbs and such are much more easily come by today than they used to be.
So, if the woman self aborts then what? Please answer the question.
What happens if a woman who was raped is beside herself and begging the doctors to get rid of the rapist’s baby. Are the doctors now beholden to report that and have her committed because she represents a danger to her unborn child?
That was an answer, but it wasn’t a rebuttal. Just because you find it a “far cry” doesn’t make it so. They are both issues of great physical/emotional pain, and one is a life/death decision.
Exactly. But your argument was that the state wouldn’t even know of the woman was pregnant. It’s exactly the same with every crime.
So what? That’s true of finding sources of illegal drugs, too.
Then nothing. If you snort cocaine in your house every night, then what? Answer the question.
No. If a person is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and is beside herself begging the doctors to help her kill herself, are doctors beholden to report that and have her committed because represents a danger to herself?
But it is THEIR decision. Not someone else forcing their notion on you. If the Tea Party feared Death Panels came up to you and said, “You are just too sick, we’re going to kill you” then you are on the same page as the state forcing a woman to bear a child. If the woman chooses for herself to bear the rapist’s baby then fine, I have no problem with that.
But the state would know if the woman reported the rape to the authorities and as part of the rape investigation they determined she was pregnant.
There is nothing illegal about the herbs listed.
The laws for committing that crime are on the books. Check your local laws. They are not a secret. We are talking here about laws that might come about so what punishments are in order in O’Donnell-land for aborting your rapist’s baby?
I suspect they might. If they feel a person is suicidal I believe there are mechanisms they can use to have the person committed.
I know they put people who are in jail on suicide watches if they feel the person might try to kill themself.
You need to extricate yourself from the hypothetical world. Here, let me assist.
South Dakota recently tried to ban abortions. This is from the text of the law:
So, that’s your answer. That’s what the punishment is-- nothing.
Actually, there IS a place where misscarriage is investigated. It’s that bastion of tolerance and social equality…UTAH. (where I lived for 16 years)
One of the many things I got attacked and ridiculed for on the “other message board” I used to frequent, was my observation that if we make abortion “murder” misscarriage would be come “imvoulantary manslaughter”.
Of course, those who support the idea of “abortion as murder” had many excuses why tis woiuld and could not be the case, even though siimple logic disagrees.
After a couple years of being told how stupid, Liberal, communist, crazy, etc. I was, THIS little item popped up proving that I was right.
Utah Bill Criminalizes Miscarriage
After asking for apologies and admisssions that I was right, they promptly kicked me off the board. There is danger in asking conservatives to admit that they were wrong, especially if they have the power to silence you.
So, a ban on abortions is meaningless as long as the mother does it to herself. Anyone who helps her will go to jail. Gotcha…makes abundant sense. Like saying if I kill you no problem but anyone who helps me kill you gets tossed into jail. Brilliant! :rolleyes:
Additionally we are talking about what O’Donnell would like to see which is an amendment banning abortions. Presumably South Dakota still needs to work within the law which currently allows abortions to some extent.
Hey, if you don’t like the answer, then don’t ask the question. Or, if you have another cite that proves your point, let’s see it. But quit throwing out hypotheticals. Give us cites to back up your assertions.
Well, then cite the text of the amendment she is putting out there and lets debate it. Or, cite laws on the books from states where abortion was illegal in the past. There is abundant, real world situations to cite if you care to back up your statements with facts. I don’t see why you are so reluctant to do so, unless you don’t think the facts support your assertions.
Hey man…just responding to what you cited which amounts to allowing women to do what they want and prosecuting anyone else who helps her.
That is the real world example you cited. Gotcha. The law is a farce.
Of course O’Donnell has not proposed anything of substance on just about any topic much less drawing up a proposed amendment to ban abortions but guessing you knew that. Given what we know of her so far though would you be content letting her get her way? I suspect my scare tactics above would be frighteningly less hypothetical then.
And quit busting me for hypotheticals since that is of course all we have at this point. If Lucifer was running for office it’d only be hypothetical as to what he’d do but I am guessing none of it would be good and I feel safe in suggesting his tracj record and what he is on about are sufficient to guess at what might happen. That is what we are getting at here…is O’Donnell scary enough, morally bankrupt enough, to oppose her for office. I say unequivocally yes.
So here’s the question that got me in so much trouble before (I never learn do I?)
If abortion is considered “murder” can misscarriage be considered "invoulantary manslaughter?
If not…WHY? Here’s my logic, boiled down to the simplest form possible.
Murder = The intentional killing of a human being (abortion)
Invoulantary manslaughter = the accidental killing of a human being. (misscarriage)
Let the dancing begin.
I’m pro-choice, so no, I wouldn’t support her getting “her way”, but not because I think any of your scary hypotheticals would ensue. Frankly, I think Roe was poorly decided, and that it should be left up to the states. The constitution is silent on the matter of abortion, and I think it should stay that way.
No, I don’t think someone who is pro-life, and who sees abortion as murder is automatically morally bankrupt. I think they are confused or uneducated as to the science of biology, or that they are guided by their religious beliefs.
Obama, in opposing SSM, is guided by his religious beliefs. Do you think he is morally bankrupt?