# "Method of conception" is a no no. What should Ryan have said? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 28, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958 "2012-08-28T19:18:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/41 "2012-08-29T10:55:10Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I totally agree. Whatever your opinion of the personhood of a fetus is, it just makes sense from a health perspective to do the abortion as early as possible. > > I’m not sure you realize how far from this goal the “right to lifers” have taken us in the US. In many places women would have to drive long distances to get to a place to get a safe abortion. There are waiting periods, and all sorts of obstacles. > And it is getting worse. > The indifference we are seeing is in part an indifference in risks to the health of the woman from this kind of delay. > As for Ryan, he was a co-sponsor, with Atkin, of a bill defining life as beginning at conception, and opposes abortion in the case of rape, though he might have temporarily changed his opinion to match that of Romney. > Also, I have not heard any conservative mention the anguish of a woman forced to go through a pregnancy in order to bear the child of her attacker. Maybe you have stumbled across this. But this is indifference in my book. I believe that Ryan is also against the morning after pill, and any contraception, except his religious beliefs! ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/42 "2012-08-29T12:01:08Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > While I disagree with Ryan, this is the only anti-choice position I grudgingly accept because I find it more consistent. The position I find more hypocritical and ugly is the one that allows the rape exception. They say that every life is sacred but when they make an exception for rape, they’re demonstrating that all they actually care about is punishing women who have sex. If every life is sacred, and if life starts at conception, then yes: the method of conception and the circumstances surrounding the conception are irrelevant. His phrasing was cold, but I don’t think he said anything wrong this time. > > If you believe life starts at conception, then why do you make an exception for rape? Surely protecting that life is more important than sparing the mother’s feelings? Do you believe in the death penalty for children of any other kind of criminal? What if a woman discovers she’s carrying the child of a serial killer - is it ok to kill that life because the mother is now distressed about carrying that baby and the father is a criminal? Ditto. Plus, the incest exception. If the incest is rape, as I believe that most cases of incest are, then it’s covered by rape. If the incest is consentual, why do they get a “get out of pregnancy free” card? The “excpet in cases of rape or incest” bit is just a way of saying “Hey, we’re not totally unreasonable. We can compromise. We can meet in the middle.” I actually have more respect for the people who don’t have any exceptions to their no abortion stance. At least they are logically and morally consistant. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/43 "2012-08-29T13:11:57Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > In your opinion only. Well, let’s puts some numbers on it, then. Picture a country (“A”) where there are 15,000 murders per year. Now picture a country (“B”) where there are 1.4 million murders per year. If “A” and “B” have comparable populations, we would certainly expect B to be a far more violent place, full of genocidal warlords and whatnot, no? In fact “A” is the United States and “B” is the United States if elective abortion was viewed as murder. The 15,000 murders currently counted would shrink to a rounding error by such a definition, but how many Americans view elective abortion of even _comparable_ significance to the 15,000 Americans currently killed through domestic violence, from drunk driving, in robberies, in the drug trade, in hate crimes, in mass shootings? The same year 3,000 Americans died through terrorism, about forty _times_ that number of fetuses were electively aborted, and the 3,000 have _continued_ to be considered far more significant in the decade since, even as the number of abortions holds roughly steady each year. If you’re going to shrug off Der Trihs’s comment as mere opinion, look around you - the priorities of your fellow Americans are far closer to his view than yours. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/44 "2012-08-29T14:17:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Those people should be saying “Well, yes, we understand these nine months are going to be horribly, unimaginably distressing for you, but you can adopt the baby out at the end if you don’t want to parent it and we don’t feel this person should be denied the 80 years of life they could on average expect to live in order to spare you distress”. I would like to speak to this thinking. You mention 9 months being ‘horribly, unimaginably distressing’, during the pregnancy. Adopting out your own child is more than ‘unimaginably distressing’ by orders of magnitude. And for a lifetime. Many, especially younger women, are persuaded to do so, and never, ever, recover from the experience. They become drug addicts, strippers, alcoholics and, well, dead. Some just go on to tortured lives of many unsuccessful relationships and dysfunctional families. Adopting out your own flesh and blood is something that no person should ever take lightly. And until and unless, you, yourself feel _ **you** _ possess the personal strength to do so, you should keep your opinion to yourself. The decision to choose adoption or abortion has ramifications for a woman’s life long mental health. How is this not self evident to everyone? Either choice, carries with it, the ability to unhinge that woman. As she spends a lifetime, living with the decision she makes. _Your_ religious beliefs, _your_ political beliefs, _your_ philosophical positions do not trump her mental health needs. I wish people would try and get that through their heads. Lightly suggesting that someone adopt out their child is as offensive as, lightly suggesting they abort it. (Something that would highly offend your own sensibilities, I suspect!) Please Stop Doing This! ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/45 "2012-08-29T14:41:32Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Which is fine if you think that fetus is not a human being. But if you do think that a fetus is a human being, then letting the mother decide is condoning murder. I don’t think so. Do you agree that people should have a choice over who lives in their house? If you allow me to evict people from my home, even if they will starve and die in the streets, is that condoning murder? No, it’s about property rights. Letting the occasional person die in the streets is better than the alternative, where every homeowner and cook is a slave to the needy. And if property rights are that important, the rights over your own body are even more so. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/46 "2012-08-29T15:11:56Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The guy’s simply a right wing policy wonk. Nonsense. That’s the line the GOP has been pushing on him for a couple of years, but he’s not any kind of policy wonk. He’s an ideologue. > [@](#): > > Is he particularly active in social conservatism? Does he give speeches on abortion or write a lot of social policy? I know he co-sponsored some bill with Akin, and that was a bad idea. The bill was the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, and it means the answer to your question is “Are you kidding? Yes.” The U.S. government already bans the funding of abortions with taxpayer money. The bill would have also banned abortions in any health care facility operated by the government or by any physician employed by the government, and in its original form it would have banned abortions even for some patients who had been raped. > [@](#): > > But it doesn’t mean he’s a social warrior like John McCain or Rick Santorum. John McCain has never been considered a “social warrior.” > [@](#): > > Romney repeats over and over again when asked that he wants to focus on the economy, and has no interest in fighting the culture war. No, he wants to focus on the economy because he believes that’s the issue most likely to get him elected, and it may be. He has never said he has no interest in these social issues, and to win the nomination he’s adopted a more conservative attitude on those same issues. In any event we also heard a lot of Tea Party members insist in 2010 that they were only interested in fiscal sanity and not in the culture war. Then they got elected and started moving to defund Planned Parenthood and passing laws like the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. I’m not sympathetic to anyone who fell for this once, but nobody should be fooled by it twice. The Republican Party is as conservative as ever on social issues if not moreso. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/47 "2012-08-29T16:22:32Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Do you agree that people should have a choice over who lives in their house? Does society have an interest in how parents treat their children? Is it likely parents evicting their children as minors will face legal repercussions? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/48 "2012-08-29T17:20:56Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Now picture a country (“B”) where there are 1.4 million murders per year. > > If “A” and “B” have comparable populations, we would certainly expect B to be a far more violent place, full of genocidal warlords and whatnot, no? Hmm, [in 2005 Canada](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Canada) had about 30 abortions to every 100 live births. [In the same year the US](http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/graphusabrate.html) had 29.5 abortions to every 100 live births. Therefore, the US and Canada are equally “violent place(s), full of genocidal warlords and whatnot.” Makes ya think, don’t it? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/49 "2012-08-29T17:27:30Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Hmm, [in 2005 Canada](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Canada) had about 30 abortions to every 100 live births. [In the same year the US](http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/graphusabrate.html) had 29.5 abortions to every 100 live births. Therefore, the US and Canada are equally “violent place(s), full of genocidal warlords and whatnot.” > > Makes ya think, don’t it? 😉 Ah yes, who can forget that other William Robert Johnston hit [Facts disprove warnings about global warming](http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/warmingeditorial.html). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/50 "2012-08-29T17:29:38Z")
Getting back to the OP, I think Ryan took it on the nose kind of unfairly for this one. It was clumsy phrasing, nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/51 "2012-08-29T17:53:03Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Does society have an interest in how parents treat their children? Is it likely parents evicting their children as minors will face legal repercussions? They do it all the time when they give them up for adoption. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/52 "2012-08-29T18:02:05Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > They do it all the time when they give them up for adoption. Which is irrelevant to your comparison. [QUOTE=DrCube] If you allow me to evict people from my home,\*\* even if they will starve and die in the streets\*\*, is that condoning murder? No, it’s about property rights. Letting the occasional person die in the streets is better than the alternative, where every homeowner and cook is a slave to the needy. [/QUOTE] Bolding mine. For your analogy to be relevant concerning a ‘rape fetus’, you can only consider adoption if it is also possible to remove a fetus and transfer it to a willing womb. Which isn’t currently possible as far as I know. So it stands, may a parent evict a child minor out of their house since, as you say, it’s about property rights? ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/53 "2012-08-29T18:11:15Z")
No, what I’m saying is you’re NOT forced to shelter someone in your home, even if they ARE your kids. Which adoption illustrates. Furthermore, even neglectful parents are usually not considered murderers. Finally, I believe if the fetus can survive outside the womb, it should be cared for and adopted. The mother has the right to say “You can’t live in my body”, but she doesn’t necessarily have the right to say “You must die”, even if those amount to the same thing during the early part of the pregnancy. (Finally – for real this time – all of this is intended to show you can consider a fetus a person and STILL come out pro-choice. Most people, including me, don’t consider an amorphous sack of cells or an embryo with gills and a tail to be a person.) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/54 "2012-08-29T18:15:21Z")
Adoption is not analogous to eviction, nevermind abortion. When someone is evicted, it doesn’t matter where they go, but they can’t stay where they have been staying. When a child is put up for adoption, they are taken from the custody of their parents and placed somewhere else specifically so they are not out on the street. They’re either taken into temporary housing or they’re placed with a foster family for the short term or long term. This comparison does not make any sense. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/55 "2012-08-29T18:22:11Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > No, what I’m saying is you’re NOT forced to shelter someone in your home, even if they ARE your kids. Which adoption illustrates. I understand what you are saying. Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. Your comparison is woman/house, abortion/evict. I mentioned a parent’s moral/legal duty to house their child as in comparison to a pro-life persons belief about the duty of a mother (regardless of how the child got there). You say adoption is a reasonable alternative if a parent wants to evict their child from the house, I say you can’t consider that for this argument unless and until there is a way to remove a fetus and keep it alive. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/56 "2012-08-29T18:33:06Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Let’s say you object to abortion on the basis of it being murder of a human - don’t argue about it being murder or not, just stipulate that, ok? > > So - if it is murder, how is it less of a murder if the kid being murdered was conceived during a rape? There is a famous thought experiement that doesn’t really make a good case for abortions that makes a good case for pregnancies that result from rape but not such a good case for pregnancies that result from consensual sex. > [@](#): > > You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you You can draw a line between abortions of pregnancies taht result from rape and abortions of pregnancies that are the result of consensual sex. Thats not where I would draw the line but there is a line there but you can differentiate abortions of pregnancies that are the result of rape. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, by any definition consistent with the rest of our common ethical positions I’m correct. Defining killing a fetus as murder requires that you throw out much of the rest of modern ethics to create an “ethical” system specially designed for the purpose of calling abortion murder and oppressing women. It simply isn’t consistent with normal ethics to call it murder; not even close. Equating a zygote (or even a blastocyst or embryo) to a baby is somtehing that doesn’t really withstand the light of day. There is not a single living soul that would choose to save one baby over two babies but almost every pro-lifer would choose to save one baby over TEN fertilized eggs. They just choose those fertiilized eggs over the rights of the autonomy of the mother. > [@DrCube](#): > > No, what I’m saying is you’re NOT forced to shelter someone in your home, even if they ARE your kids. Which adoption illustrates. adoption doesn’t kill them. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/57 "2012-08-29T18:34:58Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, by any definition consistent with the rest of our common ethical positions I’m correct. In your opinion only. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/58 "2012-08-29T18:38:10Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > I don’t think so. > > Do you agree that people should have a choice over who lives in their house? Yes, but if you have a kid you lose that choice. By law you have to provide for him, you have to treat him well, and you cannot turn him loose in the streets, much less kill him if he’s inconvenient for you. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/59 "2012-08-29T18:51:17Z")
Distasteful as it might be, perhaps the Pubs should start speaking plain about the topic and use the “C” word. “Cabbage-leaf.” :o ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958/60 "2012-08-29T18:51:26Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Yes, but if you have a kid you lose that choice. By law you have to provide for him, you have to treat him well, and you cannot turn him loose in the streets, much less kill him if he’s inconvenient for you. No, you don’t. Yes, I agree, adoption isn’t the same as eviction, and doesn’t kill anyone, but that misses the point of my argument. The point is that you are not forced to feed and shelter your children. There are processes in place to allow parents to give up unwanted children. Yeah, it isn’t the same as kicking them out into the streets, but the point is that you have the choice over whether to keep your kids. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/method-of-conception-is-a-no-no-what-should-ryan-have-said/632958.md?page=4)