If you allow that it is at any time permissible, then you’re in the pro-choice camp, yes. The only discussion then remaining is how your choice of when it is permissible is morally better-supported than the mother’s own.
We have other words for when a killing is just or lacking the moral culpability of murder in some sense…execution, euthanasia, manslaughter, self-defense etc.
Murder per se is never just by definition.
Enough to make a difference.
At any rate, it’s very simple: to pro lifers, abortion is murder. Period. You don’t murder to make a woman feel better.
I’d ban non-life saving/“reasonable exceptions” abortions after 1st trimester. In regard to adult incest: at that age it seems to me it’s consensual.
That is not what I am arguing.
What I am saying is if you are a person who believes in a rape/incest exception to allow abortion then those people have, by definition, agreed that a zygote is not a fully fledged human life. They have, by definition, admitted it is lesser and not worthy of the same protections that you and I have. If they say life begins at conception (and mean it) and think it is ok to abort in the case of rape or incest then they are essentially saying they have found a case, in their logic, where murdering someone wholly innocent of wrongdoing is ok.
No, they are not pro-lifers.
A pro-choice person is someone who believes it is a woman’s choice to decide whether to carry a pregnancy to term. Saying that past a certain point it is not ok to abort does not undo that it was her choice to go past that point (a point sufficiently far from getting impregnated that she actually has time to make the choice). There are many times in life where once a course is committed to it is not ok to reverse course on a whim.
A pro-life person wants to deny any choice for the woman regarding the pregnancy with the possible, exceedingly narrow, exception of having been impregnated via rape or incest.
Pro-lifers, even the most extreme of them, all agree that it’s a woman’s choice whether to carry a pregnancy to term. She makes the choice to do so when she has sex. If it’s “pro-choice” just to say that the choice exists at any point in time, then that makes everyone who’s opposed to rape “pro-choice”.
She does?
Since when?
Since it has ben known that sex can result in pregnancy, I guess.
I’m very pro-choice, but I find your reasoning completely abhorent. The only person who has a right to abort or not is the pregnant woman (unless she’s legally incompetent) even if she is a convicted rapist (& let’s face it there’s no she could possibly be tried & convicted before she gives birth). I do think when pregnancy is the result of female-on-male rape (statutory or not) and the rapist insists on carrying it to term her victim should not, under any circumstances be compelled to pay a single penny, be listed on the birth certificate, have the child given his name, or have any legal or social relationship with said child against his will. Also since a rapist (particulary one that rapes children) is clearly unfit to parent the child should be put up for adoption if the birth father doesn’t want it.
And if live “begins at conception” (which I assume means the fusion of sperm & egg) what about unimplanted embryos? Are all the leftover IVF embryos sitting in freezers human beings? Because if they are then fertility clinics are commiting murder (or negligant manslaughter at best) by not implanting all of them in a human uterus before they lose their viability (just how long do frozen embryos last anyway 
).
And let’s not forget that not every in vivo conception results in a succesful implantation either. I’ll try to find a cite, but I read somewhere that less that half do (or they disintergrate upon implantion) and the women would never even now she was pregnant (indeed technically she was never pregnant). And what about forms of contreception that can prevent the impantation of a fertilized embryos (including, but not limited to emergency contraception, IUDs, and ordinary birth control pills)? If abortion becomes illegal except in cases of rape or maternal health/safety then logically those should be prohibited as well.
Chessic Sence; are you male or female? If you are female have you ever actually been pregnant yourself? The only people one the planet even remotely entitled to say that must meet both criteria (& they’re wrong anyway). Pregnancy & all that goes with it (up to & including childbirth) is way more intrusive to an unwilling woman than any rape. Even gang rapes don’t last more than a few hours.
I don’t support the exceptions. We don’t execute rapists or incestees (correct term?), so why should the children of those criminals die for the crimes of their fathers?
You can’t kill something that was never alive in the first place.
Hence the exceptions for when the sex was coercive.
Uhm…no. Not as long as abortion is legal. The woman is not consenting to carrying a pregnancy to term if she has sex. She is consenting to the possibility that a pregnancy may result. She currently enjoys the right to terminate that pregnancy if she so chooses.
And of course is she is raped she is not consenting to anything.
ETA: Maybe I am mis-reading Chronos’ post. Pro-lifers think it is a woman’s choice to carry a pregnancy to term? Well, inasmuch as they have to admit that is how the law currently stands then yes. It is a choice they want to remove and force a woman to carry to term if she gets pregnant regardless of her wishes.
We all understand the reasoning.
The thing is, in the pro-life view, the unborn is a human deserving of the same right to life you and I have.
If a woman is raped is it ok if she kills you? Obviously not. You have nothing to do with the crime. The wrong is not fixed by killing someone who is innocent and has nothing whatsoever to do with the crime. The unborn is in this class.
In a few countries, the armies are using rape as a weapon of submission. If a woman raped by some unknown soldier gets pregnant, is that an example of gods will? Should she be forced to raise a kid conceived in hate?
Should an American woman, raped be forced to raise a child she did not want?
Rape is a few minutes of torture, but the kid does not disappear. Someone has to pay for it and take care of it. How many women could be expected to rise above their tortured feelings and treat the child with love and respect. It would be an everyday reminder of what happened. You would not know who the father was and what potential physical and mental problems would come.
Pro life types should be forced to pay for hospitals ,schools and all the help these children would need. Making a decision from afar is easy. Force the pro lifers to support of these children. Force them to educate and supply mental heath care.
Sure, institute government programs for that then.
Either a fetus has rights or it doesn’t. If it has any rights, then it has them regardless of the circumstances of its conception, since we all have equal protection under the law. If it has no rights, then the mother’s rights outweigh any interest you might have in her choices. If you make an exception for rape, then you’re not pro-life; you’re anti-orgasm.
ETA: And Chessic Sense is neither pro-life nor pro choice.
Abortion is a gray area with no easy answers. Is abortion murder? Yes, sort of. Is it an inalienable woman’s right? Yes, sort of. Am I contradicting myself? Only if you have a simplistic black-and-white view that ignores that the grays in the real world deny easy answers. All we can hope for is consistency and compassion.
Let’s see: A man gets his girlfriend drunk, lies about wearing a condom, and abortion is forbidden (regardless of boyfriend’s view). In another scenario, where she wants the baby, abortion can be mandatory.
We’d have to be in BBQ Pit before I could give my views on this “thinking.”
And how would most of the kids turnout? You want to pay for them in jail and welfare?
It is difficult enough to raise a kid well when they have 2 loving, caring parents. Raising a kid conceived in rape is not a prescription for a healthy relationship or a healthy well adjusted citizen.
There is a cost to pay. It can not be religioned away.