This goes into another sub-debate. If a fetus is fully human, Does a fetus have a right to use that womb as long as s/he does not cause excessive damage in the process?
I’ve been struggling with this a lot recently as well. It always seems to be an afterthought, especially for politicians (but should I be expecting any different?). The Republicans are usually “pro-life, except in cases of rape and incest”. I just don’t get why it’s morally okay to kill a baby if the mother was raped or got pregnant from her brother/father/uncle.
The “biological burden” argument is right on, dude! After all, the burden of childbirth is why women live such shorter lives than men…
(Not saying men should necessarily not have fiscal responsibility for a baby, just that in the balance of things, women having the upper hand in deciding if there will be a fiscal burden rings hollow when faced with overall lifespan rates.)
Oh, and I have a hormonal bonding issue with a girl I knew in high school. If I didn’t suck it up and realize I have to live my own life I’d be described as “creepy”. Come to think of it, the various women who carried a child for someone else per a legal contract, then decided to keep it for themselves aren’t completely lacking creepiness.
Damnit, damnit, damnit! I really put my mouth into my foot on this one. I meant pro-choicers, NOT pro-lifers. How could I screw that up?
What I was really asking is why women have an absolute right to terminate their parental rights/obligations while men don’t have the same rights. I’m refering to uncomplicated pregancy in healthy individuals where the main objection to the pregnancy is convenience factors.
Uhhg, why can’t you people read what I mean instead of reading what I say?
Maybe email a mod and ask them to fix it?
Before answering this, I’d really like to know what you mean by “convenience factors”. If you think an unwanted pregnancy is ‘inconvenient’, then there’s not much I can say, since I know many people who would kill themselves before continuing a pregnancy, if nothing else worked. That would indicate that for them pregnancy is quite a bit more than just ‘inconvenient’.
And why does the woman have the absolute right? Because biology makes it so. Unfortunately, the female of the species has to endure any emotional and physical consequences of aborting or continuing a pregnancy. This is why the choice is hers. It’s a better situation if both female and male discuss and agree (even better if they do so prior to having sex) on what to do, but if there’s a disagreement, the tie breaker is the woman’s since she’ll be the one undergoing the actual procedure (birth or abortion).
Once the child is born, it needs to be cared for. This may be by the biological parents, or may be by adopted parents, however unless someone else legally accepts the rights and responsibilities of the child, the financial responsibility belongs to the two who created it.
Terminating a pregnancy is not a termination of parental obligations. She never was a parent.
Oh good then. So we can participate. Do I need to reiterate my questions or do they stand well enough as they are now? Or we can just pretend they’re not there and ignore my muddle-headedness. (Ya know, since I’m usually afraid of venturing into GD territory and I’m more than a little worried about coming across as a ignorant dolt.)
Say what?
In all developed countries and almost all underdeveloped ones, women outlive men.
Whoooooosh!
I guess now I don’t qualify for the thread but I’ll respond anyway.
I agree that its a sticky situation but I don’t think the solution is to kill the fetus. I would hope that the child would get counseling and therapy it could have a somewhat happy life. I don’t claim to have all the answers but I can’t see how killing is the best solution.
Well I don’t think I am playing God. I am not the rapist I just want to protect innocent life.
Thanks for answering me treis, finally I’m not completely invisible here in Great Debates. Anyway, what I meant by the “playing God” across the board statement was that one can’t know. Pro-Choicers cannot know for certain that life doesn’t begin at conception or any other convictions they may hold. Similarly, Pro-Lifers cannot know for certain that any kind of better life, to any degree, is preferable to abortion. As in my case, I think that would have not only been the right thing to do, but it certainly would have been an improvement. And despite what my absence in life may or may not offer to those around me, it is my decision of what I’d have had my mother “choose” no matter what anyone else believes to the contrary.
Futhermore, again can some- /any- one answer this part of my first post:
That’s what I feel in my heart would be the best gift to give to the one everyone agrees is the innocent party here. I would never bring a child into the world to even potentially face that. Just assuming that they might not have or may be able to overcome it wouldn’t be good enough for me. That is where I’d believe I was playing God in the other direction. Gambling about what I’d hope for versus a reality that has a possible chance of turning out that way because there’s already a known commodity in play (or a history, whatever). I guess I’m just not quite understanding all the sides, but I’ll continue to try.
I thought you were leaving.
It turns out I was invited after all. Didn’t you get the memo?
:smack: Apparently, I didn’t. Never mind.
I’m somewhat split on the issue. I believe both sides are right (that isn’t an impossibility).
But I’ll speak for the pro-life side of me: only in cases of rape, or medical danger to the mother or child.
That seems pretty simple and reasonable to the pro-life side of me. The rape thing is a little trickier. I would prefer state recompense and medical care for the duration of the pregnancy and put the child up for adoption, but that is still somewhat of stealing 9 months of a woman’s life, and it is still a very traumatic event (as a whole).
In addition to what Iskatel mentions as a very traumatic event to the woman if she’s raped, can you imagine what kind of damage that would do to the child if she kept and was honest about the conception? I mean, one hopes that the love she offered would overcome that (especially if she said things like “I wanted you so badly no matter how you got here. I loved you from the moment I knew and couldn’t bear losing you in any way.”), but again, there’s no guarantee. And they would grow up with that knowledge, hating their “father,” not knowing pertinent medical information and possibly wondering if it was predisposed through genetics that they’d either do the same thing or destined to have it happen to them because they somehow deserved it. That sounds so unbelievably horrible to thrust that willing on someone.
The OP already addressed cases where the health of the mother is threatened. I was only talking about healthy pregnancies.
For those of us in the mainstream pro-life movement, if the life of the mother is in danger, her life trumps that of the unborn child.
Wow, you know what, that’s something I never actually thought about. I guess in my idealistic mind the child would never know, but that is obviously a profound psychological marker, even beyond that of being an adopted kid.
And it raises a number of questions: When the kid is of appropriate age, do they have a right to know this information? Should it be made available by the birth mother, the adoptive parent(s), or the state/adoption agency?
ponders
I agree, I don’t know what you’ve “ever” heard or read about the pro-life movement, but the mainstream attitude is (at the min) abortion being allowed in life-threatening cases (logically, even considering both as people, the prospective mother has rights the fetus can not express or have - consider it like a conjoined twin in a car accident case…)