I’ve always been annoyed by the attempts to compare the death penalty to abortion. It’s just an attempt at manipulating emotions.
I think most people are pro-choice when it comes to exceptions, like in cases of rape or if there are health issues, but are opposed to abortions of convenience where someone has to bail out of a pregnancy that has resulted from irresponsible behavior. At least that’s my stance (so does that make me pro-choice? Is there a classification for “pro-life with exceptions”?). The pro-lifers should pursue a ban on abortions with exceptions rather than an all-out ban. I realize that would result in plenty of false accusations of rape, but overall I think many of us are just annoyed with the people who seem surprised when sex results in pregnancy who then want to jump ship rather than take responsibility. The whole point is that if you aren’t prepared for the consequences of sex, take precautionary measures, and know the odds because there’s still a chance of pregnancy. So if you absolutely can’t handle a pregnancy, keep your pants on. It’s not very complicated.
Abortion is not a case of “jumping ship” - perhaps it would be if pregnant women could simply snap their fingers and remove the foetus, then you could use this phrasing. But abortion too has a physical, and mental, toll on a woman (and a mental one on the man) so I think it’s rather cold to simply regard this as “jumping ship”.
Plus, you’ve got cases where abortion really is the more responsible choice - if you cannot raise the child due to lack of help or money, then having it would doom two (or three, if the man’s sticking around) people’s lives to misery and hardship.
Abortion is also a precautionary measure - it stops the growth of a grouping of cells from growing into a child, just as abstinence stops the growth of a sperm/egg from joining and growing into a child.
You know, I hear this used over and over again and of the people I know personally who bandy it about as easily as “Have a nice day.” have (been polled by me at least) never known a single person who has done this.
So, I think for the first time ever, I’m going to ask for a cite? Is there some sort of study that backs up this assertion or is it all anecdotal? Or is it merely an assumption based on the character of the person being judged, not an admission of same?
Who decides the “exceptions”? You? Me? Why one over the other? And what would be an exception (besides rape or the possible death of the mother)? Or is that all? How about incest? Mental health genetics that would be passed on?
You’re okay with any false accusations of rape? I’m sure the person who that was done to, and who might have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and deal with the resulting fallout, would undoubtedly disagree. Then you say “annoyed”. Hmmm, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a moral stance described that way. I don’t even know what to say, except…
[broken record 4,763,802]
A child should never be a consequence. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that in my own life (and many others I’ve been involved with) I would have relished (if thought were possible) missing out on a lifetime of misery and pain to forego my mother’s “sense of responsibility,” her owning up to what she did and her own fears about what abortion would mean to her afterlife rather than mine on this planet.
[/broken record – preparing for 4,763,803]
See, this is where it breaks down. What if you can handle a pregnancy, but then things change? You have a minimum wage job and a small child already, but together you and your husband feel you can do right by it and proceed trying for number 2. Then all of a sudden he begins to beat you, then leaves. You have a nervous breakdown, which in turn makes you physically ill. You now can’t take care of the kid you’ve already got, let alone the one on the way. You have no family members to help out. At the rate you’re going, you’ll lose your place and your job (because all the time you’ll be out now that you can’t afford a sitter and the many required doctor visits for all of the problems above). Perhaps there’s no insurance now that he’s gone either.
What would you consider the most responsible thing to do?
If you say adoption, her carrying to term would also increase the likely hood of most of the rest of that happening anyway. What about the child she already has? Should it suffer through all that and/or worse? Plus you get into all the various feeling about adoption from those who’ve been there. Some tremendously good, some horrifically bad.
Also, I like the idea of everyone remaining celebate. Wonder why the entire world throughout the ages hadn’t thought of that already?
Last of all, before anyone comes in with the “I hate it when there always has to be the one exception to the rule to prove a point” folks… 99.9% could be me if I’d proceeded ahead on the normal course of life. Not to mention, to varying degrees, I’ve known plenty of other women who been through much the same. There are LOTS of scenarios that don’t fit the black and white of those who prefer to make the rules.
I think you mean that you haven’t known anyone who used abortion as birth control/for convenience? Anecdotally, I had a friend who did. She didn’t use any birth control and got pregnant at least twice, aborting each time.
So can I-in the comfort of my office sitting in front of the computer.
I doubt I’d be quite so sanguine if I were improperly convicted of an heinous crime and waiting death by lethal injection.
I’m not interested in having the abortion debate with you or anyone, so I’m not going to tell you why I think fetuses aren’t innocent people. You’ll just have to trust me that IMO they aren’t. Again IMO, it is definitively not possible for a fetus to be an innocent person, because fetuses aren’t any kind of people. A fetus may of course become an innocent person, but if it happens that’s in the future. That’s why the analogy doesn’t hold up – the death penalty system almost certainly puts actual innocents to death. Abortion puts no one to death. (I reiterate that I am not here trying to convince you of my position; I am merely explicating it.)
Of course, as noted above, I also believe it is wrong for the state to kill anyone, whether they’re innocent or not.
Consider this, A. While I can agree that not all human caused human deaths are murder, as in the case of soldiers at war killing enemy combatants (and even those unfortunate civilians killed as “collateral damage”) and in capital punishment cases when the convicted murder is executed, those cases differ from a woman deciding to abort her fetus because the soldier and the executioner are both expressly authorized by the State to take such action, (and leaving aside the US’ penchant for non-declared wars) while the woman who unilaterally chooses to abort her fetus can do so under the pro-choice argument without any State permission whatsoever. Does that impact your argument? If not, why not?
I doubt I would be either, but the chances of that happening are so vanishingly small as to be from a practical standpoint non-existant. When/if it does/did happen, it will/would undoubtedly be a tradgedy. 50,000 people a year die in car accidents as well, and they are all tradgedies, yet I don’t propose we abandon automobiles. Shit happens, ans it’s nonsensical to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I’m not saying “Oh, lookie, here’s a general case (or set of cases) in which the killing of a human being isn’t considered murder, so by extension and analogy, it’s not murder when a woman kills her embryo”. I’m saying “Here are a couple of cases in which the killing of a human being isn’t considered murder. That establishes that not all cases in which one person kills another are necessarily murder, thererfore you cannot make the direct leap from ‘See, it is alive, human, and a person’ to ‘Abortion is murder’.”
You are now saying (if I follow you correctly), “Yeah, but abortion is different from those other two examples, and that difference means abortion could still be considered murder”. Well, yes. Certainly some people who do not consider it to be murder when a soldier from Country A kills a soldier from hostile Country B do consider abortion to be murder.
But I am of the opinion that the right of a woman to kill live growing within her in order to become nonpregnant is an intrinsic, inalienable right. Not only does the State not need to specifically authorize it, the State has no right to intrude in the woman’s authority and offer any opinion whatsoever. Roe v Wade is convenient insofar as it grants some degree of legal recognition of a moral right that women had long before 1973 and will still have if it were to be overturned. If a Right to Life amendment to the US Constitution were to pass, each woman would still own the moral right to an abortion even in the absence of the legal one. It would be legitimately OK for her to break the law, and for others to break the law in order to help her do so. Her authority to make that call is part of the “life and death” powers and responsibilities that come with being female. It comes, along with monthly periods, PMS, labor pains, and stretch marks, with the double-X chromosomes and the equipment that goes with it, just as the joys and miracle of childbirth, the peculiar experience of being edible, and the generational significance of the physical umbilical cord all do.
In summary, you’ve got a reasonable logical point, but no, it does not impact my argument. In the special case of pregnancy/abortion, women have the right to kill without it being murder when they do. It may only rarely be the right proper and necessary thing to do, but the authority to make that determination lies with her.
But the problem here is that (a) abortions are very time-sensitive, and (b) exceptions are not clear-cut.
Let’s say abortion is illegal except in cases of rape or health issues (you may design the criteria as you like).
Now, I’m 6 weeks pregnant. I want an abortion. Of course, they’re illegal (with exceptions). So, I claim I’m pregnant because I was raped by old Charger here.
What is the prospective abortionist to do?
Take my word for it, give me the abortion, and throw Charger in jail?
Take Charger’s word for it (assuming he disputes the charge) and deny me the abortion?
Insist on a judge’s word that Charger is the guilty one? By the time that happens, it will be far too late for an abortion for me.
What happens when Charger’s right to due process conflicts with my right to have an abortion if I’ve been raped?
This is not a rhetorical question.
Be assured that if abortion was illegal, with exceptions which include rape, there will be a vast increase in rape accusations (many of which would likely be dropped, post-abortion).
It’s just not workable, and it the reason why the only person who can evaluate whether an abortion is appropriate is the woman herself.
Why? It’s a cost/benefit analysis just like everythig else in the world. The potential cost, that is that once in a blue moon an innocent man might be executed, a horrible miscarrage of justice, is far outweighed by the benefits of the DP: justice, closure and punishment. We believe that the benefits of cars outweigh the 50,000 people each year who die because of them, if they didn’t, then cars would be outlawed.
We could always take your word for it, give you an abortion if it can’t wait, and charge you for filing a false complaint and having an illegal abortion if that is the case. Seems workable to me. The only person who can evaluate if an abortion is more convenient than comitting a crime is the woman.
I’m afraid I’m not buy the car accident analogy either, Weirddave becuase the death penalty does not appear to prevent violent crime.
The rate of homicide has not increased in states that have abolished the death penalty and the states that still practice it generally have higher murder rates.
If it does not work as a deterrent, then the only reason for keeping it on the books is revenge.
The only way I’d support the death penalty is if, by executing the murderer, the victim somehow miraculously came back to life.
gigi, thank you for the cite. However, not being very good with the causation/correlation thing, simply not using birth control (which obviously is being irresponsible in light of not wanting a child) equates to depending on abortions to repeatedly take care of it for you (generically speaking)? Most of the females I’ve known that have fallen into this category, although relatively few, either thought a) they wouldn’t become pregnant (IE: supposedly diagnosed by a doctor or two), b) they weren’t planning on having sex, usually due to religious reasons, or c) they thought they couldn’t afford consistent birth control and erroneously relied on things like the rhythm method, etc…
So, is it possible that the two aren’t related? Or since I have so little experience with this in my life that I’m being especially naive? Because I don’t recall ever hearing anyone claim to take that approach (at however several hundred dollars of cost it is) or the people who know someone (FOAF situations) are only assuming. Usually after their one and only abortion.
You have great faith in the ability of our justice system to reliably adjudicate rape cases, effectively convicting the guilty and absolving the innocent, without any undue consequences to the woman or to falsely accused men.
No siree. Rape is a cloudy enough area as it is, we don’t need to add “having an illegal abortion” charges to what already faces women making rape allegations that often (by necessity) come down to he said-she said. It would be bad enough that there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute someone for my rape, now you’re going to add “having an illegal abortion” on top of it? Yowtch.
Also, what if I don’t especially want to prosecute the rape? I will have to, if I want an abortion. I do not want to have to qualify for an abortion. It would have similar effects to zero-tolerance laws about violence against women: there is no “get me to a safe place right now” without “throw the motherfucker in prison.”
Any woman in this situation will become even more of a pawn of the legal system, and her choices will be even more constrained. Let’s leave rape charges and illegal abortion charges separate.