The next Obama

[Strings]

*sigh*

As someone who deals with such victims, let me say that yes, in some cases, going through the 9 months of pregnancy due to rape would be torture for the victim.

Note: IN SOME CASES. Others can deal with it fine. Oddly enough, different people handle things differently.

>Murdering the child is not an acceptable response to this<

Were my wife the victim of a rape, got pregnant due to said crime, and chose to terminate the pregnancy, I would support that decision. Were someone to tell her that this choice made her a murderer, that person would need medical assistance themselves.

We're talking about the genuine well-being of the victim. Which, wow, once again gets left behind. Our society (Left and Right) are always perfectly fine with saying "Screw the victim! We have more important things to deal with!"

I've been there for those victims. I've watched women fall apart after testifying, having had to relive what happened. Actually, just visited with one, who has nightmares still, years after the fact. And you feel that, if her rapist had gotten her knocked-up, she should have had 9 months of reinforcement of her trauma.

It's easy to take a principled stand when you don't have to actually have to deal with the consequences...

[zxcvbob]

*sigh*

It's easy to take a principled stand when you don't have to actually have to deal with the consequences...

And that argument is a cop-out.  It's easy to say the life of the fetus isn't even worth considering now that you are no longer a fetus.

[Strings]

Spurious argument.

I help abused kids and rape victims. That means I DO get to deal with the fallout.

Yes, I place more value on the victim's well being. So sorry that I place value on a victim's life.

We're not talking about abortion as birth control here. We're talking about letting to victim of a sexual assault have the choice available, so as to move on with their life (instead of having 9 months of hell before rebuilding their life).

You DON'T have to deal with the repercussions of your principles here, unless and until yourself or someone close to you is raped, and has to deal with the fallout...

[longeyes]

Isn't the issue one's standard of living, not "economics" per se?

And, frankly, the way we compute standard of living is rather superficial; it's far more than a matter of dollars and cents.  If your society is degenerating socially & morally while your income is going up, or only yours is going up while everyone's around you is going down, your standard of "living" isn't improving.  

Romney talked about jobs, vaguely, but he was mum about illegal immigration's impact on the job market and about both multinationals exporting jobs and the challenges of globalism.  Such questions are not "left-wing," they are basic economic reality looked at through a nationalist prism.  The alternative is not Obama's Marxist statism but something neither candidate was prepared to look at.

[makattak]

Spurious argument.

I help abused kids and rape victims. That means I DO get to deal with the fallout.

Yes, I place more value on the victim's well being. So sorry that I place value on a victim's life.

We're not talking about abortion as birth control here. We're talking about letting to victim of a sexual assault have the choice available, so as to move on with their life (instead of having 9 months of hell before rebuilding their life).

You DON'T have to deal with the repercussions of your principles here, unless and until yourself or someone close to you is raped, and has to deal with the fallout...

I think you are being rather presumptuous as to whether any of us who think a child deserves life no matter the crimes of his or her father have had no one close to us that has had to deal with rape and its consequences.

It's the whole: "YOU WEREN'T THERE MAN! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE!!" I can feel great sympathy for the victim of a rape, and still oppose the murder of her child. It is not in callous indifference that we protect the life of the child. Yes, it is a significant burden placed on the victim, but the responsibility of that crime lies on the father, not the child. An innocent child should not be murdered even to alleviate the suffering of a crime victim.

Of course, I believe that an abortion may only increase the suffering of the victim, but it is not my place to claim I know better than they do: I advocate for the life of the child, not the well-being of the victim. 

[Strings]

>I advocate for the life of the child, not the well-being of the victim<

At least you boldly admit that, Mak.

Some of my attitude, I'll admit, is colored by my experiences. What I usually see is a system that is, at best, indifferent to the victim... except to put the perp away. After that... yer on your own.

>Of course, I believe that an abortion may only increase the suffering of the victim, but it is not my place to claim I know better than they do<

And the best person to make that decision is the victim. Not you, not me, certainly not some government appointed "expert".

I've seen victims go both ways. I've seen some that, were they to terminate the pregnancy, would suffer more than the original rape caused. But I've also seen some that, forced to carry to term, neither they nor the child would make it that far.

[makattak]

Some of my attitude, I'll admit, is colored by my experiences. What I usually see is a system that is, at best, indifferent to the victim... except to put the perp away. After that... yer on your own.

If by, "the system", you mean the justice system, then I am glad to hear that. The government should be concerned SOLELY with the administration of justice.

Healing and sympathy for the victim ought to come from private sources. The government is a soul-less wretch and doesn't do "sympathy" well, unless throwing money at something counts as "sympathy."

And again, it isn't because I think the victims ought to just suck it up because life is pain. It is because I don't think that should be the province of the government. (Just as I don't want poor people to crawl under a bridge and die just because I think the government shouldn't be in the charity business. "Charity" means love. I don't want a government to love me or anyone else. And not the least reason for which that everything the government touches, it screws up.)

[Perd Hapley]

It's easy to take a principled stand when you don't have to actually have to deal with the consequences...

It's also easy to make the wrong decision when you're too close to the situation. It's easy to focus on the victim that you can see and that can tell you what she's going through (and for the politicians, the one that can vote), and ignore the victim that is unseen, unheard and easily disposed of.

What you have is a logic fail. You choose to ignore the fact that the child is also a victim. First of the circumstances of his/her conception. Then of being murdered, should someone decide to murder them.

When a person is molested as a child, and then molests their own children, we understand that they are both victim and violator, and should face the consequences. When a person is raped, and then kills her own child, such clarity seems to go out the window.

[Balog]

The abortion question is pretty simple: at what point does life begin? If you think it starts at conception there can be no moral abortion, save in the rare cases such as ectopic pregnancy where it is analogous to self defense.

And as a sexual assault victim married to another one, with many family and friends who have been raped or molested let me say that not wanting a child killed because his or her father was a rapist is absolutely NOT a way to disregard the suffering of the rape victim. It's merely recognizing that there are two victims, and killing one of them is not ok even if the child is in the womb.

I assume if a rape victim carried her child that was conceived in the attack to term you would be opposed to her killing the child (or abusing the kid) after the birth. So why is killing the child before the birth ok?

[MicroBalrog]

I assume if a rape victim carried her child that was conceived in the attack to term you would be opposed to her killing the child (or abusing the kid) after the birth. So why is killing the child before the birth ok?

Because a child, quite obviously, is physically attached to the body of the mother.

A person has a right to defend themselves against an invasion of their property, especially their body, even if the invasion is non-lethal, and even if the 'invader', like a child, cannot bear personal responsibility for it.

Now, one could argue that in the case of consensual sex, you agree to a certain chance of pregnancy (no birth control is 100% effective), and thus void your own right to defend yourself - but with actual rape this is different. You have never agreed to have this child in your body, and your right not to be pregnant is not made vacant because the child is oh-so-small and oh-so-adorable.

But on the other hand, I don't believe human life begins at conception.

[seeker_two]

So....abortion is now considered self-defense?.....


....I'm not even joining this argument if that can even be considered a legitimate viewpoint....

[roo_ster]

So....abortion is now considered self-defense?.....


....I'm not even joining this argument if that can even be considered a legitimate viewpoint....

The obvious question of a firearms-themed forum...

"What caliber for preemies?(1)"

"I swear, your honor, the preemie was so menacing that I feared for my life and then proceeded to shoot to stop.  Who knows what would have happened if it had removed the ventilator tube and crawled out of its crib?"

Yeah, Western Civ is circling the drain.  The coming economic crisis is merely a symptom of cultural and moral degradation, some of which we have been graced with in this thread.  Similar to late Rome's martial and economic weakness: a sign if its internal decay.   

There have been Great Awakenings, so there is hope.  For some.  But let us be clear: it is hope despite empirical evidence.  Those wholly bound to materialist conceptions of reality have no business pointing toward a new horizon or some sort of neo-renaissance.  The empiricist side of my soul demands you show me the data.




(1) Prematurely born infant, in Neonatal ICU if premature enough.

[longeyes]

Because a child, quite obviously, is physically attached to the body of the mother.

A person has a right to defend themselves against an invasion of their property, especially their body, even if the invasion is non-lethal, and even if the 'invader', like a child, cannot bear personal responsibility for it.

Now, one could argue that in the case of consensual sex, you agree to a certain chance of pregnancy (no birth control is 100% effective), and thus void your own right to defend yourself - but with actual rape this is different. You have never agreed to have this child in your body, and your right not to be pregnant is not made vacant because the child is oh-so-small and oh-so-adorable.

But on the other hand, I don't believe human life begins at conception.

We know it may not know when human life begins but we do know when it ends: with the advent of socialism.

[longeyes]

The obvious question of a firearms-themed forum...

"What caliber for preemies?(1)"

"I swear, your honor, the preemie was so menacing that I feared for my life and then proceeded to shoot to stop.  Who knows what would have happened if it had removed the ventilator tube and crawled out of its crib?"

Yeah, Western Civ is circling the drain.  The coming economic crisis is merely a symptom of cultural and moral degradation, some of which we have been graced with in this thread.  Similar to late Rome's martial and economic weakness: a sign if its internal decay.   

There have been Great Awakenings, so there is hope.  For some.  But let us be clear: it is hope despite empirical evidence.  Those wholly bound to materialist conceptions of reality have no business pointing toward a new horizon or some sort of neo-renaissance.  The empiricist side of my soul demands you show me the data.




(1) Prematurely born infant, in Neonatal ICU if premature enough.

Here's the trouble: civilization as it really is is built on genocide, slavery, and tyranny.  We have had a few centuries of exceptionalism in various places. That is all.

[Ron]

Because a child, quite obviously, is physically attached to the body of the mother.

A person has a right to defend themselves against an invasion of their property, especially their body, even if the invasion is non-lethal, and even if the 'invader', like a child, cannot bear personal responsibility for it.

Now, one could argue that in the case of consensual sex, you agree to a certain chance of pregnancy (no birth control is 100% effective), and thus void your own right to defend yourself - but with actual rape this is different. You have never agreed to have this child in your body, and your right not to be pregnant is not made vacant because the child is oh-so-small and oh-so-adorable.

But on the other hand, I don't believe human life begins at conception.

There is no doubt the fetus is alive at conception. That it is safe to say, a scientific fact. At the very least it is a nascent human being.

If you purposely terminate the life of a fetus you are destroying a life. If the fetus has brain waves they should be recognized for what they are, a child.

The Republicans struggling to verbalize clarity in the conundrum of individual rights of the mother vs her yet unborn child are not the monsters in the American tragedy. Our monsters actually have blood on their hands, a lot of it.

[Jamisjockey]

There is no doubt the fetus is alive at conception. That it is safe to say, a scientific fact. At the very least it is a nascent human being.

If you purposely terminate the life of a fetus you are destroying a life. If the fetus has brain waves they should be recognized for what they are, a child.

I'm an atheist, and I approve this message.

[Perd Hapley]

That is counter-factual. No Republican is likely to win the large LIBERAL population centers, social issues or no. No Republican presidential campaign plans to win that way. That's American presidential politics 101. Social conservatives like Reagan and Bush DID win, but they did so by motivating enough social and fiscal conservatives to counterbalance the big cities. (Of course, Reagan even won most of what would be called blue states today.) Also, social conservatives like John Ashcroft and Rick Santorum have been elected to the Senate. Ashcroft and Huckabee were governors. They clearly were able to succeed outside of "conservative areas."


There you go. That is the difference between an attack and a half-hearted defense. When I said "attack," I was referring to a piece of legislation like the AWB. Or at least something substantive to advance their own platform. We saw that the Democrats made an attack on something and were punished for it in the polls. On social conservatism, we have NOT seen that with the Republicans. In 2004, the GOP profited from the fact that marriage was on the ballot in many states, and social conservatives turned out in droves to support conservative positions and GOP candidates. We haven't seen anything to refute that lesson. Nor have we seen the GOP punished for their abortion stance, Akin notwithstanding. Ersatz marriage won in a few states last week, but they were blue states. That may be evidence that the crazy ersatz marriage is becoming more acceptable, but that doesn't make it some kind of third rail that no one can touch. For a comparison, look at how backward some states are on guns. Yet the pro-gun movement has been doing pretty well.


False. Not knowing how to defend your own position is the candidate-killer. The rape-abortion issue has been controversial for decades, and social conservatives like Todd Akin (in fact, Todd Akin himself) have been elected over and over again, holding the same view that Akin does. The fact that two people made a similar mistake in the same election cycle would be a poor foundation for dropping an anti-abortion stance that has been good for the party in many other elections, and is likely to help in the future.

A party that was unified behind its own candidates and policy positions would have had a standard response ready for such things. Something like, "No innocent person should be executed for something a criminal did to someone else." Something like that. Judging the popularity of a policy on the worst possible presentation of it is patently misleading. And by that I mean that you are misleading yourself.

I see that nobody has refuted the above.

[longeyes]

There is no doubt the fetus is alive at conception. That it is safe to say, a scientific fact. At the very least it is a nascent human being.

If you purposely terminate the life of a fetus you are destroying a life. If the fetus has brain waves they should be recognized for what they are, a child.

The Republicans struggling to verbalize clarity in the conundrum of individual rights of the mother vs her yet unborn child are not the monsters in the American tragedy. Our monsters actually have blood on their hands, a lot of it.

People rationalized slavery because it was in their financial interest. We are rationalizing abortion because it is a matter of "convenience." 

[Perd Hapley]

The obvious question of a firearms-themed forum...

"What caliber for preemies?"

So epic.

[birdman]

We have to treat "to protect life of mother", rape, and consensual sex as three different cases.

There is ZERO reason why a pregnancy should go more than a few days in the case of rape...I mean seriously.  IIRC isn't it standard medical practice to offer plan-B to rape victims in the hospital?  In my opinion, preventing embryo attachment is fundamentally different than "abortion".

In the case of protecting the life of the mother, that is a no-brainer, and only really radical pro-lifers disagree.

As for pregnancies resulting from consensual sex, AGAIN, in this day and age, there is no reason an unwanted pregnancy should happen.  But in any case, I don't see why it should be further along than a few weeks at most, at which point, no brain waves.  Waiting any longer?  Seriously, why?  Did you have something more important to do? 

IMHO, I follow the "legal and RARE" attitude.  Basically, abortion is a horrible thing, and in this day and age, with the availability a huge variety of highly effective birthcontrol methods, of pretty reliable early pregnancy tests, plan B (which is only an abortifacient to those of extreme viewpoints...it's not RU486), etc, there is no reason an unwanted fetus post a few weeks of development should need to be aborted, except in the "save mothers life" addressed above.

Anyway, just my opinion.

[MicroBalrog]

There is no doubt the fetus is alive at conception. That it is safe to say, a scientific fact. At the very least it is a nascent human being.

If you purposely terminate the life of a fetus you are destroying a life. If the fetus has brain waves they should be recognized for what they are, a child

The definition of 'alive' is not a 'scientific fact', it is a method of definition, of describing facts.

And of couse, a fetus does not have brain waves at conception, or a brain.

[Balog]

It's amazing what you can do when you can define how you describe facts, innit?

[longeyes]

I'd say he's defining liberals but that's become the oldest joke in the world...

[Perd Hapley]

The definition of 'alive' is not a 'scientific fact', it is a method of definition, of describing facts.

And of couse, a fetus does not have brain waves at conception, or a brain.

Ok, so let's define "is." Is the unborn child alive or dead? Or a vampire, perhaps?

How do you think life is defined, and can you cite sources?

[freakazoid]

So, about that next Obama...