Rather than change the law, we will just take the easy way out:
If a rape victim becomes pregnant and bears a child, the rapist could have the same parental rights as the mother, said Krista Heeren-Graber, executive director of the South Dakota Network Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault.
"The idea the rapist could be in the child's life ... makes the woman very, very fearful. Sometimes they need to have choice," Heeren-Graber said."
Well I guess since we can't be mean to those big bad rapists we have to show tough love to the children by killing them. Afterall, we can't simply pass a law saying that if you rape a woman, you irrevocably lose all parental rights over that child. There is one thing that should be added to this, though, and that's that instead of demanding child support, the state will provide either a tax deduction equal to the child support or a small benefit if the rapist is convicted. The reason I think that this is necessary is that rapists, being bad people, might take violent and deadly offense to having to pay child support. That is the best way to support the child, while not dangers to the mother and child.
There's a major logical inconsistency here. If you oppose abortion in general, there is no good reason to support it in the case of rape or incest. There is no moral difference between a child created under these circumstances and a child that was created by two consenting, non-related adults.
Imagine that you are a woman that has been raped. You find out you are pregnant. To you, the victim of a violent crime, you will now be forced to relive that violent crime every day for 9 months. You won't be able to even begin going through the process of healing until after the baby is born. If you keep the child, (s)he will be a constant reminder of what you went through.
Based on what you want to happen, the mother and child will both suffer for 18 years or more. Yeah, that's a good plan.
The moral difference is that a fetus created under violence was not created by two consenting adults. Violence makes the difference.
*Sigh* That's not relevent to what I said. What I said was why is it that a child who is conceived by two consenting adults has a right to life, but one that is conceived in rape does not? A right to life is either universal or it is not. Once you start saying that one class of non-criminals has no inherent right to live, you start down the path toward death camps and killing fields.
And you're wrong on a major point. She can give the child up for adoption. One wrong (rape) does not justify another (aborting a child) regardless of how much pain the mother goes through.
Do you support vigilante justice? Let's say that the system fails to get her justice. Is it right then for a private party to go out and murder the rapist in cold blood? Of course not. Just as the rape does not justify the taking of the child's life, so does the rape not justify the cold-blooded murder of the rapist.
The bigger victim is the child, but killing it is no more moral than shooting a terminally ill patient in the head.
"If you oppose abortion in general, there is no good reason to support it in the case of rape or incest. There is no moral difference between a child created under these circumstances and a child that was created by two consenting, non-related adults."
Very true, but I am willing to engage in incrementalism in order to slow down the abortion industry. In otherwords, I would vote for outlawing abortion with exceptions for rape and incest.
Mulligan, you get around the human issue very nicely by saying that the 'fetus' is not created by two consenting adults. Tell me Mulligan, have you ever heard an pregnant woman refer to her unborn baby as a fetus. As in, "Oh, the fetus just kicked." Or, "Honey, what should we name the fetus?"
Everyone knows that what that mother is carrying is a baby. Fetus is simply the scientific term.
I agree Difster that this is the most practical approach we have right now. However we must not lose sight of the longterm goal which will, unfortunately, require a very robust and flexible adoption system. A lot of money needs to be invested into the adoption system and the laws need to be liberalized so as to make sure that it's effective, not bureaucratic.
Hey Mike T, you forget one thing - fathers can oppose adoptions. It's not always easy to find someone guilty of rape, especially since women often don't report it immediately out of shame. Until the laws are changed, rapists (it's usually acquaintance rape) who have not been found guilty (sometimes that takes a couple of years to get through the court system), or are never found guilty, can have parental rights. And fighting this stuff in civil court takes money, something a lot of women and their families do not have. As people who work with rape victims know, this scenario not only can happen, it has happened.
Ok Dakota, I see now... So we kill the child so we don't have to deal with the situation.
This is exactly what MikeT is talking about.
Don't work to change the system to streamline the process, just kill the child so the mother doesn't have the deal with it.
Oh, and a question: Lets say the father didn't rape her, she consented and later changed her mind. If he is not found guilty wouldn't he have the right to prevent the mother from aborting the child? If not, why not?
Dakota Gramma,
That was precisely the argument that I was arguing against :) I do not believe that a rape victim's victimhood entitles her to kill her child in utero, anymore than I think it is acceptable for a single working mother to rob a bank to get money to support her child. One evil does not justify another. Again, the system needs to be changed.
I have a thought for all of you pro-lifers who believe a woman does not have a right to dictate what happens with her body. Let's do this then...making abortion a crime and legalize the murder of the rapist. Then it will all be even? There is no fear on the mother's part in relation to the rapist and he definitely cannot come back to haunt her life over and over again.
It was feminists who often supported lowering the standard of punishment for rape from execution in most states to regular, moderate prison sentences to make convictions easier. Rapists used to hang, but juries also used to demand a little more than he-said, she-said evidence because they were deciding whether a man should die or not. Unfortunately because of incidents like the Duke Lacross one, you're not likely to see support from society for raising the penalty back to death for rapists because of the fear that the woman is a psychotic liar. Of course, what can you expect when feminists have been championing a policy of never charging a woman who makes false accusations with a crime?
Abortion is also not about your body unless a failure to procure it would mean your death. It is about the fact that you want to terminate the life of another genetic member of the species homo sapien.