Question to self described "pro-life" posters

[Person Man]

I've never liked that danger to the mother is always tied to the exception for rape and incest. It muddies the pro-life argument by treating those children as somehow less necessary to save than "normal" children. Children can't be blamed for the evils of their parents and a wrong on the mother doesn't somehow justify wronging her innocent child.

The medical exception makes a lot more sense. As long as doctors aren't intentionally killing the child when less deadly methods could be used to guarantee the mother's health I don't think there's any problem with necessary procedures to save the woman's life that happen to kill the child.

Voted option 1 (moderate hero)

That's basically the RCC's stance, right?

[Person Man]

I think danger to the mother's life or health should be understood to be an objectively more acceptable reason to abort than circumstances of conception (at least, if one's reason for being pro-life genuinely is believing that the conceptus is a person with rights rather than just a roundabout means of punishing women for having sex). Voted option 1 but I don't think it's great to conflate these things.

I totally agree.

Am pro-life (though I think abortion should be legal up to 8 weeks, so some would consider that to be "pro-choice"...) and voted option 1 without a doubt (not allowing abortion if the mother's health is in danger is absolutely insane), but I don't think the circumstances of conception should matter.

I guess you could consider yourself in between. I would imagine anyone who ultimately wants to keep abortion legal in at least 75% of current circumstances as pro-choice and in less than 20%, anti-abortion.

[Person Man]

No joke, I once saw a comment online complaining that allowing abortion in incest cases was bad because it would encourage "consequence-free incest". Like somebody is going to say "hooray! I can  my brother all day and get abortions woot!".

Damn you, CrabCake, for telling me this. I don't even have a sister

Yeah, though it does seem odd that rape would be placed with incest if the incest wasn't rape. Maybe rape/incest should be any pregnancy that was caused by a crime? But does that mean prostitutes can get abortions outside of any designated "God's Blindspot"? Maybe this exception should be when the pregnancy was caused by a felony?

The main issue with Right to Life is that it tries to will a moral foundation that simply isn't there. Roe v. Wade wasn't based upon abortion being a fundamental right but that there was a substantive right to personal security(that legislative bodies can violate due process like cops/executives can) and that there was no fundamental right or universal and natural perveiling right of early gestational personhood(human beings have always had disagreements about abortion that just weren't there for stabbing someone over a goat or ham sandwich) .

Even if you look at when abortion was illegal, it was always a minor or midgrade felony and in some cases just a misdemeanor. You just don't get probation or a year in jail for popping a cap in someone's ass.

Maybe if the concept of due process being violated by the powers of the legislative branch was made obsolete, abortion could be considered another type of non-murder crime in a honest and legitimate way but no one on here has ever taken the bait. Tbe closest thing I ever got on the issue was that according to Seth McFarlane, abortion was securities fraud, larceny, and DUI.

[Person Man]

Tbe closest thing I ever got on the issue was that according to Seth McFarlane, abortion was securities fraud, larceny, and DUI.

I once, in a work of fiction, wrote in a throwaway reference to a character's 'unacceptably (to just about everyone) moderate belief that abortion was negligent manslaughter'.

So you are a little put off by it too, as a moderately pro-life voter.

[Person Man]

Tbe closest thing I ever got on the issue was that according to Seth McFarlane, abortion was securities fraud, larceny, and DUI.

I once, in a work of fiction, wrote in a throwaway reference to a character's 'unacceptably (to just about everyone) moderate belief that abortion was negligent manslaughter'.

So you are a little put off by it too, as a moderately pro-life voter.

By the character's belief or by the insistence from the pro-life side that abortion has to be treated as murder-as-such? If it's the latter, I'm put off by a lot of its practical implications, yes.

I am open to and think it would be more honest to discuss abortion as morally wrong for other reasons, at least before an objective test of self can pass the muster of a criminal standard of proof. I am unlikely to be convinced, but like any other sane person, do not see abortion at all as a good thing and see abortion happening the way I see people being poor or other very unfortunate things.

[Person Man]

I can understand (but disagree strongly) those arguing abortion should not be provided "on demand", but I completely fail to understand why a woman should be forced to give a birth after being raped or to basically commit suicide when abortion is required for health reasons. I wonder how can anyone defend this.

If you think an unborn fetus/embryo has reached the point that it should be considered human life and protected, then the tragic circumstances of how it came to be don't affect that.  That said, while I don't favor rape/incest exceptions, I'm also not in favor of prohibiting all abortions.  Roughly speaking, I think first trimester abortions should be allowed, third not allowed save to protect the physical life of the mother, and second I have no strong feelings on, but as I said, no rape or incest exceptions.

Or at least if abortion is illegal, it is not enough that the pregnancy was caused by a criminal act. I could see that  if abortion is legal for up to 13 weeks, that an exception to rape wouldn't make any sense. While something like a Zika infection  or blood clot could make sense in the second trimester. Also abortion should be allowed previability if the woman wants to have future children but if taking this pregnancy to term would damage or destroy her organs or require her to discard her organs and that her organs can be saved by abortion.

Basically Roe v. Wade states it generally has to be legal in the first trimester, can be illegal in the second but have some sort of circumstancial defenses, and abortion can be  treated as murder in the third trimester(if you don't consider causing a woman to miscarry in the process of saving her abortion).

[Person Man]

The unborn baby is a innocent bystander to the crimes of rape and incest and must be protected.

The "save a woman's life" exception is a false equivalency.  http://liveactionnews.org/abortion-ever-necessary-save-life-mother/

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/the-life-of-the-mother/

And it appears that the two sources differ on whether ending an ectopic pregnancy is an "abortion".  The first defines an abortion as an action taken with the intent of ending a pregnancy that could be successfully brought to term, which isn't the case for ectopic pregnancies. The second link's definition of abortion includes any action that results in the termination of the pregnancy, which would include dealing with an ectopic pregnancy.

I don't think any of those terms are correct. I would say any action that has as the primary object to cause a miscarriage is an abortion. Its wider than the first and narrower than the second. Ending an ectopic pregnancy is an abortion. Giving a woman chemotherapy for Leukemia and she miscarries as a result is not an abortion. 

[Person Man]

The unborn baby is a innocent bystander to the crimes of rape and incest and must be protected.

The "save a woman's life" exception is a false equivalency.  http://liveactionnews.org/abortion-ever-necessary-save-life-mother/

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/the-life-of-the-mother/

And it appears that the two sources differ on whether ending an ectopic pregnancy is an "abortion".  The first defines an abortion as an action taken with the intent of ending a pregnancy that could be successfully brought to term, which isn't the case for ectopic pregnancies. The second link's definition of abortion includes any action that results in the termination of the pregnancy, which would include dealing with an ectopic pregnancy.

I don't think any of those terms are correct. I would say any action that has as the primary object to cause a miscarriage is an abortion. Its wider than the first and narrower than the second. Ending an ectopic pregnancy is an abortion. Giving a woman chemotherapy for Leukemia and she miscarries as a result is not an abortion. 

I sort of agree, except that "primary object" is going to be inherently defined subjectively. Take for example the case where a woman determines that she can't bear the economic and/or psychological cost involved in carrying to term. Does that mean that inducing a miscarriage was or was not her primary object? For obvious reasons, both sides are trying to come up with a completely objective definition of abortion, albeit they choose the objective definition subjectively.

Well, then the physical act's primary objective was abortion. I meant it as the act meant to solve the situation not the reason for the situation.