Paraguay successful at denying 11-year old incest victim abortion

[politicus]

I don't believe rape or incest should make abortions easier to obtain.  The sole valid justification for restricting abortion is to protect what is considered to be a human life and no matter how vile the biological father is, that vileness has no bearing on whether it is a human life.

The girl is a human life as well, and it is reasonable to protect the human already in existence (with established emotional ties to other humans and importance in their lives) over the unborn. Bearing your rapists child is an extremely traumatic occurrence that is likely to inflict her for the rest of her life. Health of the mother includes mental health of the mother. It can not reasonably be limited to psychical health.

So despicable decision/law all around.

[politicus]

Depends on the 11-year old whether a pregnancy would be a danger.  For most it would be, but the doctors were of the opinion it wasn't in this case. At some point you have to trust experts, or does that only apply to global warming?  The pregnancy was well past the point where I think abortion on demand must be an option and close to the point where I think it should not be an option, so despite that not being in Paraguayan law, it didn't have much of an effect.

This is a hard case, but it looks like other than they should have caught on to what was happening sooner, I can't say that I fault the Paraguayan authorities here. The fetus was close to viability, the female was not at immediate risk, and I don't believe rape or incest should make abortions easier to obtain.  The sole valid justification for restricting abortion is to protect what is considered to be a human life and no matter how vile the biological father is, that vileness has no bearing on whether it is a human life.

I'm glad someone agrees with me. I struggle to see how the circumstances, as horrific as they are, would justify termination of a child who had nothing to do with the situation at hand.

It is not circumstances, but a woman's live. It is easy to reduce this to something "principled" when you are a man and will never be in a similar situation.

You got one ruined life vs. one terminated life. The ruined life belongs to a person already in existence and therefore takes precedence. Try to think of it as the girl being traumatized to the point of being mentally dead. You then got two kinds of killing to weigh against each other. This is the ethical dilemma. Forcing an 11 year old to carry her rapists child is cruel and inhuman. Far more than killing an unborn. Psychical death is not always the most horrible destiny. It is much too simplistic to view it that way.

[politicus]

It is not circumstances, but a woman's live. It is easy to reduce this to something "principled" when you are a man and will never be in a similar situation.

I am sympathetic to your position in general, but this is not an argument. Like it or not, there are lots of women who take the same stance. The idea that someone's gender is even remotely relevant in the abortion debate is based on some very problematic assumptions. You don't have to be able to have a child in order to have an opinion (more specifically, a negative opinion) on abortion.

Of course not (and obviously never claimed so), but it is no coincidence that male pro-lifers tend to disproportionally take the black and white principled position where the health and functioning of the mother is ignored. There is a lack of empathy connected to this and that is rather obviously enhanced by never having to deal with a similar situation. Gender creates a distance in this area.

Anyway, we are talking odds here, not absolutes (as always when dealing with the generation of human opinions).