Taking Well-Meaning Pro Life Efforts Too Far

NATO AIR

Senior Member
Jun 25, 2004
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USS Abraham Lincoln
I am strongly against abortion. However, it shocks me to read this and then have it confirmed by friends in medical school and friends who are nurses. Some folks on the anti-abortion are taking their stance way too far, and causing terribly unnecessary tragedy to take place for rape victims.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=oxxlTQbdt95UgnnLPCczZh==

The other serious argument against Plan B is that it will increase risky sexual activity by young people. But peer-reviewed studies published in mainstream medical publications (like one just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association) have repeatedly found no such link. Of course, conservatives argue that making emergency contraception available sends a broader cultural message about the acceptability of premarital sex. But, even if that were true, there are the likely benefits of Plan B to consider. James Trussell, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, has estimated that, if emergency contraceptives were widely available in this country, they could reduce the approximately 1.3 million abortions that take place yearly in this country by half. If a culture of life is so sacrosanct, shouldn't that trump the issue of premarital sex?

When conservatives talk about Plan B, they conjure up images of lust-crazed college girls engaging in one-night stands, then reaching over empty beer bottles to grab their supersized Plan B jars. But the one group to whom emergency contraception would make the greatest difference is rape victims. According to Trussell, who studied statistics from 1998, about 22,000 of the 25,000 women who became pregnant from rape could have prevented pregnancy with emergency contraception. Unfortunately, the new federal hospital guidelines for rape treatment released in January mysteriously omitted Plan B, even though a previous draft had included it. In Colorado, conservatives have fought efforts to impose a guideline that includes emergency contraceptives. Apparently, elements of the right are so committed to their stark definition of life and so concerned about hypothetical cultural signals that they would prefer rape victims become pregnant than inform them about emergency contraception. Who are the extremists now?
(read the rest of the article @ link)
 
I have found that a very high percentage of people who are pro-life are only sympathetic to the person thats raped, so long as they carry to term anyway. pretty sad, in my opinion.
 
images of lust-crazed college girls engaging in one-night stands


When you've been married as long as I have...it's images like those which I CLING to....

(sigh)...


Oh...to be young...and thin...and at least mildly attractive...or Rich.

:D
 
It could be that they believe that punishing the child for the sin of the father is just adding further insult to injury and creating a new victimization level where society deems the child of a rapist to be an unnecessary burden on society, that they somehow have less of a right to life because of how they were brought into existence. It seems the article argues only one vision of how they personally believe that they, the people who believe that the child has a right to life, think and disregards any thoughtful impressions that may mitigate what the author believes to be an unreasoning position and wishes to hear no other motivating factor that would imply that they are well-reasoned people with a compassion toward the unborn regardless of their origin.

How could it be the child's fault that the mother was raped? Yet we impose the absolute, the death sentence, onto the child as if their actual origin defines them as refuse to be discarded as the imposition that society deems them to be.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
I have found that a very high percentage of people who are pro-life are only sympathetic to the person thats raped, so long as they carry to term anyway. pretty sad, in my opinion.


Where did you find these percentages. I'd be interested in seeing them.
 
dilloduck said:
Where did you find these percentages. I'd be interested in seeing them.
just based on my personal experience dillo, nothing official or documented. didn't mean to send out that impression of an official stat.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
just based on my personal experience dillo, nothing official or documented. didn't mean to send out that impression of an official stat.

I can't give any official stats other than my own. I'm a little more center-right when it comes to abortion: I'm against abortion, but I do think it should be legal in cases or rape and incest. After a discussion on the subject awhile back, it did cross my mind that rape might be the one case where the abortion pill could be a good thing. There are those from the hardline, far right that will stand against it no matter what.

It's unfortunate that the extremists tend to label everyone on one side of the aisle. Yeah, I know it can happen to the left as well.
 
When conservatives talk about Plan B, they conjure up images of lust-crazed college girls engaging in one-night stands, then reaching over empty beer bottles to grab their supersized Plan B jars.
they waiting that long now?
rape, incest, or some medical atrocity should be about the only way females should get access to something like this. jsut because little Sally and Billy werent careful and didnt use some form of contriceptive doesnt mean they can automatically get an abortion. if you want to play an adult game, deal with the after effects.
something about taking responsibility for your actions or soemthing like that. i know, its a dying art form now days.
 
no1tovote4 said:
It could be that they believe that punishing the child for the sin of the father is just adding further insult to injury and creating a new victimization level where society deems the child of a rapist to be an unnecessary burden on society, that they somehow have less of a right to life because of how they were brought into existence. It seems the article argues only one vision of how they personally believe that they, the people who believe that the child has a right to life, think and disregards any thoughtful impressions that may mitigate what the author believes to be an unreasoning position and wishes to hear no other motivating factor that would imply that they are well-reasoned people with a compassion toward the unborn regardless of their origin.

How could it be the child's fault that the mother was raped? Yet we impose the absolute, the death sentence, onto the child as if their actual origin defines them as refuse to be discarded as the imposition that society deems them to be.



:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
 
no1tovote4 said:
How could it be the child's fault that the mother was raped? Yet we impose the absolute, the death sentence, onto the child as if their actual origin defines them as refuse to be discarded as the imposition that society deems them to be.

And that is the crux of it. There are mothers in the world who are raising the children who were conceived by rape. The children are no less loved. I certainly don't want to minimize the trauma of rape, but like no1 said, the child is innocent, why should he/she be punished?
 
gop_jeff said:
And that is the crux of it. There are mothers in the world who are raising the children who were conceived by rape. The children are no less loved. I certainly don't want to minimize the trauma of rape, but like no1 said, the child is innocent, why should he/she be punished?


I know this to be true, I have a nephew that was conceived in just this manner. For a time I actually adopted him after his birth until his mother could see past the crime to the incredible child that he is. It was long ago that she once again took on her child, she loves him without question as any parent would.

We still talk about the time when she was pregnant, when she decided to carry the child to term because of the deep guilt she felt for a child she aborted earlier in life.

The abortion clinic had told her it would be a good experience and was the best choice for her, never defining the life within as worthy of existence. The guilt still weighs heavily on her...

Bless that little soul.
 
I would think carrying the child could be therapeutic, a way of making something right out of the horrible evil that had befallen a woman. I am very sympathetic to rape victims, having seconhand experience of one. But it wouldn't be the baby's fault his father was a @#$%@. What this article failed to clarify was that Plan B can also cause very early abortion; it is not JUST contraception.
 
no1tovote4 said:
I know this to be true, I have a nephew that was conceived in just this manner. For a time I actually adopted him after his birth until his mother could see past the crime to the incredible child that he is. It was long ago that she once again took on her child, she loves him without question as any parent would.

We still talk about the time when she was pregnant, when she decided to carry the child to term because of the deep guilt she felt for a child she aborted earlier in life.

The abortion clinic had told her it would be a good experience and was the best choice for her, never defining the life within as worthy of existence. The guilt still weighs heavily on her...

Bless that little soul.

Bless your sister, too!
 
I can see the merit of the pro-life views here, but this is not partial-birth abortion.

This is a pill the victim takes the day after the rape, to prevent pregnancy.

(having done work with rape victims before, especially refugees from Haiti, Liberia, Bosnia and Sudan)

I must ask how this is not a punishment to stick them with the child. Keep in mind a good number of the women raped are quite young, 15-18, who are not even old enough to adequately raise and support a child at that age.
 
Bonnie said:
There is adoption?
so she is supposed to be saddled with the pregnancy through no fault of her own other than being a female in the wrong place at the wrong time?
 
Bonnie said:
There is adoption?

This is one thing I disagree on.. I can not see forcing a rape victim to carry a child to full term. It's unfair to make them relive that memory in their minds every single day of their pregnancy term - 24 hours a day. They'll never forget it, but that pregancy just makes it that much worse.
 
Shattered said:
This is one thing I disagree on.. I can not see forcing a rape victim to carry a child to full term. It's unfair to make them relive that memory in their minds every single day of their pregnancy term - 24 hours a day. They'll never forget it, but that pregancy just makes it that much worse.

You are speculating the woman would not grow to love her baby. It's MORE unfair to kill a baby.
 
-=d=- said:
You are speculating the woman would not grow to love her baby. It's MORE unfair to kill a baby.

Unless you know both sides of the coin, you're unable to assume which is more unfair... At that point, and only at that point I think it fair to give the woman the choice. The only other time I believe an abortion may be a necessary evil is if the mothers life is in serious danger (and no, I don't consider "I can't afford it" to be "serious danger" - I mean life-threatening).
 
Shattered said:
This is one thing I disagree on.. I can not see forcing a rape victim to carry a child to full term. It's unfair to make them relive that memory in their minds every single day of their pregnancy term - 24 hours a day. They'll never forget it, but that pregancy just makes it that much worse.

And you don't think many end up being saddled with the guilt of knowing they aborted a baby inside them plus having to live with the hurt and fears that acoompany being raped? For many, it ends up being a double wammy for them later in life. I feel for them period!
 

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