If a girl is raped and pregnant, should she keep the baby?

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People have said the same thing about other people throughout history, that they are somehow less than human, they use that to justify in their minds mass murder, because hey they aren't people.

@ LKL

How about you go invent an artificial womb then. The child is not the rapist, they didn't ask for the woman to be raped, and they sure as heck didn't ask for you to snuff their life out.


You have said the child is subhuman, a thing, compared said child to a parasite. I don't know if there are any children of rape victims on this board, but if there were I wouldn't be surprised if they would be extremely angry with you right now.


Yes, what happened to the woman is awful and yeah many of them probably don't want the child. That said, pregnency lasts x number of months, while an abortion tends to be the ending of a child's life or permanently maiming them (yeah there are kids that survive attempted abortions). Either choice isn't exactly pretty putting it mildly, but when it comes down to it, carrying the child to term isn't something a woman is going to be doing for the rest of their lives, while in the case of an abortion that is pretty much denying the child the right to live (which is kinda permanent).

I ask you again, what crime did the child commit?

Err, it seems a bit problem of communication here, as I think they are interpreting "half-rapist" differently than I am, or is their interpretation of a half-rapist zygote correct? Because that would be absurd.


Do you mean that the son is genetically predisposed to commit rape as their father? There is a reason for this to not be taken seriously, rape is not a psychiatric nor neurological condition by itself, rape is an act, period. It's the result of some issues, ergo, it does not directly propagate through genes, rather personality characteristics and other conditions are, as well as nurture has its part. Given that explanations on what causes some people to commit rape is up to debate, as well as there seem to be numerous causes and what rape actually is, such claim and belief gets 1) highly questionable, 2) utterly simplistic, 3) no conclusive evidence for a direct genetic link, 4) it should correlate with other things such as wether murder is genetically transmitted (when the child is not raised by the murderer)

The difference is, those groups were simply demanding equal rights. Not special rights. Not license to take away other people's rights.



So you're against any abortion, no matter how early, even if it's just 3 layers of tissue, because the thing is a 'child'? Thanks for taking a s**t on my humanity and those of women everywhere.



It's their amygdala and their right to use that amygdala to be angry. It's also my right to be extremely angry at the idea of being forced against my will to be pregnant and give birth.



I don't know. I think I'd be permanently maimed mentally if I were forced through that.

In any case, I don't think the suffering is comparable even if the fetus were advanced enough and could feel pain...one blast of pain then death, versus 9 months of horrific suffering then living the rest of your life with that memory?



You have used that strawman multiple times, and it has been pointed out multiple times, so quit it. Nobody said the "child" committed a crime.

Birth control should be readily available so in a perfect world it would never have to come to that altho unfortunately a lot of women do not report rapes. Regardless of that reality, I see no reason why an abortion could not be done could not be done in the first trimester. Education and support is obviously the best solution so that pregnancies from rape do not happen in the first place.

I didn't know the Nazis were demanding equal rights, nor do I think the Communists in China were advocating equal rights.



If there is any brain activity (which is detected actually fairly early in the pregnency, I don't care how primitive, I view that to be the point when we are talking about a child's life. Your argument that I'm somehow anti-woman is rather ridiculous though, I never said that I view women as walking incubators, I'm looking at two ugly scenarios and choosing what I feel to be the lesser of the two evils. In a perfect world there wouldn't be any acts of rape committed.



Again what crime did the child commit, if it wasn't for the fact that Law Enforcement has had a bad habit of wrongful convictions when it comes to rape cases of late, I would support rapists potentially getting the death penalty.




Oh so because you feel pain or are suffering you have the right to take an innocent life in hopes you feel better?!?!? If you had said you would go shoot the rapist, I would say that would be taking the law into your own hands, but I would actually consider that justifiable homicide, and seriously doubt a jury would convict you of murder.



Then why are you advocating killing the child if the child didn't commit any crimes? This isn't a strawman argument.

I'm talking about oppressed groups, not oppressors. I fail to see how an abortion is analogous to taking away the rights of people who happen to be Jewish or Tibetan.



1. 'I view' is the operative word here

2. Sorry, but that viewpoint IS dehumanizing to women. No one else is expected to donate the use of their bodies. Why should pregnant women?



Abortion is not 'taking an innocent life' it's simply refusing to give up your body to support the 'innocent life'. It's no more murder than if someone is trying to take my kidney and I fight back and escape.



Because she has the right NOT to have her body occupied.

In a perfect world, those who were conceived through rape wouldn't exist.


No one is advocating the killing of children, because there is no child involved.

You are overstating the level of knowledge we have on the subject. I am not talking about what is referred to as the 'hard problem of consciousness' rather the 'genuine problem of consciousness'. Also people like Hameroff could be correct and consciousness would not necessarily be establishable on present science.

Regarding the above messages: finding abortion upsetting is not dehumanising to women, that's just BS and being too black and white. There aren't two extremes to the issue, like pro-choice/ANTI WOMAN! I am pro choice but I still find abortion a sad thing and I'd never do it myself, but if someone wants to they can. Inuyasha isn't anti-woman just because he doesn't think a foetus is some sort of disgusting parasite that should be rid of.

A newborn baby doesn't have the same level of consciousness as an older child and doesn't exactly think past "I want food and cuddles!" and a child can't even recognise itself in the mirror until 2 years of age! But that child will develop a more complex consciousness as it grows, and no-one doubts their personhood. A foetus grows into a recognisable human, it's not just some thing attached to you sucking out your energy for 9 months then disappearing again.

Last edited by MONKEY on 08 Aug 2011, 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

For the record I'm a guy.

The keystone to many pro-abortion arguments is the notion that the child is somehow less than human, as soon as they acknowledge the child is another human being a lot of their argument goes out the window and it changes the entire debate.

Oh woops, I shall edit the post.

And yes I know, I don't see it as any less that human, since my definition of human is just having right biology. And even if it's not as developed as the more subjective definition of "human" it certainly has the potential to be! And the potential is enough for me to personally prefer the baby alive.

I did not say that at all.

What I think is dehumanizing to women is he is flat out AGAINST abortion.

Finding it upsetting is fine. Arguing that women should be forced to have babies is not fine.

You are incorrect.

Many of the pro-choice people I know are pro-life when it comes to what they would do with respect to their own bodies and pregnancies (real or hypothetical) - however, they don't feel that they have the right to take away someone else's access to abortions simply because of their personal opinion on the matter.

The issue I have with the vehement "pro-life" side is that they somehow believe that their beliefs should dictate what others can and cannot do. They think that their beliefs are somehow more important or "right", and they refuse to acknowledge that other people may face very different circumstances from their own.

I myself am pro-life when it comes to my own body and potential offspring. I cannot imagine aborting the fetus of a rapist. I cannot imagine aborting any child.

But I am not every woman, and I do not feel that I have any right to impose my "rules" on anyone else.

Also, Inuyasha, you really need to stop with the "pro-abortion" garbage. I am not "pro-abortion". I am, however, all for leaving the decision making up to the individual. Or maybe I should call you "pro-oppression"? "pro-subjugation"? Really, get over yourself.

@91 as you point out we have no clear limit of consciousness but we od have some limits we can compare to in both braindead, comatose and hundreds of other human conditions involving neurology,
then we can combine what we know about animals and their brain functioning and in the end you stand witha pretty darn foolproof method up to a certain age.
there is a reason everyone keeps stating the 12 week limit as it is almost a month before any observed conectivity in the brain.

this has nothing to do with killing anything, it has to do with the health both mentally and physically of the mother, if she feels having the child will help then she should have all the support she needs.
forcing anyone under any circumstance to have a pregnancy is in my view cruelty, it induces real suffering in a human right now and might continue far past any dealings the mother might have with the child.

in the end i think we have to examine why we give ourselves as human beings rights and to what extent they should extend to others.

i think what humans unique is our capability of consciouss thought,
it is what truly seperates us from most animals, (some animals show testable understanding of human social behavior, for one)
i also think we should look at the actual cost of forcing anyone to sacrifice their body in such a way.

I think we both recognize the limitations in this view. I am not attempting to show that a child in the womb is conscious of the event. I don't they are. That said, there certainly is brain activity before 12 weeks. Where people differ in opinion id in relation to how much this means and what this represents. I don't really care all that much about that either. Consciousness and personhood are flawed standards, one can find too many loopholes to exploit. Rather I think what makes human unique, at the most basic level is our individual DNA. That said, human life, in my view, requires no justification. A mother may have a good reason for not wanting a child, but if one respects the intrinsic value of human life, almost no excuse can be good enough for killing the infant.

*edited quote

Last edited by 91 on 08 Aug 2011, 10:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

brain activity at 18 weeks only show what is the basic "clock" of the brain, at that point it can start to properly connect and all evidence shows that without that conectivity there is no consciousness.
it isnt quite the mystery term it was 5 years ago not to speak of 20, that is not to say that we know any of the fundementals but we do know of some of the conditions surrounding them.

my problem with making humans "special" is that with fair probability we are not, we dont know, but to asume we would be the only intelligence ever to arrise is just as far fetched as not.
it might even happen here on earth, now what do we do on that day where we clearly arent "special"?

as for human dna, we share much of that with animals yet they have almst none of the rights we give ourselves, i suspect there will be quite the variance within humans, so where does the limit go?

in the end defining humans as "special" is no better than defining our consciousness as special, at least the latter can be applied by ability and not inheritance.