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

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No more dehumanizing than arguing that they shouldn't have enough food and adequate healthcare after they are born whether or not their parents can afford it.

I prefer to view the issue through the lens of the total amount of inhumanity and the harm to society as a whole. I can't convince myself that banning all abortion is the lesser evil.

Concerning food: Ever hear of food pantries or food finders food bank...

Concerning medical care: hospitals do provide emergency care, and there are doctors that donate their time to charity run clinics in low income areas.

Seriously, stop depending on government.

I hear about the food bank every day. Several times a day, even. On the radio. I hear that they are short of food and send some people away with nothing every day.

About medical care, ever hear of regular checkups, immunizations, etc? these are not emergency care, but they are very important.

Seriously. You want these kids to live but you don't care how well.

nor in what mental state they end up, not to speak of the mother,

It's not that it is just the pro-life platform is hypocritical . They want to force a woman to have a baby but they don't want to pay for her medical care that she needs in order to have her baby.

"forced" by whom?
And your brother is a rapist? Bummer.

She forced by her family to marry the rapist.. My brother in law was a rapist but he crashed and burned.

I have never suggested that a foetus is not alive. From my perspective, it is undeniable that germ cells, zygotes, embryos and foetus are living tissue, and that tissue is undeniably human. But even in the face of the acknowledgement that a foetus is a distinct, living, human organism I still maintain my belief in access to abortion prior to the threshold of viability.

As far as Kennedy, J.'s statement goes, I don't disagree that the State has such an interest. But it is not the only interest of the State. The State also has an interest in protecting the life, liberty and security of the person of a pregnant woman. The issue is not whether the State can concern itself with the well being of a foetus--clearly it can, but rather whether that interest can be made to extinguish other interests.



I hope that we can agree that the question of, "which is the more fundamental right," is a question that is open to different answers.

Even if we disagree on the substantive answer, I hope that we can agree that each of our respective answers is as valid as the other's.



That's facile, and you know it.



I don't want to get too tied down in detail--my point, rather, was that the legal recognition of a right to life is no more absolute than any other right. There are limitations erected around almost all of our rights--with one important exception.

In considering which is, "the most fundamental right," I suggest that the most fundamental right is the right that no other party is capable of interfering with: the right to freedom of thought, belief and opinion. The state is capable of restricting my expression (by criminalizing defamation, for example). The state is capable of restricting my liberty (by imprisoning me). The state is capable of extinguishing my right to life. But the state cannot ever take away my right to think for myself, and to hold my own beliefs.

While this might seem like a semantic point, I think that there is an important truth: legal rights are only effective insofar as the law chooses to give effect to them. While we may see important linkages between legal rights and so-called "natural rights," I believe these linkages to be illusory.

I find it difficult to reconcile these two sentences with one another.



We certainly can. I respect your opinion and your right to have it, don't think otherwise for a moment. Unfortunately only one of us can have our opinions enshrined in law and they are, in part, mutually exclusive.



Agreed, my apologies.



I agree that freedom of thought is a fundamental right, but it simply cannot work without the right to life. You cannot think if you are not entitled to breathe.

Would you donate blood thrice a week for the next 9 months? There are people out there that would DIE if you don't. Quick. Do it.

Actually, maybe YOU would do it. But how would you feel about the government making such thing mandatory? Does it sound not nice to a guy who in the past opposed to the government mandating on our lives?

And try not to accuse people of pulling straw man. It adds hypocrisy to your crimes. Here's what a true straw man looks like:





It is not dehumanization when the target is not human. By no measure a 3 months zef which has no brain cannot for me apply to personhood. This society makes a point in killing things that are more advanced than that without any issue whatsoever. And by that I mean chicken.

OMG IT HAS TEH HUMAN DNAZ. But just that. Sperm, skin cells they have human DNA and I don't see god pouring tears whenever they die.

Rather, it seems that you are attempting to humanize something that isn't human only so that you could pursuit your (perhaps unconsciously) misogynistic goals.

You are saying we should allow infanticide, your rights end when you are violating another individual's rights.



I'm not the one being hypocritical, you just wish I was being hypocritical.



Quote 1: Is actually an accurate statement not a strawman.

Quote 2: What I said, if you look at what, I quoted when I made that response, makes what I said an accurate assessment of what the person I was quoting said.

Furthermore, your example of Sperm cells is highly inaccurate because the DNA isn't complete until it fertilizes the egg. Furthermore, last I checked skin cells do not have brain activity. I cited the beginning of brain activity as my starting point as to when life begins (which is about day 47-48).

You want to continue to be dishonest about what I said, fine. I will keep calling you out on it.

to say a human 3 month old zef is not a person is provable and objective, personhood requires consciousness, something it cannot physically attain at that point.

It has nerve impulses, not brain activity, Inuyasha. Clams have a more developed nervous system than a 50 day old zef. An organism with less nerve organization than a clam, even if it has a full set of human chromosomes (saying that a sperm has 'incomplete DNA' is one more demonstration of how little you actually understand about the issue, as if we needed one), is not worth an adult woman skipping coffee for a week, much less being constantly sick and facing the prospect of 9 months of being an invalid. Especially if said zef is the result of rape.

This is the attitude prolifers take the largest issue with.



Firstly one would only choose to use person-hood if one wanted to disqualify the unborn. I take it as disingenuous, does your proposing of the personhood standard mean that you are in favor of banning the abortion of all those who meet that qualification? We have seen many standards proposed by the pro-choice movement that they really have no desire to stick to... rather they see their raising of these things to be an attempt to stick-it to pro-lifers. Getting one of you to stick by the standard you mention might actually be a start.

Don't ask us which abortions that we ought to be in favor of until you know which ones you would say no to.

as i explained in detail before i think the limit is the chance of consciousness, something that has been detected at week 20, giving that a 2 week grace period coming to a limit of about 18 weeks.
now remember at the 20 week mark what they measured was far from a conscoiusness, but it was the definite start of one as they measured the "clock" sginal the brain uses so syncronize and comunicate between different parts of the brain. (in adults this signal is only visible during the heaviest stages of sleep or when knocked unconscious, it drowns in the nose of an active brain)

also one does not "choose" personhood because on wants to disqualify anything.
one "chooses" personhood because it is a neccesary differentiation between singular human cells and an actual being, it also serves to put animals in perspective as many facets of peonhood has been documented in some animals.

^^^^

You did not answer my question, after consciousness would you, in principle agree to ban abortion. If not then start a little bit smaller: name me one abortion that you would ban? If you cannot agree that we are dealing with an entity with rights at some point, there really is no point discussing this.