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

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The heart, brain, and spinal cord are the first things to form. There is a heartbeat less than 30 days after conception, and there is brain activity around day 47. It doesn't matter how complex the brain activity is, because we know that activity is going to increase at an exponential rate.

So we're dealing with more than simply a piece of meat without a brain here long before 20 weeks.

This debate will get nowhere. Those who hold the view that the child isn't human or deserving of protection under the law until birth, 20 weeks or whatever are exerting their BELIEFS just like those who hold the child's life is to be protected from conception on are exerting their BELIEFS. The FACT is that biologically it is the complete genetic code that makes you human. Not complex thought, not age, not birth and not magic or what-ever word you want to throw out to invalidate each other's arguments. If you are prepared to live in a world where a parent can decide their child's life in not worth keeping because of ANY arbitrary reason, such as rape, then you are seeing the world very differently then am I.

Why stop at being able to kill the kid at birth? Self contained system my ass, a baby after birth is not self contained. Perhaps a full term child can breathe on its own, but does that mean that a premature infant that cannot can be unplugged and killed out of hand? If an adult human looses the ability to function, does the parent or child of that person have the right to decide they are no longer convenient? I don't CARE what you do with YOUR body. I care what you do to the child, that's it.

Why is rape considered to be such a horror that it grants someone the right to kill their child? What if the man tortures a woman he has impregnated, but not through rape, is it ok for the kid to be killed then? Where does this slippery slope end then, if she's slapped? Talked meanly to? Not called? Unfriended? Rape is a horrible attack and I think deserves the death penalty in many circumstances, but I don't think it should be a child that is conceived through the rape that should be the one killed.

If you want to take the extreme position that society has full rights to decide who is fit to live, and can decide that anyone can be killed because they are unwanted then at least I will respect that you are consistent. However, I think it VERY strange that anyone that has a disorder that is most likely genetic and that will within the foreseeable future be able to be tested for by genetic testing would support the state being able to decide that it can kill anyone it feels is unwanted. If you are unwilling to trust the state with that power, are you willing to trust individuals with it? No one should have that arbitrary power to just decide that another life is valueless and unneeded. That is really the debate here I think, abortion or not. No doubt those who are pro what is called reproductive freedom will continue to support abortion period and those who are opposed will stay opposed, but trying to frame the debate in the context of rape is not and should not really change this fundamental question, how much is human life worth? Do we actually value everyone's life or not? Are some people expendable for no better reason then that they are unwanted? A very dangerous and counter logical position for those who are Not NTs to hold I believe.

I'd be happy to be a thread kill on this thread as I don't really see the hard core on either side shifting, I am done.

The fact is that there is nothing magical nor holy about genetic code either. And legally we do not worry about it either. You can use spermicides legally and no one is screaming OMG YOUR KILLING BABIES. Sperm have unique human genetic code.

When we say that abortion should be legal , we are not pushing our beliefs on people. Women who believe that abortion is "OMG infanticide" will be free to keep their pregnancies and live and breed the son of a rapist for the rest of their lives. If that's what they want. We will not be forcing you to abort.

On the other hand, if you have your way and abortion is made illegal, you would be forcing people with other beliefs to continue pregnancies they do not want. Effectively mandating over their own rights to control what happens in their own bodies.



Yes it is ...




* It is a horror.
* It doesn't grant the rights to kill your child. For starters, it is not a child, it is a fetus. And it is part of your body. It does not grant any rights either, because women should be entitled to that right regardless of whether it was rape or not.

What you mean is that a woman should be forced to donate her own body to the cause of letting a rapist son be born. It is ridiculous, and you are in fact abusing the woman's body just as badly as the rapist did.

Imagine someone close to you (or yourself) gets raped. Call it an "arbitrary reason" then.

Actually, chances are someone you know did get raped. 1 out of 14 women has been a rape victim and that is the most conservative number regarding this. So, think about it.


Dumb straw man arguments are not worth taking into consideration to me.



bunnies have "brain activity" and by brain activity you, once again mean electric impulses that have not been correlated with brain activity.

The brain is not nearly developed till week 26. Until then there are not even connections between sensory centers and the brain.

Either way, since you agree there is no brain nor heart till 29-th day, then you should agree it is perfectly ok to abort 28 days old zygotes.

And that belief of yours that cells are magical beings worthy of more rights than actual living women count as personal beliefs and quite silly ones at that..[/quote]

Dummkopf. I will not address all the other points - I do not have that long to live and no matter what I address to you nobody opens the mail. But : are not "actual living women" clusters of cells? Last I heard they were. With some accretions like bones and hair and shoes, of course, but I have not heard anyone proposing that hair has rights.

Your statement that DNA isn't magical either really screams the facts as you see them; there is nothing special or magical about human life, period. I disagree, although I believe your use of "magic" is just meant to be an attack on the credibility of the other side.

I find it interesting that my not wanting a child murdered is in your eyes just as much a violation of a woman's body as rape is, if you think about it that means that I think rape is much more horrible than you do. As far as the logic that an abortion is doing something to the woman's body that is false. True as far as the dilation goes, but I am pretty sure it is not her body parts that are being sucked out and disposed of. Did I say anything about a spermicide is murder, please attempt to limit your arguments to the actual discussion not some other argument that you had previously. Sperm and egg are not the same genetically as a fertilized egg, one has a complete set of DNA the other two do not. I fail to see how aborting a child is not forcing your view, that it is not a child and that abortion if ok, on that child. Since the child is unable to defend itself you feel free to call it "a piece of the woman's body", but this is dogma NOT fact. All pieces of your body have your DNA, not half someone else’s, so try to stick to an occasional fact instead of just dogma.

The fact is that this entire debate comes down to some know that an unborn child is still a child and others find this fact inconvenient. You may also wish to look up the definition of a "closed system" as there is no human that is a closed system. We all eat, drink and breathe. Some even think, while others do not have a developed enough nervous system to do so. A newborn is just as dependent upon its parent/caregiver as the unborn 5 minutes from being delivered child is. "Straw man" me all you wish, the FACT is that some feel there are inconvenient people that can be called "Lumps of tissue" instead of a human being and then discarded and there are those who do not. This view is not unique; I believe it was very popular in the 40s and 50s in China and the USSR.

I personally am glad that my MOTHER did not find me inconvenient, and likewise that yours did the same.

As far as making abortion illegal, it already is. Its called murder, no changes to existing law are required, just education.

Please address this point, in some states murder has been charged for the loss of an unborn by an attacker. Were those cases wrong or are unborn children only really people that can be murdered when the mother wants them?

Oh, do you want everyone in the middle on the issue of linguistically disguised ameliorated infanticide?

You have utterly failed to understand my position. I acknowledge that a foetus is a distinct human being. I argue in favour of women's access to abortion in the full and certain knowledge that abortion will terminate a living organism. Your passionate assertion that an unborn child is a child does not settle the matter--at least so far as my view of the debate is concerned.



With respect to dependency I think there are three clear stages: pre-viability, pre-natal and post natal.

A foetus under 20 weeks gestational age cannot live independent of its mother under any circumstances. The threshold of viability may recede with advances in medical knowledge and technique, but the principle remains--there is a threshold before which no foetus can be safely delivered prematurely.

But even a foetus minutes away from delivery is still dependent upon its mother for respiration, alimentation and, to a lesser extent, hydration. The death of the mother will result in the death of even a full term foetus unless there is intervention to deliver. The post natal death of an infant's mother does not necessarily result in the death of the infant unless there is no one to step in to provide care--but any person can provide post-natal care, only the mother can provide for pre-natal needs. You cannot equate an infant who is breathing independently of its mother (even if artificial respiration is required) from a foetus still in utero.



I believe that such a legal definition is wrong. We have a long history of defining legal personality as crystalizing at the moment that a child passes, in a living state, entirely from the body of its mother. To criminalize injury to an unborn child is to place at risk every obstetrician, midwife and nurse who participates in the delivery of a child, and I suggest that such a move should be void as contrary to public policy. We want people to practice obstetrics. We want professional, qualified midwives assisting with the birth of children. To expose them to charges of manslaughter every time that a child dies in childbirth is to compound tragedy with folly.

The criminal law already provides for penalties for assault, battery and causing bodily harm in the person of the mother. To politicize this by purporting to create a legal personality in the unborn child is to jeopardize the administration of justice.

That last point is actually a pretty good one. There does appear to be some inequity in the laws.

However, I disagree with all the rest. Perhaps my unique experiences have led me to a different conclusion. I've had several miscarriages and strongly feel that "lumps of tissue" is a very accurate description. I very much wanted those tissues to develop into babies, but they did not. No babies were lost by my miscarriages.

I also have different take on the 'glad my mom didn't abort me' argument because my mother had a back alley abortion before they were legal and nearly died. Had she died, I wouldn't have been born years later.

The fact is, there will always be women who chose abortion. These women also include very young women who are less likely to fully weigh the consequences. So, when thinking about a 14 year old girl who's willing to do anything to get rid of the problem (not that I personally see it that way), I put her safety over the fetus'.

Personally, unless there was life-threatening condition, I would not choose abortion. However, It's not my place to judge another's decision.

Darling, just because there's a 'head region' in a zef does not mean that there's a 'head,' much less a 'brain.' Likewise, the limb twitches have been shown to be reflex arcs and muscle toning twitches, not purposeful movement (unscientific pro-life videos notwithstanding).

edit, addition:
wrt. mothers, my mother was pro choice and I was a wanted child. I would not have wanted to be imposed on her against her will.

wrt. 'fetal homicide' laws, I think that it should be seen as an egregious form of assault and battery, akin to stealing a kidney against someone's will.

Yep it needs a neo-cortex in order to be conscious. Anencephalics don't have one which is why they are blind, deaf, and unconscious. An unborn baby doesn't develop a neo-cortex until the third trimester, which makes it functionally anencephalic until then.

No he has a condition where he can fall asleep on the spot, so yeah he was quite literally born asleep.



You do realize that our brains can reroute things to different areas of the brain when there is damage. Furthermore, the neo-cortex could actually be there, but it just isn't identifiable that early in the pregnency. Additionally, the child would not be receiving sensory information that he/she would need to process and thus the actual amount of things the kid would have to process is fairly low.

So you all have apparently now acknowledged there is brain activity around day 47-48, so now you're trying to say if a certain part of the brain isn't fully operating yet, that apparently the child isn't a living being. Sorry, but I'm not going to play this nebulous oh so and so is not a person one minute but they are a few months later. In my mind the line is any brain activity that is detected, which unfortunately for the pro-abortion crowd, is well before the 3rd trimester.

Oh btw, I will also point out that if a baby is not a person, quite frankly you aren't either.

There is not anything magical about DNA that suddenly makes something a full human being with rights that triumphs human beings. You gleefully did your best to avoid my argument, sperm have human DNA, we do not consider them holy human life. Because they are not.

The second you stated that a fertilized egg should be considered "a child" you implicitly made the argument that human DNA is magical and makes a human being. It is not my fault that you used that argument.


We are not talking about "murdering" children. For starters, no, abortion would not be murder even if it were to consider it to be the end of a human life. Murder has a different connotation than "ends lives". And of course, it does not involve a child, it involves a fetus, and quite honestly, misnaming things does not earn you points.

In fact, the pregnancy you are talking about does not even involve a fetus, it involves a fertilized egg. Which is just a trivial cell.



Making abortion illegal requires you to force women to go through pregnancies. It is putting a mandate over their bodies. And it is no different than the way a rapist puts mandate over theirs. One is doing it for pleasure, the other is doing it to push his beliefs. The main difference seems to be the intention behind it and both are pretty terrible things.



You didn't. But you did ay that the cell that is a fertilized egg should be considered human merely because of its DNA. I extended that argument to sperm to show how an absurdly dumb your argument is.



In what world is this giberish about complete DNA more relevant than "has a brain" ? If we are already making arbitrary distinctions, let us make ones that make sense. I think a working brain is a very cool one. I think birth is also one that is very easy to enforce legally.

You are, right, you fail to see it.

I do not say that aborting a child is not forcing a view. I said that making it legal to abort a child will not enforce a view. Because women that believe that fetuses are people will be able to keep their pregnancies just fine.


You said a fertilized egg is a child. That is ridiculous, because it does not even have a brain. It is very inconvenient, for you, that you cannot make a compelling argument for enforcing pregnancies.



I have my definition ok. You may like to learn about basic facts about how pregnancy works. It is absurdly different to consider a fetus, which requires the host for every single activity. Every single one. A born child is a very different thing, the specific mother is no longer necessary, you can give it to another person and thus its life no longer overlaps with the rights of someone else.



You don't breathe do it through your mother's throat.




I personally find this the most absurd argument to use in this discussion and it is unfortunately very popular.

It shows that the reason you take it personally is ... Freudian? You are investing your own ego into the equation . You enter the horror of asking yourself WHAT IF MY MOTHER ABORTED ME!!111 ? Here's my answer: You would have not existed. No, you wouldn't have died, you just would have not existed. There would be no "you" to feel sad for not existing, because you wouldn't exist. It is not possible to feel sadness or frustration or pain when you do not exist. It is meaningless.

At the end it does not matter. Legalizing or banning abortion won't change the past. Me supporting abortion will not mean someone will take a time machine and make my mom abort me. So, it really does not matter.

It is not like the species was at any risk of extinction either. I promise you that abortion is not something women see as a nice thing to do or 'an easy way out' , or anything like that. They don't think "I'll have sex with this guy and if I get pregnant I'll get an abortion!, EASY!" or anything like that. The whole stuff between learning you are pregnant and aborting is always uncomfortable and something anyone would like to avoid. More so, most women would actually like to continue with the pregnancy (Except in the case of rape, I'd guess). So, no Apocalypse scenario in which everyone aborts weekly is likely to happen.

And I myself, would like there to be less abortions than there are now. Just like you. However, my reasons are different, I think that unwanted pregnancies are something that really should not happen in a well educated, not-messed up society. And I also know that abortion is a surgical procedure almost as risky as birth. However, I do happen to figure out that making abortion illegal is a sh***y way to reduce the rate, because cornered women will still abort, just outside the scope of law. That would increase the risks rather than reduce them.

So, I would just like education to be improved all over the world. The solution to the abortion problem is to have more contraception. Let teenagers be better informed of it, and make it far more accessible. That will do more to reduce the rate of abortions than any law to make it illegal.



Those lame ass laws have to change, yeah.

It is silly for you to bring these laws to support your argument. When those laws were introduced with the intention to push towards the agenda of making abortion illegal in the first place.

Last edited by Vexcalibur on 18 Aug 2011, 12:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

Oh, he was narcoleptic. I stand corrected; that did not occur to me. Still, a narcoleptic infant still has normal EEG tracings - they are still more sentient (and more sapient) than a zef before the 3rd trimester.


Eeeyeah, there has to be a brain for there to be re-routing in the brain.

No. The neocortex isn't something that would be missed at any stage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocortex


As I have already said in this thread, the EEG studies I cited before were taken on aborted (they used to abort whole in Japan) and severely preterm zefs and infants, not on zefs in utero nor through the body wall of the mother.


Strawman.
No one has said that a zef isn't a "living being." What we have said, over and over, is that it is neither sentient nor sapient, and lacks any capability for having a personality.


A zef before the 3rd trimester is not a person. A baby is.

The fetus could have invisible devil horns and thus a sign that it is actually a demon and thus we must end him. How do we know he does not? Maybe we should abort everyone just to be sure.

Since other than personal attacks your arguments are all based upon differences of definitions, things like child versus fetus then let me ask this; who gets to decide which definition is correct? Throwing words like "magic" "Holy" and so on around are your feeble attempt at making my arguments seem based on religion, but they are not. I am basing my entire argument around equal protection. Equal protection does apply IF the abortion is known to be killing a child, then it is murder, not whatever currently popular catch phrase is used to make the activity seem more palatable. Your definition of a child versus fetus is that the individual has been born, is it then ok to abort a child 5 minutes before they are born? What process, I hesitate to use your term, magical, converts this mere lump of tissue into a person that is granted equal protection under the law after drawing their first breathe? It seems to me that the taking of a breathe converting a lump of tissue into a human being is the real miracle.

'zygote,' 'embryo,' 'fetus,' and 'child' are all mutually exclusive medical definitions.

Life beginning with the first breath is the biblical/talmudic definition.