I feel like pro-lifers who are for exceptions for rape and incest are telling on themselves. If the fetus has a right to life, why should it matter how it was conceived? The least charitable interpretation is that it's really about making sure a woman faces the consequences of her action. For the rape victim it's "oh you poor thing, you …
I feel like pro-lifers who are for exceptions for rape and incest are telling on themselves. If the fetus has a right to life, why should it matter how it was conceived? The least charitable interpretation is that it's really about making sure a woman faces the consequences of her action. For the rape victim it's "oh you poor thing, you didn't want that sex of course you may have an abortion" but for everyone else, "you opened your legs willingly, so you're gonna carry that baby to term goddammit!". The extremists are at least being consistent.
A more charitable reading (and the one that is most likely) is that pro-lifers know it's unspeakably cruel to make a woman give birth to a child that was forcibly conceived. But how do you implement these exceptions? Do you need a conviction before you can get an abortion? It takes forever to get a trial. Does a woman just need to point the finger at someone? Talk about incentivising false rape accusations. If she just needs to say she's been raped than you've created an easily exploitable loophole. What is the point of the restriction then? If it's cruel to make a rape victim carry a baby to term then it's cruel to make anyone carry a baby to term.
If I remember correctly, Donald Trump got in trouble during the 2016 election for saying that women who have abortions should be prosecuted. A lot of conservatives flipped out, but it is the logical conclusion of the idea that abortion is murder. A woman is not a victim of an abortion, she is a willingly participant. If it's murder then everyone involved should be prosecuted. If it's not murder, if it's just morally icky, then why shouldn't the woman have the right to decide. It is her body after all.
The problem is, the criminal justice system moves like a snail. To claim rape, there has to be a criminal case. That takes time, and innocent until proven guilty is a thing. Those mitigations are nothing more than window dressing that aims to make extremists look less extreme. That rape loophole is not easily exploitable, but possibly the opposite. Damn ironic that with improved methods of contraception since Rowe was passed, the number of abortions has dropped. We are also forgetting that many women who seek abortions already have a child, and many are married. Young women ages 15 to 19 not using reliable birth control are the prevailing group. I see too many brains on this thread defaulting to the old trope that only single women get abortions.
I feel like pro-lifers who are for exceptions for rape and incest are telling on themselves. If the fetus has a right to life, why should it matter how it was conceived? The least charitable interpretation is that it's really about making sure a woman faces the consequences of her action. For the rape victim it's "oh you poor thing, you didn't want that sex of course you may have an abortion" but for everyone else, "you opened your legs willingly, so you're gonna carry that baby to term goddammit!". The extremists are at least being consistent.
A more charitable reading (and the one that is most likely) is that pro-lifers know it's unspeakably cruel to make a woman give birth to a child that was forcibly conceived. But how do you implement these exceptions? Do you need a conviction before you can get an abortion? It takes forever to get a trial. Does a woman just need to point the finger at someone? Talk about incentivising false rape accusations. If she just needs to say she's been raped than you've created an easily exploitable loophole. What is the point of the restriction then? If it's cruel to make a rape victim carry a baby to term then it's cruel to make anyone carry a baby to term.
If I remember correctly, Donald Trump got in trouble during the 2016 election for saying that women who have abortions should be prosecuted. A lot of conservatives flipped out, but it is the logical conclusion of the idea that abortion is murder. A woman is not a victim of an abortion, she is a willingly participant. If it's murder then everyone involved should be prosecuted. If it's not murder, if it's just morally icky, then why shouldn't the woman have the right to decide. It is her body after all.
The problem is, the criminal justice system moves like a snail. To claim rape, there has to be a criminal case. That takes time, and innocent until proven guilty is a thing. Those mitigations are nothing more than window dressing that aims to make extremists look less extreme. That rape loophole is not easily exploitable, but possibly the opposite. Damn ironic that with improved methods of contraception since Rowe was passed, the number of abortions has dropped. We are also forgetting that many women who seek abortions already have a child, and many are married. Young women ages 15 to 19 not using reliable birth control are the prevailing group. I see too many brains on this thread defaulting to the old trope that only single women get abortions.