toldailytopic: What about abortion in cases of rape?

[ebenz47037]

The rapist should be aborted.

For once . . . something we agree on . . . :thumb:.

I agree with this. :thumb:

 

[oldhermit]

Let me run this up the flag pole.
Let's say you have a rape victim with rapist sperm in her Uterus and you have some spermicide.
There might be a fertilized egg, there might not be.
Let's say using the spermicide would take out the fertilized egg as well (if it's there).
A pregnancy test is of no value since the fertilized egg isn't transmitting yet.

So;
You could;
A. install the spermicide and unknowingly destroy the child.
Or
B. not install the spermicide and assit the rapist sperm is fertilizing an egg the next day or so after.

What do you do?

One cannot simply fain ignorance and justify killing a living fetus. If the use of a spermicide could be employed with the certainty that fertilization has not yet taken place, I see no problem with this. The problem lies in the fact that there is no way that we can know. Therefore, I would suggest that we are gambling with even the possibility of life. With this, I would have a problem.

Let me also offer this. All senarios are rooted in contengency. Through the creation of scenarios we attempt to manipulate circumstances to justify a particular point of view or to justify a particular agenda, i.e "the end justifies the means." Now, I know that as an atheist, you probably will not agree with what I am about to say but, all the "what if's" in the world will never be able to stand against the logical argument. Scenarios are generally used in an attempt to overturn the facts. Somehow, people tend to believe that scripture breaks down in the extreem and will not hold up to the logcal argument.

 

[oldhermit]

Well, it's you moving the goal posts and, in your case, using an hypocritical argument given your position.

The fetus is protected up to a point, that point being in conjunction with harm to the potential mother and is totally irrelevant to cases of legal abortion.

How it moves the goal posts is that for you to use the argument, in light of the ever-changing laws of society, you are required to work from a position of moral relativism.

I'd be happy to carry on this discussion later. I won't be back online until Tuesday due to a fishing holiday in Long Island. Have a great weekend!

Enjoy your fishing. Wish I was going with you.

 

[fool]

One cannot simply fain ignorance and justify killing a living fetus. If the use of a spermicide could be employed with the certainty that fertilization has not yet taken place, I see no problem with this. The problem lies in the fact that there is no way that we can know. Therefore, I would suggest that we are gambling with even the possibility of life. With this, I would have a problem.

Let me also offer this. All senarios are rooted in contengency. Through the creation of scenarios we attempt to manipulate circumstances to justify a particular point of view or to justify a particular agenda, i.e "the end justifies the means." Now, I know that as an atheist, you probably will not agree with what I am about to say but, all the "what if's" in the world will never be able to stand against the logical argument. Scenarios are generally used in an attempt to overturn the facts. Somehow, people tend to believe that scripture breaks down in the extreem and will not hold up to the logcal argument.

So......
A or B ?

 

[alwight]

One problem I see with this is that most people consider a fetus a human as soon as there's a detectible heartbeat. Most women don't find out that they're pregnant until eight weeks or more. A heartbeat can be detected around 8 weeks.

I may not win many friends here but I would be in favour an option to make sure preemptively that the woman had not been made pregnant by a rapist, nobody need ever know if she was. I don't know just how soon a pregnancy could physically be detected if it was thought urgent enough but I'd guess rather less than 8 weeks.

 

[oldhermit]

So......
A or B ?

Just on a personal note, I would have to say B just for the sake of my own concience.
Also, I would not see this as assisting the rapist, but protecting the child.

 

[fool]

I would equate that with an accident, not a deliberate premeditated attempt to kill a human being.


Like I chop down a tree and it happens to fall on someone and kills them.
It was an accident and not my deliberate premeditated attempt to kill someone.

Abortion is a deliberate premeditated attempt to kill.

Thank you for your answer.

 

[Selaphiel]

A small cluster of cells (zygote) is no more a child than were the egg and sperm shortly before conception imo.

I would say a zygote is entirely different from an egg or a sperm before conception. A zygote only seems insignificant when isolate in that instant, but a zygote naturally develops into a human being, that is not the case of an egg or a sperm.

It is a form of reductionism to speak of it as "just a cluster of cells", it is overly reductionistic because you isolate what it is at a specific point of time from its natural goal and what it will be if allowed to naturally develop according to its nature. The natural end of a thing is part of its nature.

 

[fool]

Just on a personal note, I would have to say B just for the sake of my own concience.
Also, I would not see this as assisting the rapist, but protecting the child.

But you would be seeing it wrong.
If there is no child, then you'd be protecting the rapist sperm.
Pure and simple.
If there is no child then you can't protect it.
You'd be willing to have a rape victim become pregnant when she didn't need to be to assuage your own conscience?

 

[oldhermit]

I would say a zygote is entirely different from an egg or a sperm before conception. A zygote only seems insignificant when isolate in that instant, but a zygote naturally develops into a human being, that is not the case of an egg or a sperm.

It is a form of reductionism to speak of it as "just a cluster of cells", it is overly reductionistic because you isolate what it is at a specific point of time from its natural goal and what it will be if allowed to naturally develop according to its nature. The natural end of a thing is part of its nature.

Very Good!

 

[oldhermit]

But you would be seeing it wrong.
If there is no child, then you'd be protecting the rapist sperm.
Pure and simple.
If there is no child then you can't protect it.
You'd be willing to have a rape victim become pregnant when she didn't need to be to assuage your own conscience?

There are too many unknowns. I do not know how long it takes for a sperm to join with the egg. I suppose then that time would be quie a relevant factor. Also there is question of confirmation. How soon could this be determined?

 

[fool]

There are too many unknowns. I do not know how long it takes for a sperm to join with the egg. I suppose then that time would be quie a relevant factor. Also there is question of confirmation. How soon could this be determined?

I'm a construction superintendent so my knowledge is open to correction at any time by pretty much everyone but here goes;

The sperm joining with the egg is pretty much an instant in time.
Sperm can live for days inside the woman.
You won't know that you have a fertilized egg until it implants. (which could be days after it fertilized.

So, without the spermicide you could be allowing the rapist sperm to ambush an egg that hasn't even dropped yet.

Or

You could be killing a child that was conceived seconds after the rape.

Or (just to add some more cowbell to the problem) you could be killing the womans child that she conceived with her husband the day before (that hasn't implanted yet).
(don't let this last part throw you of the first question because it might not matter, if she hadn't seen her husband for a month for example, I just throw it out there for the peanut gallery to consider as they weigh this in their minds)

 

[Eeset]

Murder? The Bible I read not only condones it but in many places God actually commands it. Deuteronomy 22:22 for example. Jericho of course escalates it to the extermination of a whole tribe for the sin of occupying land God gave to his chosen people. Shall I go on with hundreds of more citations?

We as a nation go to war against effectively unarmed peoples because we don't like what we think they might be planning to do at some future date and we call it liberation while we kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians including pregnant women.

Add to all that the not so minor detail that no church has ever determined when our soul enters the bodies we inhabit. But, various churches have taken the position that a very young child who dies is taken straight to heaven.

For these and many other reasons I am opposed to abortions but I am also opposed to making them illegal. Fortunately I never became pregnant as a result of being raped but had I suffered that fate I will guarantee you that I would have turned to God for direction. And however the Holy Spirit led me I would follow in spite of any laws made by men.

 

[oldhermit]

I'm a construction superintendent so my knowledge is open to correction at any time by pretty much everyone but here goes;

The sperm joining with the egg is pretty much an instant in time.
Sperm can live for days inside the woman.
You won't know that you have a fertilized egg until it implants. (which could be days after it fertilized.

So, without the spermicide you could be allowing the rapist sperm to ambush an egg that hasn't even dropped yet.

Or

You could be killing a child that was conceived seconds after the rape.

Or (just to add some more cowbell to the problem) you could be killing the womans child that she conceived with her husband the day before (that hasn't implanted yet).
(don't let this last part throw you of the first question because it might not matter, if she hadn't seen her husband for a month for example, I just throw it out there for the peanut gallery to consider as they weigh this in their minds)

That is a very good point and certainly a valid concern. Thank you.

 

[MaryContrary]

One cannot simply fain ignorance and justify killing a living fetus. If the use of a spermicide could be employed with the certainty that fertilization has not yet taken place, I see no problem with this. The problem lies in the fact that there is no way that we can know. Therefore, I would suggest that we are gambling with even the possibility of life. With this, I would have a problem.

Let me also offer this. All senarios are rooted in contengency. Through the creation of scenarios we attempt to manipulate circumstances to justify a particular point of view or to justify a particular agenda, i.e "the end justifies the means." Now, I know that as an atheist, you probably will not agree with what I am about to say but, all the "what if's" in the world will never be able to stand against the logical argument. Scenarios are generally used in an attempt to overturn the facts. Somehow, people tend to believe that scripture breaks down in the extreem and will not hold up to the logcal argument.

Just on a personal note, I would have to say B just for the sake of my own concience.
Also, I would not see this as assisting the rapist, but protecting the child.

:thumb:

But you would be seeing it wrong.
If there is no child, then you'd be protecting the rapist sperm.
Pure and simple.

First, let's remember how far to the extreme you're carrying this point.

That said,...so what? It's just a sperm. It's not a rapist sperm, it's just a sperm. At this extreme, does the rapist's guilt carry over to this sperm? So whether or not it's a rapist's sperm is irrelevant.

If there is no child then you can't protect it.
You'd be willing to have a rape victim become pregnant when she didn't need to be to assuage your own conscience?

Well, that's just it. In your scenario we don't know if there's a child. You say here if there is no child. Since we can't know that in your scenario, how can we be said to "have a rape victim become pregnant"? We don't know yet is she is. We don't know if we're aiding her in becoming pregnant. We don't know anything. Hence, erring on the side of life being the obvious moral choice here.

This boils down to taking the chance of killing a baby for the sake of a chance at avoiding pregnancy. I don't see how this is any different from the root question of whether or not it's right to abort in the first place.

Your risking killing a baby for the chance of not being pregnant in the first place...what's the difference between that and having an abortion? I don't see one. You merely introducing the element of chance into things. :idunno:

 

[MaryContrary]

Murder? The Bible I read not only condones it but in many places God actually commands it. Deuteronomy 22:22 for example. Jericho of course escalates it to the extermination of a whole tribe for the sin of occupying land God gave to his chosen people. Shall I go on with hundreds of more citations?

We as a nation go to war against effectively unarmed peoples because we don't like what we think they might be planning to do at some future date and we call it liberation while we kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians including pregnant women.

Add to all that the not so minor detail that no church has ever determined when our soul enters the bodies we inhabit. But, various churches have taken the position that a very young child who dies is taken straight to heaven.

For these and many other reasons I am opposed to abortions but I am also opposed to making them illegal. Fortunately I never became pregnant as a result of being raped but had I suffered that fate I will guarantee you that I would have turned to God for direction. And however the Holy Spirit led me I would follow in spite of any laws made by men.

Murder is killing, but killing isn't always murder. It's quite possible to kill without committing murder. Happens all the time. Like, for instance, in self defense. Or, for the more obvious instance, when God authorizes you to kill. He has that authority.

 

[The Barbarian]

Osama bin Laden thought God gave him the authority to kill people. So did Calvin and Torquemada, and Jim Jones.

Which leads me to believe that we need to institutionalize anyone crazy enough to believe God authorizes them to kill other humans. We do it sometimes, because the evil of killing a human is occasionally less evil than letting that human loose to kill others.

That's about all that can be said about it.

 

[oldhermit]

Murder? The Bible I read not only condones it but in many places God actually commands it. Deuteronomy 22:22 for example. Jericho of course escalates it to the extermination of a whole tribe for the sin of occupying land God gave to his chosen people. Shall I go on with hundreds of more citations?

You have to remember Eeset that whatever God does will be on the basis of justice that is rooted in his own nature. In the case of those nations that God commanded Israel to utterly destroy, this is a matter of judgement upon that nation. But, as with all of God's judgments, judgment is also redemptive. For those children that were slain, God is redeming them out of a perverse society. For them, death become a blessing. It is hard for us to see death the way God sees death and we should never hold God accountable to any human concept of morality or ethics.

 

[MaryContrary]

Osama bin Laden thought God gave him the authority to kill people. So did Calvin and Torquemada, and Jim Jones.

Which leads me to believe that we need to institutionalize anyone crazy enough to believe God authorizes them to kill other humans. We do it sometimes, because the evil of killing a human is occasionally less evil than letting that human loose to kill others.

That's about all that can be said about it.

Doesn't change the fact that anyone actually authorized by God to kill does not commit murder in doing so.

 

[fool]

That is a very good point and certainly a valid concern. Thank you.

Thank you for taking it under consideration.
I'll add that I am against abortion because I consider that fertilized egg to be someones son, grandson, nephew, brother, cousin, so on.
But, we mus'nt let our humanity turn us into monsters worse than the rapist.