For those of you that are anti-choice: Why should there be exceptions for rape and incest?

Well, we don’t have any of those here soo….

no they are not worth any less

People who are truly anti-choice don’t believe there should be any exceptions. After all, those adherents believe it is the woman’s fault for close family relations (it’s not really incest) and for those instances when a man needs to assert his rights and the woman is not sufficiently submissive.

(This is not my belief. But there are people, even politicians! who will publicly profess the beliefs above.)

Yeah, most anti-choice/pro-life people I know don’t believe there should be any exceptions at all. But those who do probably view rape as meaning that the woman has “suffered enough” and doesn’t need to suffer more, in which case they are valuing the mother over the fetus. But a truly pro-life person doesn’t believe in a difference between any fetuses.

Heh, this is a great question. Whenever this issue pops up, that exception is always reoccurring. It’s almost a rule that if one is born of rape then abortion is ok, among pro lifers. (on the internet anyways) I’m quite curious myself as to what they would say in regards to rape babies being a life, like any other baby. Most peope here are pro choice though, so I don’t know if you’re going to get a answer.

For incest, people might want to abort becaus there are many chances that the baby will be born with severe defects. (even though it is a life) Cannot think of anything for rape though, other than it being an unwanted baby.

@zenvelo makes a point though. I’m imagining that for those pro lifers who don’t see an exception, they would probably blame the woman for provoking the rape, or for enticing the family member who gave her a baby.

We are all pro choice. There is no reason to force a rape victim to give birth.

From an ethical standpoint, of course the question is a non-starter. If I believed that “abortion is murder”, then how the conception occurred would be immaterial. “All lives have value” in that view, and it wouldn’t matter whether the fetus were conceived in love, hate or any kind of criminal or violent act; a fetus is a fetus is a fetus. The health or viability of the fetus wouldn’t much matter, either, in that case.

Likewise, although the question does not address it, “abortion to save the life of the mother”: in most cases it is not at all certain that a mother-to-be in some kind of dire medical emergency “will die without question” if the fetus is allowed to stay to term, but it is certain beyond doubt that an aborted fetus will not survive. And we don’t make those kinds of ethical choices so coldly, either: We will certainly sacrifice one life to “maybe” save the life of a person who “might” need saving. No, we leave those choices up to the pregnant woman and her doctor – or to her adult next of kin if she’s incapable of making the choice.

But these exceptions are carved out of anti-abortion laws to make them at least somewhat palatable to voters. Because only a tiny minority of voters would vote for passage of an anti-abortion bill that had absolutely zero exception for cases of conception due to crime, or for bills which allow a pregnant woman zero chance to opt to save her own life with an abortion if a doctor recommended that.

This would be a great question to ask on a conservative website.

FYI, when I was a teen in the early Seventies, and Roe v. Wade was winding its way through the courts, I was in a “teen ethics” discussion group through my Catholic Parish. One week, the topic was abortion, and what we were taught was that “pregnancy from real rape is impossible, because the violence of real rape causes the body to shut down to prevent implantation.”

That is false, of course, but it is still widely believed, which is why there are statements by politicians about “authentic rape.”

One week, the topic was abortion, and what we were taught was that “pregnancy from real rape is impossible, because the violence of real rape causes the body to shut down to prevent implantation.”

Haha, wow.

A lot of anti-choice people tout their stance as being related to personal responsibility – that if you take the risk of having sex you have to be prepared to deal with the possible consequences. I guess that would be a reason why some of them are OK with abortion in rape cases – the woman didn’t choose to have sex.

I’m not sure what the justification for the incest exception is, unless incest in this case is a code word for rape that happens to occur within a family. Maybe it has more to do with the higher chance of birth defects in incest babies, but that’s weird to me because there aren’t exceptions for women who have inheritable diseases.

I think sometimes, also, they don’t actually think it’s OK in these circumstances, but they know their argument will never succeed without some compromises.

Just to be clear here I am not anti-choice in the slightest. I just try to understand what the thought process of the “other side” is when I form my opinions

The incest is usually with children under the age of 18 which constitutes rape as a child cannot legally consent to sex.

Ugh, we should just call it what it is then. It’s almost like they’re saying incest instead of rape to make it more palatable or something. I don’t get it.

There shouldn’t be, do not make the unborn child pay for the sin of any parent.

Getting raped is a sin?

^ No, why would anyone think that?

Pretty sure HC means, in the case of rape, that the father is a sinner for having raped the woman.

Got it. Shame then that the one who has to deal with the consequences is the woman. Anyway, I know better than to get into this – that’s not what this thread is about.

@Mariah Shame then that the one who has to deal with the consequences is the woman.
Life is not fair, especially in a world that is just the world. If someone plants a bomb and when it goes off it takes her right leg with it, but she lives, she is stuck with consequences that will last much longer, but that is how the nail hammers.

I agree with @Mariah. A woman who was raped is not a “slutty whore” who should be “responsible” for the consequences of her actions, because the pregnancy was not a direct result of her actions.

An indirect result, perhaps, depending on what she was wearing and whether she was drinking.

There are no exceptions, in my own opinion.
“Force” a rape victim to give birth?? No. Rape is wrong and sad, but the baby is still alive.
There are people all over this world who came into the world in unfortunate ways. As for incest- STILL A LIFE!! If you knew your child would have deformities or would be mentally disabled, would you take their life away from them? OF COURSE NOT. I’m pro-life, but I understand and sympathize with pro-choice. I understand the arguments and I see the very logical reasoning behind it. That being said, all of us have a divine calling to LIVE. Who are you to take that opportunity away from someone just because of their circumstance of birth?

I understand that what I’m about to say next is controversial and a very touchy subject. I understand that many will disagree strongly with this.

Saying one life doesn’t matter because of circumstance of birth is discrimination, and it is wrong. It’s the same as saying that because you have a Jewish heritage you are the problem with Germany. Holocaust. It’s the same as saying that because you have different skin you aren’t really a full person. Racism. It’s the same as saying that because you believe in and worship God differently than others, you are to be killed on sight. Missouri Executive Order 44 or the Crusades.
All lives matter, including those in the womb. So don’t you dare tell me that my baby’s life doesn’t matter just because I was raped.

I don’t think anyone would say a baby’s life doesn’t matter. If a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, of course she can choose to carry the fetus to term. I think the issue is that the woman’s autonomy matters, too… that the woman should not be forced to do so… abortion cases are the only ones in which we evoke such a stringent, trumps-all perspective of right-to-life.

Judith Jarvis Thomson wrote an article in the 70s that is pretty famous now. The gist… we do not morally treat the right-to-life as an absolute other cases. Yet in abortion arguments, pro-life positions want a fetus’s right-to-life to be absolute. The fetus is being given more rights than older life, and the woman is expected to be more generous with her body than any other person in any other circumstance. Thomson opens her article with a scenario that is analogous to a rape case: you wake up and find yourself in the hospital. A famous violinist is connected to your kidneys. You are told by another group of people that the violinist is dying, and has such a rare blood type that your kidneys are the only ones that can save him. The violinist is an innocent agent in all of this—he did not ask to be plugged into you. You are told you must remain plugged into the violinist for nine months—that it is your duty. You didn’t ask for it, but it is your duty.

The point of this situation: morally, you can unplug yourself. While it may be very nice for someone to remain attached to the violinist and save the violinist’s life, no one is morally required to do so. People may consider someone selfish for unplugging themselves, but it is someone’s right to do so: autonomy of body.

… And just imagine the implications if this were not the case—if people were expected to sacrifice something as fundamental as the right to their body, should someone else suddenly require it; (Thomson didn’t make quite that point—she points out how a pro-choice position expects women to act above and beyond the ordinary expectations of morality, to make such sacrifices that no one else is required to.) When a woman is raped, she has a developing fetus plugged into her body. She does not owe the fetus anything (any more than the person owes the violinist.) She has the right to unplug herself. She doesn’t have to, but she has the right to.

By the way, it is not “anti-choice”, that would imply one taking the choice to stop or star the life process, no one can make the sperm fertilize the egg even if you injected it in there in a lab, if it does it does, and if not it doesn’t. Once it happens it is a matter of if you will allow nature and biology to take its course to the most likely conclusion, life, of stop it which the body usually does not do naturally.

Not to get too picky, but it seems that the phrase “it is a matter of if you will allow” is a statement of choice… if I allow something to happen, the assumption is I could have prevented it and I made a choice to not prevent it. The argument, then, is whether or not that choice is moral.

Pro-life arguments, at least the way I understand them, place the morality in the act of having sex. That if a woman has sex, she bears the responsibility of anything that might happen. Or, more precisely, if a woman has sex, she’s consenting to more than the sex—she’s consenting to giving up her autonomy for ~9 months. To say that abortion is not a discussion of choice is to say the woman has already given up her right to choose—that by virtue of being pregnant she owes something to the fetus; by virtue of being pregnant she’s already consented to motherhood… If sex was only ever about procreation, I might agree with that argument—it would be like… I’m not sure what it would be like; something not necessary for an individual to do, but that also has only one purpose. But it’s not only about procreation—and abortion really isn’t about the fetus. It’s about a woman’s right to possess what everyone has in every other situation: bodily autonomy, the right to choose what happens to one’s body. Only when a woman is deciding to be a mother, or to carry a fetus to term, etc., is she consenting to give up some of her autonomy in this way. It is her choice, and it is her right to choose.

The phrasing “anti-choice” is perhaps a little purposefully inflammatory, but it also seems like it’s getting closer to the moral issue—no one is “anti-life,” but in the larger debate we are disagreeing on whether a woman has the right to choose an abortion.

“Except for in cases of rape or incest” is most likely a concession to the pro-abortion crowd by someone torn between wanting to protect the lives of the unborn and wanting the approval of people on the Left – demonstrating a weak grasp of actual ethics.
Alternatively, it’s a person attempting the same sort of incrementalism that they see so much on the Left.