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Re: Mourdock rape comment

Started by Sandra Craft, October 27, 2012, 08:37:14 PM

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Sandra Craft

Quote from: DeterminedJuliet on October 27, 2012, 12:51:21 PM
Quote from: fester30 on October 27, 2012, 08:11:01 AM
Let's keep in mind it isn't just men that believe these things.  There are plenty of women that also believe a raped woman should be made to carry that baby to term because the pregnancy is god's will.  There are women who have been raped and had a baby that claim to have gained strength and happiness by keeping the baby that resulted from the rape.  These are the women the extreme pro-lifers use as examples.  It's not just men.

This is a good point. 

It is a good point, and I'd like to bring up that it isn't always extremists who believe rape isn't a good enough reason for abortion.  In her 20s my mother became pregnant by rape and carried the baby to term then gave him up for adoption because, as she said, it wasn't the baby's fault he was started that way and he didn't deserve to die because of it. 

I wouldn't call my mother an extremist on this issue, and I'm not a pro-lifer at all, but I've always admired her for this.  I think it's more complex than we're allowing for here.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

fester30

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on October 27, 2012, 08:37:14 PM
Quote from: DeterminedJuliet on October 27, 2012, 12:51:21 PM
Quote from: fester30 on October 27, 2012, 08:11:01 AM
Let's keep in mind it isn't just men that believe these things.  There are plenty of women that also believe a raped woman should be made to carry that baby to term because the pregnancy is god's will.  There are women who have been raped and had a baby that claim to have gained strength and happiness by keeping the baby that resulted from the rape.  These are the women the extreme pro-lifers use as examples.  It's not just men.

This is a good point. 

It is a good point, and I'd like to bring up that it isn't always extremists who believe rape isn't a good enough reason for abortion.  In her 20s my mother became pregnant by rape and carried the baby to term then gave him up for adoption because, as she said, it wasn't the baby's fault he was started that way and he didn't deserve to die because of it. 

I wouldn't call my mother an extremist on this issue, and I'm not a pro-lifer at all, but I've always admired her for this.  I think it's more complex than we're allowing for here.

That's the beauty of the liberal position on this issue.  I would never say your mother was nuts or wrong for doing what she did.  I am certainly not against a woman choosing to keep a rape baby or give it up for adoption.  With the pro-choice position, that is one of the options.  She had the freedom and liberty to make that decision, and other women have the freedom and liberty to make other decisions.  The party that claims to be the party of freedom, liberty, and small government is the party that wishes to inject government into a woman's uterus and deny her that freedom and liberty to make a choice concerning that uterus, simply for religious reasons. 

OldGit

^ It's a mistake to ascribe such a position only to liberals.  In many ways I'm so far to the right that I leave our Tory party behind, but on religion and abortion - for example - I'm with you folks.  There's no reason a thinking person should stick to the whole party platform.

fester30

Quote from: OldGit on October 28, 2012, 10:11:48 AM
^ It's a mistake to ascribe such a position only to liberals.  In many ways I'm so far to the right that I leave our Tory party behind, but on religion and abortion - for example - I'm with you folks.  There's no reason a thinking person should stick to the whole party platform.

You're right, I was being too general.  I should have said social liberals in the USA.  There are social liberals in the USA that are fiscal conservatives.  In general, the social liberals in the USA are pro-choice.  Whether or not a person in the USA is fiscally liberal or conservative doesn't have anything to do with their position on the social issue of abortion, except in the narrow case where it comes to government funding of abortion, which is currently illegal.