re: #50 Hal_10000

Baloney. What the man said is dumb enough, but we don’t need to put words in his mouth.

This is perfect example of the abortion sides talking past each other. What Ryan is saying is that, if you believe a fetus has a right to life, it has that right. It doesn’t lose that right because it was conceived in rape. Indeed, the rape issue has long been a problem for the pro-life position (and is a key reason why I’m pro-choice). It’s always been difficult for them to make the argument that a fetus has a right to live unless its father was a rapist. It just seem they are no wrapping their mind around that dilemma the illogical way.

In fact, there are number of countries — Ireland, most of the Middle East, southeast Asia, Peru, etc. — that do not make a rape exemption (and that list probably tells you all you need to know about the worldview associated with it).

Ryan was not saying rape “is just a method of conception”. He was saying the method of conception does not affect the right of the fetus. Those are very different concepts.

In Ireland, where abortions are “not allowed”, the national health service gives women plane tickets to England and vouchers for NHS care.

So, y’know, as long as it doesn’t take place on Irish soil I guess.

The thing is… I see any unwanted pregnancy (even from consensual sex with a leaky condom) as not so very different from rape.

“So sad about your body being used in ways you don’t want, but somebody else is more important than your bodily autonomy. Your bloodstream, your kidneys, your thyroid, never mind the strains you’re subjected to, somebody else’s needs matter more than yours. Your center of gravity is thrown off for months on end, your body is altered so profoundly, so permanently, that if an anthropologist finds your skeleton a thousand years from now he’ll be able to tell just from looking at your bones whether or not you’ve given birth…

“But none of that matters because we value somebody else more than you. Somebody else has more rights to your body than you do.”

My objection to Roe v Wade is that I don’t think abortion is a privacy question so much as an involuntary servitude question. When women go into labor, we didn’t call it that out of a sense of irony.