04-13-2024, 01:20 PM
(04-11-2024, 07:00 PM)Maxmars Wrote: Agreed. It is not fair for people to be chattel and not have a say in how their lives take form. "Rape" is one of those things that makes it not just understandable, but from the perspective in the very least of the victim, justifiable. I can't divorce myself from empathy in this regard. However, each person's choice is their own to make. No one wants a right to get raped... so any victim's consequences of it are likely to be equally abhorrent.
But how many abortions are brought about by rape? We know that is not the predominant reason for abortion. Just as 'saving a mother's life (or abuse incest) is not 'usual in these decisions... many are more 'casual' and 'run of the mill' reasons... "Not me, not now." Those abortions are an equal response to a nonexistent 'offense.' I offer the same idea... exigent circumstances allow for extreme remedies... but how many abortions are due to exigent circumstances?
(Not trying to be contrary here... we are generally on the same page... but the discussion would not be complete if we didn't visit this aspect of it.)
Truth is, we don't know (nor how many are the result of a single night of consensual (or maybe reluctant) sex.) Many women who have intercourse forced on them don't file a report (and some may feel that they "needed" to be forced (this was a trope in many, many romance novels before 1980))
Ursula K. LeGuin said it well when she wrote an essay about an abortion that she had... the child that she did not want would have kept her poor and unmarried (almost no one would hire a 'fallen woman' in that era) and would have prevented her from later having the three children that she gave birth to; children she wanted and chose.
Think back to when you were sixteen. Now imagine that someone you just met walks into your life, hands you a baby and says "this is yours" and vanishes. Society sneers at you for being immoral and your family kicks you out. You've got to feed yourself, your baby (nobody else wants it) and that means childcare (if you can find and afford it) and a job that won't fire you if the baby gets sick and you need to take care of it.
And you're just sixteen. You haven't even finished high school.
What kind of life will you have? If you have kids right now... do you think you would have had them if you'd been given a baby when you were sixteen? Do you think you would have met your spouse if you and your baby had been kicked out of the house when you were sixteen?
Now... what if you had the chance to stop the baby from being born -- at a time when many fetuses fail to implant (spontaneous miscarriage)?
Many abortions are because the woman wants a better life and WANTS children... when she's in a position to take care of them and herself.
