FBI says there are 16,000 rapes per year. You quote stats of 300,000ish. Reminds me of a quote...

NedoftheHill 47390 posts Joined:
Posted

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination. "
~Andrew Lang (1844-1912)~

The stats on rape don't actually matter to the morality of this issue, so we need not have a battle of competing statistics. That is a distraction.

The problem with allowing an exception for rape is, of course, that every woman can just allege a rape to get an abortion. It is a huge loophole, through which you intend to justify every abortion, because that is your true goal. Even if I trusted your statistics, that doesn't undermine my previous post in the least. It is morally wrong to kill a bystander to a crime in an attempt to make the victim feel better. Query: If there was some magical way to determine if a pregnancy was caused by rape (or an actual legal process for doing so), would you accept not allowing abortion in non-rape cases? I've asked this before, and I never got an answer.

Your misrepresentation of Pope Francis' statement has been addressed on this board many times. I need not address it again.

You raise the point of just wars. I acknowledge that some homicides can be justified on the basis that they fall short of aggression in some way. A just war is one such example. Defense of home and family is another example. Abortion cannot be justified under this principle. Abortion is pure aggression against an innocent human.

You raise the point of personhood. Any society that attempts to define an acknowledged human being as not a person, to be dis-allowed from equal protection under the law, is not a just and moral society. History is full of examples of this, and injustice against entire groups of people result. You go down a dangerous path, and set a dangerous precedent, to start defining certain humans as full persons, and others as not. Recall that slaves were not full persons; you use the logic of slave holders for your argument. You raise this point in the context of Judaism...and of course, the Jews were victims of this legal theory of personhood in Nazi Germany. I do not accept that argument as morally licit.

The "quickening" is old law and old morality based on old biological science, which did not know about DNA, etc., and had no ability to determine if impregnation had occurred. It is not a theory which is applicable today, where we know that there is an innocent bystander with their own set of DNA, a unique human being. Besides, you disregard that theory, since you want abortion after the quickening. So, it is a distraction to raise that point.

Regarding Roe v. Wade: There is no reason that abortion homicides should be a national right, but self-defense, or defense of home homicides should not also be a national right. Do you support both at the national level?...then pass an Article V Amendment. There is no basis in the Constitution to establish such a right by judicial fiat. Homicides have always been defined by the state legislatures when they don't involve interstate activity. There is no reason to make an exception for abortion.

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Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence good.

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