Sarah Palin stance on abortion: Rape isn't an excuse.

reply to post by David9176


Hey, David! Excellent post!

The very fact that every person has their own idea about it is the reason each person needs to make up their own mind about it.

I think the concern with Sarah Palin is that she may be in a position to legislate her morals on us. That's pretty scary for a lot of people. Women who get raped and become pregnant shouldn't be FORCED to carry and bear the child IF they don't want to.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


I understand her stance...and yeah it's a tough stance. Do i feel that way?? Nope. I don't think she would be able to change abortion to that extreme, nor do i think she would try to change it. It would be Extremely unpopular as most don't see it that way..i'm assuming. This is all my opinion of course.

The abortion issue is such a touchy subject i often wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. No matter your stance....wherever it may be....someone else is not going to like it.

Abortion is not Black and White. There are too many layers of Gray there. I just don't think this country will ever come together on this.

I don't think its good to ignore our stances...but we have to understand why others believe what they believe as most honestly think their opinion is just.

I won't fault anyone for that.

reply to post by FlyersFan


No one would force anyone to do anything. The point of Roe v. Wade is that a woman will have the right to choose whether or not to keep the baby. If a woman is raped, becomes pregnant but wants to keep the baby, more power to her shes a strong woman. If she decides she can't keep a child that was conceived out of love and hate, that she wouldn't be able to look at each day with out remembering what happened to her, MORE POWER TO HER. It's none of the government's business to tell a woman to tell her if she can or can't have a child.

My view has always been that men, especially a bunch of old guys, should not be making the decision. I really think in a country such as the US where talk of freedom is so often thrown around, that a woman should be able to choose.

If the majority of women want women to vote on rules, maybe.

I will not even think that as a man that I should be part of the policy making. What a different view it might be if men were the ones that bore children and it were their rights and choice being considered.

It simply amazes me how Palin considers herself a true patriot, but has no problem stripping away a woman's right to autonomy. Autonomy is a basic human right that shouldn't be watered down because it goes against Palin's faith.

If not black and white it's black and gray - the blackness of no life v the grayness of a life that will have all the ups and downs and vagaries of everyone elses.

Choice/freedom/autonomy I still can't believe that people use these to deprive another individual of all the choices, freedom and autonomy of life.

Men imposing this decision on women is often used as an excuse to allow it, a form of feminism which surrenders the female body to the continuing misogynism of culture. It's never the man who has to fill themselves with hormones and chemicals or climb up on the table. Of the 42 million annual abortions worldwide more female fetuses are aborted than male. Go to India and China and promote abortion rights as a "woman's right."

The argument "what about the starving children" is a sophistry, surely we are capable of tackling more than one injustice at at time?

Originally posted by David9176
How many of you out there agree 100 percent on your abortion stance? Everyone has a different perception on what is right and was is wrong..that includes Sarah Palin.

Yeah, is she far to the right/left..whatever....yeah...so are other people. Some are in the middle...some are middle/right and middle/left. Some are i dunno maybe somewhere left with just a touch of right.

Arguments about abortion always goes to one place....NO WHERE. It just brings out anger in people.

People are either Killing babies or violating a womans body. It's against God's will, etc.

It's just another issue to divide us and to keep us from seeing the big picture in the world.

I worry about my family...and whatever happens in my family would be my business unless it outright affected someone else.

People need to stop thinking they can save the world on this issue. It's not going to happen...in the meanwhile...their are Millions of people struggling to find something to eat...and we bicker about this.

umm, these questions arise because this issue is at the top of the moral decision chain that a mother would have to make, given the situation.

I don't think its a matter of thinking one can "save the world", Its a matter of agreement to what is the best decision.

and I don't think you can compare abortion to starving children in Africa (example) and believe one over another has more significance. all human life desirves moral consideration regardless of what endagers it.

It's a big issue, and not one that will be accomplished with laws. we must agree sincerely and not legally. These issues are discussed so that we actually can be united - its only because it has not happened yet that you think it is dividing us.

I'm not concerned with what so and so woman decides to do. I only worry about myself and my family which is what i've always thought other people should do.

This is a problem that unfortunately will never be agreed on. You cannot push your own personal beliefs on other people...it won't work. I understand that some think that they need to spread what they think is right, but it's doomed to failure in convincing people otherwise. Abortion is not an issue where one changes their mind back and forth.

Myself..i could really care less if Sue (example) decided to have an abortion or not..it's not my business to interfere. It doesn't matter if it goes against my beliefs or not.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
A lot of pro-life people feel that the child should NEVER be murdered.

If a woman has been the victim of rape, then why force her to then turn around and murder her own child? That puts a double burden on her.

She's already dealing with being raped.
Why force her to deal with murdering her child too?

But it's her life, and her choice if she wants to have a child. If she made the mistake, then yes she will have to live with that. But in this case, she was forced to be put in a situation. She is not mudering her own child, she was raped and basically the man used her for sexual reasons, it was out of her control. Why does she have to live with something been forced onto her, i.e another life?


If it was forced on her to have a child by been raped. Why the hell should she bring a child into the world, that was not meant to brought upon her. She has that right to choice. She also have to go through the painful process of being raped. She is not murdering her child, her life was abused and her freedom of choice was taken from her and she was forced to be in a situation where shouldn't have to be in. This case is far different, than a mother free willing having sex with a man, and knowing the consquences of having unprotected sex will undoubtedly do. Therefore this was out of her own free will, then it shows she abused her choices and then also gettting rid of the child etc.


Your logic is really flawed, this is someone who is also pro life ffs.

[edit on 21-10-2008 by mind is the universe]

Originally posted by David9176

Myself..i could really care less if Sue (example) decided to have an abortion or not..it's not my business to interfere. It doesn't matter if it goes against my beliefs or not.

"evil triumps when good men do nothing" - I'm sure you've heard it before. Someone is gonna interfere because of that reason. They want the best decision in "Sue's" life because they care. discuss it, there may not be a solution as a whole yet, but if we do not discuss it, then we just let each other trapped in our own "insoluble" understanding of the world.

Originally posted by juveous

"evil triumps when good men do nothing" - I'm sure you've heard it before. Someone is gonna interfere because of that reason. They want the best decision in "Sue's" life because they care. discuss it, there may not be a solution as a whole yet, but if we do not discuss it, then we just let each other trapped in our own "insoluble" understanding of the world.

And isn't Sue the best person to make the "best decision in 'Sue's' life"?

Shouldn't it be between Sue, her doctor, her God and her family (if she chooses to include them)?

I don't want anyone making a decision that personal for me. Thanks, but no thanks. The person who knows what is best for me is ME. If the decision to force me to have a baby I don't want to give birth to turns out to be the wrong decision, WHO is affected by that? You or me? You make the decision, pat yourself on the back for saving me from murdering a baby, and you live your life unaffected by what happens to me. Who knows what awaits me... depression? Suicide maybe?

I am pro-choice AND pro-life. Yes, it's possible. I believe that the choice should be available, but I hope that women only use it after much soul-searching, and not for "birth control." Abortion should be legal, safe, available and, hopefully, rarely performed.

Sue found out in February she was pregnant. She'd been married for just over a year and recently moved into a new home with her husband who made a very good salary with Lehmann Brothers. Both were delighted at the opportunity to share their success with a new child. Sue doesn't even contemplate an abortion. Come October, Sue and her husband have broken up. He wasn't the man she thought he was, during the last few months of the financial crisis he had lost his job and become bitter and abusive. She leaves him and has no chance of a good divorce settlement as her husband now has nothing. She finds herself giving birth to the child of someone she could never love now, her economic circumstances are dire, the child has a medical condition that will cost many thousands to resolve. Sue chooses to leave her matured fetus in a wood on a cold autumn night, unprotected and naked, the child dies and Sue is left able to resolve the problems in her own life and recover from the emotional and physical shock of the last few months with her family and friends.

This is of course a very realistic scenario, and probably even resembles some reality for someone, but right now there are not thought out resolutions for these "specific" situations, especially with low-income undereducated mothers. If abortion was available than theres one solution. solved.
But even if it was legal and available at low cost! There should be the option for life. No one said she had to raise the child.

There is two questions that must be asked if someone comes to the debate of abortion.

WHY?

1.) Selfishness

2.) Selflessness

Think about it.

I find the term Rape isn't an EXCUSE a little repulsive.
It makes it sound like it's something as simple as wanting to get out of class early.
I think the word REASON might at least add more weight to such an important decision.

Look, I'm of the view that having a solid no stance is just as illogical as a yes in all circumstances.

History has proven that rape can be used during a war/takeover as a means to ethnically cleanse by the invaders.
In Scotland during the 1300s it was LAW for the English nobles to have first conjugal rights to a Scotmans wife on the wedding night, as a means to breed out the Scottish.
I'm sure even though it was LEGAL by law, didn't mean that the scottish brides weren't raped.
So in the case of LEGALISED RAPE would it have been okay for a scottish woman to abort a nobles pregnancy, especially when it was designed especially to ethnically cleanse and breed out the Scot?

I bring this point up to illustrate how a NO abortion, in all instances, could be the end of certain cultures by an invading tyrannical force.
Would it be okay for a woman to have an abortion in this instance?

Jeez, we wouldn't need politics and the diplomatic system at all to bring nations together.
Just go in and rape all the women and soon the next generation would be the spawn of the master race.

I don't think I've explained this point as well or as indepth as I would like, but I'm just trying to highlight that with tunnel vision on the abortion issue, ie: no abortion under any circumstance, it could be exploited as some point in the future for a means a lot bigger than just in the present context of today.

Edited to add my last point....Maybe a journalist should run this scenario past Sarah Palin and then see what she says.

[edit on 22-10-2008 by Flighty]