Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Do you believe conception from rape is a legitimate pregnancy?
Abortion
- Thread starter Write4U
- Start date
Conception from rape is certainly a pregnancy. I don't know what you mean by "legitimate." As in the opposite of illegitimate? Illegitimate is a term meaning born to a couple that isn't married, so that would depend on whether the person who raped her was her husband. As in valid? It's as valid a pregnancy as any, medically speaking. If the woman wants to bring the baby to term then that's her right, and it will legitimately be a child, with all the same rights as any other child.
None of which has anything to do with my question, of course, so I will repeat it. Do you think that rape is the same as abortion?
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
What? Do you suspect I don't know the difference? Do you want definitions? Gimme a break, please.
Question is, if rape is an illegal act, is the resulting pregnancy legitimate? I think the legal term is "fruit from a poisoned tree", no?
If it is, is the woman justified in performing an abortion if she does not want to be burdened with an illegitimate pregnancy? Seems to me a woman would know very soon if the rape resulted in pregnancy at which time she would be presented with the choice to keep or abort.
It has nothing to do with "sanctity of life".
Killing a person is not illegal if performed by the State. Should we punish the executioner with 99 years in jail for flipping the switch of the electric chair? What's the difference?
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See above. It is a legitimate pregnancy. The child would be considered "illegitimate" if the rapist were not her husband. (That's not a legal term, that's just what the word means.)
No, that has nothing to do with the situation here. That's a legal term that means you can't use evidence if it was illegally obtained.
Again, it has nothing to do with an "illegitimate pregnancy." The choice is hers, period.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
What are you suggesting here? If a couple is married the husband can commit legitimate rape? As in valid?
I thought rape was illegitimate regardless of who committed the crime. Is there such a thing as legitimate rape in a human marriage? That was my original question?
And if the death penalty is a legitimate act towards an unwanted individual by society, what is the objection to abortion of an unwanted fetus by the mother?
You are using some very strange terminology here.
It doesn't matter what word you put in front of rape. It's still illegal. Husbands and many other people can commit rape. It is a heinous crime, and hopefully the result will be a very long jail sentence. It does not confer any special status, protected or otherwise, on any pregnancy that results. The decision is up to the woman.
Because the death penalty is levied on someone who has committed a crime; a fetus has not. Likewise a fetus is dependent on its mother; a criminal is not dependent on anyone were he to be released. Thus there's really not much equivalence between the two.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Illegitimate is not a legal term but it means what the word means? It does have a generic a priori meaning;
I submit its is your definition which is irrelevant here.
I agree with your sentiment, but that does not reflect reality. The actual legal practice is not anywhere near the reality what you posited here.
Apparently the choice is not hers to make at all and the doctor performing the abortion is threatened with 99 years in jail for murder in the first degree.
Yet the state can execute a person regardless if that person was legitimately or illegitimately conceived. That origin seems to be irrelevant in consideration of terminating a living organism. The difference is only being born or not. Riddle me that one.
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From Wikipedia:
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Fruit of the poisonous tree is a legal metaphor in the United States used to describe evidence that is obtained illegally.The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the "tree") of the evidence or evidence itself is tainted, then anything gained (the "fruit") from it is tainted as well.
History
The doctrine underlying the name was first described in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385 (1920).The term's first use was by Justice Felix Frankfurter in Nardone v. United States (1939).
Such evidence is not generally admissible in court. For example, if a police officer conducted an unconstitutional (Fourth Amendment) search of a home and obtained a key to a train station locker, and evidence of a crime came from the locker, that evidence would most likely be excluded under the fruit of the poisonous tree legal doctrine. The testimony of a witness who is discovered through illegal means would not necessarily be excluded, however, due to the "attenuation doctrine", which allows certain evidence or testimony to be admitted in court if the link between the illegal police conduct and the resulting evidence or testimony is sufficiently attenuated. For example, a witness who freely and voluntarily testifies is enough of an independent intervening factor to sufficiently "attenuate" the connection between the government's illegal discovery of the witness and the witness's voluntary testimony itself. (United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268 (1978))
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I have no idea what you are talking about. Our legal system places no consideration upon whether a child is legitimate or illegitimate when it comes to sentencing.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
The sanctity of life changes depending on being born (you can be killed) or not (you cannot be aborted).
So it has nothing to do with sanctity of life? We're just making it all up as we go along .
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
So sentencing someone to death has nothing to do with sanctity of life? Is that why the state can order thousands of innocent individuals to die on the battle field in an illegitimate war, but an as yet unformed fetus inside another living being is somehow sacred and must be protected from the sacrilege of abortion on penalty of law?
If we can decide who shall live and who shall die, it has nothing to do with sanctity of life. Then what's all the fuss about?
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Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Frankly, I don't now if billvon is pro-choice or pro-life either.I'm confused, Write4U. Are you pro-choice? Billvon is pro-choice, I believe. Not sure why it seems like you are at odds with his stance on abortion? Sounds like you both agree?
Note that I am not disagreeing with billvon, he is disagreeing with me. Apparently my reasons for being pro-choice are not rational enough by the strict interpretation of the law, but the application of the principle of the 'sanctity' of life is completely incomprehensible, both in law and in the real world.
That's what I am trying to get across to you. These abortion laws are completely incomprehensible.
Truth is that life is not sacred at all. It's an ongoing process of birth and death. There are no guarantees of any kind.
If everything that has ever lived is dead and everything that is alive is gonna die, where does the sacred part come is? It is a completely biased point of view by people who are alive. But oddly the sacredness of life stops at birth.
If you are preborn you're fine, if you're pre-school you're screwed and nobody cares whether you live or die. And if the child does survive and grows up to be a doctor who performs abortions, he/she may just need to be killed!
When we abort a human fetus its murder, when we eat a fertilized chicken egg it's an omelette. But then we have no problem with kiling other species.
So much for sanctity of life.
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
For the record, I too find this to be an ambiguous use of terminology.
The word 'legitimate' already has a meaning when it comes to pregnancy. And that meaning has nothing to do with the subject at-hand.
I'd hazard this is the same issue billvon is having.
W4U, legitimacy and illegitimacy has to be with the married status of the parents. Choose another term.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
No, I see no reason to change terms. Perhaps you may need to expand your understandng of the term. I posted it before but will repeat it
Rape is an illegitimate form of intercourse "inflicted" on another person, by anyone! All subsequent consequences are the result of that illegal (illegitimate) act and the state or its people cannot victimize the woman twice by forcing her to bring the offspring to term and dedicate 18 years of her life to raise a child which was "inflicted" on her to begin with.
Consistency.
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The whole spiel that anti-abortionists trot out about how they value the sanctity of life etc. is a smokescreen. Often we find that the very same people are avid supporters of the death penalty and also pro-gun (which they know leads to many deaths of innocent people).
The anti-abortion stance is about control of women, first and foremost.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Great. Except nowhere in there does it talk about pregnancy.
Rape is not authorized by the law. (Yup. It's against the law to rape.)
Is it your contention that some pregnancies are not authorized by the law? What is the sentence for a woman with an unauthorized pregnancy?
Well, considering I've just shown how you used it incorrectly....
But sure. You keep using whatever words you like.
Write4U:
1. There is no such thing as "legitimate rape", even by your definition in which "legitimate" means "authorised by law".
2. Marital status doesn't matter in rape. Sex without consent is sex without consent, whether you're married or not. In legal systems that aren't stuck in the dark ages, the archaic and harmful notion that husbands cannot rape their waves has long been eliminated.
3. The death penalty is "legitimate" in your restricted definition of "authorised by law" - at least in backwards legal systems that still retain the death penalty.
4. A "legitimate child", historically, was one that was recognised by law as the "true heir" to the father's estate -i.e. the child was authorised by law to inherit. The opposite was a "bastard child" or "illegitimate child" who had no legal claims to the estate. Legal reasons for conferring "illegitimate" status usually used to include circumstances such as the child being conceived "out of wedlock" (i.e. to unmarried parents). Again, in mature legal systems these days the marital status of a child's parents is not usually considered important in determining the responsibilities of the parents to provide for the child. But, once again, I note that there are still many backwards legal systems in operation out there.
By using the term "legitimate" in the narrow sense of "authorised by law at this time and place" I think you risk sowing confusion in the discussion. If I ask whether restrictive anti-abortion laws are "legitimate" I'm not interested in whether those laws are, in fact, law. I'm interested in whether the laws are morally justifiable and whether they lead to desirable outcomes.
I don't know why you want to insist on using the word "illegitimate" in this way, either.
1. There is no such thing as "legitimate rape", even by your definition in which "legitimate" means "authorised by law".
2. Marital status doesn't matter in rape. Sex without consent is sex without consent, whether you're married or not. In legal systems that aren't stuck in the dark ages, the archaic and harmful notion that husbands cannot rape their waves has long been eliminated.
3. The death penalty is "legitimate" in your restricted definition of "authorised by law" - at least in backwards legal systems that still retain the death penalty.
4. A "legitimate child", historically, was one that was recognised by law as the "true heir" to the father's estate -i.e. the child was authorised by law to inherit. The opposite was a "bastard child" or "illegitimate child" who had no legal claims to the estate. Legal reasons for conferring "illegitimate" status usually used to include circumstances such as the child being conceived "out of wedlock" (i.e. to unmarried parents). Again, in mature legal systems these days the marital status of a child's parents is not usually considered important in determining the responsibilities of the parents to provide for the child. But, once again, I note that there are still many backwards legal systems in operation out there.
By using the term "legitimate" in the narrow sense of "authorised by law at this time and place" I think you risk sowing confusion in the discussion. If I ask whether restrictive anti-abortion laws are "legitimate" I'm not interested in whether those laws are, in fact, law. I'm interested in whether the laws are morally justifiable and whether they lead to desirable outcomes.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
You are now arguing with the dictionary, not me....
I gave you a legitimate definition of the word. I don't know why you want to insist on me using another word when the definition I gave is quite adequate for its intended purpose.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
The word - as you pulled from your dictionary - is applied to rape.You are now arguing with the dictionary, not me....
I gave you a legitimate definition of the word. I don't know why you want to insist on me using another word when the definition I gave is quite adequate for its intended purpose.
Not pregnancy.
Pregnancy is not "illegal" and not "not authorized by the law".
This has been pointed out several times.