How do they have rights? Test a baby and tell me they know anything other than being alive. Maybe they have the instinct of staying alive as KSU pointed out, but cognitively they know nothing beyond that. Medically if they can stay alive, I guess they have rights, but biological development to stay alive is not possible before a certain point. What makes that point? This crowd claims they have rights, yet can not prove beyond a reasonable doubt when, only defaulting to conception as the time. Yet science has proved this isn't possible, using empathy as a weapon to convince others of this point is sad in itself.
Respectfully, you haven't thought this through very well. In deciding on when a baby acquires the right to not be killed (I'm speaking of moral rights - not
legal rights, mind you, which are an issue of jurisprudence), some people use birth, some people use viability, some people use conception. Only one of these has a moral basis.
Using birth as a dividing line is absurd and monstrous - aside from an umbilical cord and some fluid in the longs, there is no physical difference between a child 30 seconds prior to birth and 30 seconds after.
But there is also no moral basis for "viability" as the dividing line - not to mention that "viability" is ill-defined and keeps getting earlier with technological advances. Neither a 10 week old fetus nor a newborn infant are independent, self-sustaining life forms. Both require constant care and nourishment to survive. A newborn infant is really no more "viable" than the fetus. The fetus, just like the infant, will continue to grow and develop unless he or she dies or is killed. Sometimes fetuses die due to development problems, just the same as infants. There is no moral, logical argument for treating a fetus different from a newborn infant.
Conception it at least premised upon one inescapable scientific fact: this is when human life begins. That is a logical, moral basis for when life should be protected (from the start).
Rape and incest should absolutely be a reason for an abortion. As you sit in your ivory tower and look down on these women, they should have prevented this in your eyes. They are at fault for being raped, therefore, they should be made to have that baby. Regardless of whether it was their choice.
No matter what their background, rich, poor, young, and old, they better have that baby. Continue the rapist line so that other young women, maybe even your own daughter, can continue this cycle of birth. It can only help and improve the human race, which is what it is all about right? Let us continue this race and provide our children with a fine crop of rapist and murderer blood. That will ensure our kin will be safe.
Rape is a terrible offenses. For this reason, we punish rape criminally, and harshly. But the baby is innocent of the crime. There is no moral argument for killing a baby who is the product of rape. It is particularly absurd to suggest that
a baby should be permitted to be killed up to the moment of birth if conceived by rape.
The "rape exception" is also
mostly a red herring thanks to medical advancements. A woman who is raped can now be administered medication at the hospital that prevents her from conceiving. Of course there are still some situations where the rape will not be treated immediately - familial incest being the worst such example - but this is still not a moral reason to kill an innocent human being. It is a benchmark of our civilization and society that we punish the guilty - not the innocent. You can call that "ivory tower" if you like - it's true.
