hfavr@hogpd.UUCP (A.REED) (04/04/84)
This is a reply to ihnp1!dolan. Lines prefixed by > are quotes. >I would define rape as the forcible entry of the male organ into the >woman's body. So if someone pushed a broomhandle up your rectum, it wouldn't be rape? >The fetus did not forcibly enter the woman's body. It is not force but lack of consent that defines rape. Penetration of a sleeping person need not be forcible, but it is still rape. And don't tell me that having sex constitutes consent to pregnancy. I'll grant that there is a probabilistic relationship between the two, but to infer consent from a probabilistic relationship is like saying that a woman "is asking for it" if she goes out after dark. The only way to consent to anything - including pregnancy - is to decide that you choose to accept it. >It began its existence there. It did not choose to come into existence. And the crazy rapist in my scenario did not choose to have brain damage. So what? >There is every indication that the fetus would choose to continue to >live given the chance (witness starving children in 3rd world >countries.) Until there are other life support systems to support >that child's/fetus's life, the mother's womb is the only place for >that child to exist for several months. The crazy rapist wants to live too. Again, so what? >The tradeoff is several >months of inconvenience for one human being against the life of >another human being. (I am using the assumption from the quote >above that the "fetus is a separate person.") In my scenario, it is a few MINUTES of "inconvenience" for the woman versus the life of another human being (the rapist). If it is OK to kill an innocent human being to avoid a few minutes of rape, then ought it not be OK to avoid several MONTHS?