Rape Victims Should be Jailed for Taking Emergency Contraception?
Australian Atheist discusses two people who argue that if a rape victim does not consent to being forced to go through nine months of pregnancy by taking a morning-after pill, then she should be punished for murder:
The reasons for such an immoral position: Chris and Tony believe in the existence of souls.
According to most Christians, at the moment conception takes place, god inserts the zygote with a unique soul. And it is the soul that has the real value.
As a result, preventing the fertilised egg from implanting in the wall of uterus, which emergency contraception sometimes does, is the moral equivalent of killing a young child, or a human of any age for that matter.
Instead of basing our moral reasoning on the facts, for example the pain and suffering caused by forcing a rape victim to give birth, the completely unfounded belief in souls forces Christians to place great value on a zygote.
One, Chris S, goes a step beyond most anti-choice activists. In America at least, few seem to have thought through their position to the issue of punishment — they call abortion "murder" and want it made a crime, but are speechless when asked how abortion should be punished. Chris, though, has thought it through: both abortion and taking the morning-after pill should be punished just like the premeditated killing of a one-day-old infant.
There are lots of reasons why one might argue that abortion is undesirable or a bad idea, generally speaking, but there are no good arguments for the idea that women have so little dignity or worth that their bodies should be treated as objects which can be placed under state control. Objections to contraception are even less firmly grounded, but defense of contraception is just as strong as and very similar to the defense of abortion: women's personal and physical autonomy requires letting them control their own reproductive processes. The state has no grounds or authority to step in and punish them for acting in their own best interests.
Comments
“According to most Christians, at the moment conception takes place, god inserts the zygote with a unique soul.”
If this is true, and god is all-powerful, why would he allow a morning after pill to work, or exist, in the first place? Why woul he allow it to be invented, or even thought of? Why would he allow abortions to happen at all, if he exists and is all-powerful?
If God is all knowing and all seeing, why wouldn’t He know about the abortion in the first place? Why would He create a soul to begin with?
What of the newborn baby, unwanted, tossed in the dumpster to die? What, then, of the reason for that life and that soul? Why that birth in the first place? What, then, of the “right to life”?
These are only a few questions the so called “pro-lifers” never ask. They’ve been so “brain-washed”, their logic and reason have been sorely clouded. “Don’t ask, don’t question the authority of the church, ever” has been their mantra almost since birth.
I rest my case for “pro-choicers” and contraception or abortion. I can’t help wondering what possible argument fundie Doug could give.
I’ve been a lurker here for a long time. I just recently have decided to add my voice. In case you’re wondering, Austin, I am also an atheist.
Another question is; if all-knowing and all-powerful god inserts a soul at conception, why does it allow miscarriages to happen?
It’s not as if a soul is destroyed anyway. They’re eternal according to these self-righteous nuts. The rest of a human is only a temporary shell. Gawd can “insert” the soul into the next shell that comes along!
In Genesis 2:7
“And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
Would that not mean the the Soul in question happens at Birth?
Thats the problems with Christians they don’t actually believe whats written in the bible.
The Hebrew word for soul actually equates to “breath” and “life.” The idea of a spirit entity that exists separately from the material being is not a common Hebrew idea. There are only a couple verses in all of the OT writings that hint at anything like an afterlife. It’s not a developed idea in their religion and what few references there are seem to lean more toward a Hades type of location of shadowy ambiguous existence. But the meaning of “soul” that modern Xians apply is a misuse of the original term.
When King James’ Bible was translated, “soul” meant simply “person” in the same vein as “Ol’ King Cole was a merry ol’ soul.”
I don’t know when/how it came to mean what it does today…?
Forgot to point out, the same word translated “soul” in the Bible that refers to people is also used to refer to other animals. So much for “people aren’t animals,” right?
This is right up there with pharmacists refusing to sell emergency contraception to women who have been raped. Religion trumping badly needed medicine or medical procedures. Awful.
Bob Enyart, in his book titled “First Five Days” (I think) it tells of former Colorado Rep. Patricia Schroeder and attorney Gloria Allred being arrested for . . . advocating abortions. They face the death penalty for doing so.
Interesting- I thought that the OT made it clear that a person was ensouled at birth- the concept of conception was not known back then.
Does it bother anyone else that we’re using bronze-age morality and mythology to enforce silicon-age laws on women?
#10 - obviously it doesn’t bother some people. They use the “God is the same yesterday, today and forever” line, which means to them that Bronze Age morality is just as valid in 2008 as it was in 3000 B.C.E.
On the 8th of May, 2008, the “Plan B” or “morning after pill” became an over the counter drug in Canada. This means that intrusive pharmacists, priests, etc can no longer prevent a woman from purchasing this product if she has reason to need it. They can also not harrass or stall people for buying it.
What the rest of the civilised world does today, the United States will follow along with . . . some decade.
Wouldn’t all of us be in a better position in every way, ie, financially, mentally, emotionally, etc, if we all minded our own business, tended to our own garden,banged OUR OWN HEAD IN THE WALL,and heeded the words of Charles Wellsley…”Do what you can for whom you can.”
The greatest weakness of religious liars, bullies and crooks is that they are so predictable. Jesus hated phonies and blockheads.
According to most Christians, at the moment conception takes place, god inserts the zygote with a unique soul.
Since identical twins are known to start out as a single fertilized egg, my question to a christian with this belief is “How do you determine which one of a pair of identical twins does not have a soul?”
Based on the statistice (percentage of Christians in America)wouldn’t it seem likely that a large portion of contraceptive users & abortion getters are Christian… every one I know uses contraception… & I know more Christians than non-Christians who’ve had abotions… I consider it most immoral to rail against something one is heavily invested in.