Obvious Common Ground
A Secular Pro-Life member recently brought 31 States to my attention. This documentary film, which is still in production, tells the stories of courageous women who refused to abort their children who were conceived in rape—only to learn that the laws of their states effectively punished them for choosing life:
If you can’t watch the video, the issue here is that in 31 states, a rapist can sue to obtain custody or visitation rights for the child conceived by his violence against the mother.
I have to believe that these laws are simply the result of oversight. Perhaps these laws were written decades ago, when rape was a taboo topic and DNA testing was unknown, and legislators at the time simply didn’t think to write in any particular provisions concerning rapists. As a result, rapists have the same rights as any other biological fathers. Once legislation is enacted, political inertia comes into play, and no reform comes until people start making real noise.
The time to make that noise is now. If there is any common ground between pro-lifers and pro-choicers, this is it! These outdated policies encourage abortion, threaten women’s safety and sanity, expose children to needless instability and stress, and are just plain outrageous.
By telling women’s stories, 31 States will encourage the sociopolitical momentum necessary to close this loophole, in all 50 states, once and for all. If you’d like to support the production, you can buy a bracelet or make a straight-up donation on their website.
Wow, I can't imagine. Good for them for bringing this issue to light.
One issue that would need to be addressed is the lack of support for women who do press charges. It's still incredibly difficult to have charges taken seriously, and to face that, in addition to an unwanted pregnancy, may just be too much for some women to take.
Another would be the need for better counselling for the women, and the children that will come out of this. It's not enough to simply cut off the rapists from access to the children because the children still have to grow up and cope with the reality of their birth, lack of a father in their lives, the knowledge of what happened, and even the impact it may have on their mothers.
It's a start to at least acknowledge that this needs to be addressed
There is actually an argument for promoting mandatory abortions of the offspring of rapists. I do not especially PROMOTE that argument; I merely present it here for consideration.
Basically, we know that Evolution has influenced certain things about human behavior. Consider the basic "sex drive", for example. If nobody had a sex drive, would the species propagate? Perhaps a better thing to ask is, "If one species had a sex drive and another did not, which is more likely to survive over the long term?"
The thing is, Evolution didn't stop with merely giving sexually-reproducing organisms a sex drive. It has ALSO associated sex with pleasure. So, if one species has sex associated with pleasure, while another does not, which is likely to have more offspring in the long run?
And Evolution didn't stop there, either! It is known that sex can actually be an addictive thing! So, if one species has members addicted to sex, while another doesn't, which is likely to have more offspring in the long run?
Now back to basics. It is known that Evolution influences which pieces of DNA get propagated. When DNA can INFLUENCE (not directly control) certain overall behaviors of an organism, then behaviors that lead to increased reproduction Naturally tend to propagate the DNA associated with those behaviors.
Now, "Nature Does Not Care" about human (or alien) opinions. Anything That Works Is Allowed By Nature –including anything that successfully passes genes on to the next generation.
Which leads us to rape. Some time ago there was a college study anonymously asking male students if they might commit rape if they thought they could get away with it (prepend the http): http://www.uic.edu/depts/owa/sa_rape_support.html
–More than half said they would, which IMPLIES there might actually be a genetic influence toward committing rape.
DO WE WANT THAT IN THE GENES OF OUR SPECIES?
If "no", then, Logically, there are two consequences. First, we begin mandating abortions of all offspring of rapists. That is, rape must NOT be allowed to be a "successful strategy" for reproduction.
Second, we automatically find ourselves facing a Problem: Deliberately trying to affect the genes of humanity tends to fall under the umbrella of "eugenics". And lots of folks claim that eugenics is a Bad Thing.
==========
Well, now you see why **I** do not especially promote this pro-abortion argument. I fully understand it, and I would not try to go against it if it was implemented, but I am not going to PROMOTE its implementation. I merely present it here, for you-all's consideration and discussion. Have a nice day!
Thank you for your request for donations to 31 States – these are tax deductible and primarily used to reach out and interview women in the middle of this hell.
For a list of states which still have work to do see – http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/rapist-seeks-child-custody-shauna-prewitt
Are we talking about men accused of rape, or specifically men found guilty of rape? There are a lot of cases where women are raped and don't press charges or even tell anyone, so from a legal standpoint I don't know how the law would treat an unaccused rapist any differently from any other biological father. Is that part of the issue?
While we're at it, let's sterilize or just massacre everyone with IQ's below 110. Better evolutionary products!
How anyone takes you seriously is beyond me.
So, you are not denying that by modifying the birth rate in certain ways, the overall genetics of humanity can be affected?
Are you saying you LIKE the current situation, in which one can successfully pass on genes just by committing rape, and therefore humanity has no right to defend itself from such behavior?
We don't.
This is so sad, so unjust. The end of the clip says the trial was in June 2013. Is that correct? Do you know the outcome?
"If you can't watch the video, the issue here is that in 31 states, a rapist can sue to obtain custody or visitation rights for the child conceived by his violence against the mother."
This is atrocious and needs to be fixed. Of course, it is worth noting that the same principles should apply to statutory rape and to cases where a female was the one who was raping a male. I have heard of at least one case where male victims of de jure rape have been forced to pay child support, which I also think is repulsive.
Also, Laura N. makes a good point here. In addition, it is worth asking what level of proof would be required for something such as this. After all, couldn't a woman (or a male) claim that he or she was raped simply to get sole custody of their child?
This is disgusting! I heard that this could happen but I didn't know that this many states were perfectly fine with it! This needs to be fixed. A rapist doesn't deserve the right to walk around freely let alone force visitation rights!
Why do you make it sound like you don't care someone got raped? Just because that makes more babies doesn't make it right.
I think it means ones found guilty.
If an "ultimate goal" is to prevent rape, because that the best way to show caring for more women than just the current victims, then it becomes important to fully understand all the factors that lead to rape-events.
Logically, therefore, if there does happen to exist a genetic influence toward committing rape, then the problem will likely never be ultimately solved without "fixing" genetics. Any human dislike of the Facts becomes irrelevant.
On the other hand, if there does not happen to be a genetic influence toward rape, then some other ultimate solution should be possible, to prevent rape. So far, though, nothing has worked….
LN, you wrote, "While we're at it, let's massacre everyone with IQ's below 110…"
We're already doing that! We're killing animals by the billions with the only rationalization being that animals lack the same level of intelligence and conscious awareness as humans upon reaching full development.
It was just a matter of time before certain classes of humans would be deemed inferior as well.
The slippery slope begins with our treatment of animals.
here is the problem, the Pyper story you have in this video is a wrong. The Soldier they speak of was a teenager himself. There was so much evidence that the charges were false the local police wrote a letter that said there was no crime even committed and refused prosecution. The child was one of the unlucky few in our society that falls under the military law as well. The military held a courts martial where 100% of the panel came back in only minuets with a 100% not guilty verdict. Most people including me agree that abortion for any reason is wrong. and everyone agrees that rapist do not deserve custody of a child. That is not the issue with the video. The issue is the false reporting of rape has become more popular. Many are not so lucky and go to jail. they spend years in jail prior to the truth coming out. This case was so easy to call that two different systems found him not guilty. with four witness that no crime occurred and the parents being sued right now for lying to the courts. So why are we still allowing this child to be called a rapist. When is a man not guilty of a crime? When police say there was no crime. When the military panel says he was innocent. When the event was not reported until she was found to be pregnant five months latter. This man has been choked, lost his job over this, and gets threats even today because this story Is on YouTube and MSNBC, radio, and some have claimed him guilty without knowing the facts of the case. We all pull together as Christians to say abortion is wrong but lets target the guilty of rape not the innocent. Take this story off the airways for the safety of an innocent man, please