The Catholic Church has excommunicated the mother, who arranged an abortion for her 9 year old daughter, who was pregnant with twins as a result of rape by her stepfather.

There is a heap of controversy over this in the blogosphere, the most insane of which is the Hand Mirror claiming this is evidence the Catholic Church hates girl children I note they claim this despite the Irish Times reporting:

The archbishop made clear that the excommunication did not extend to the young girl at the centre of the case.

I don't get the controversy. I honestly do not get it at all.

Do people not know that the Catholic Church views abortion as homicide? Is this a fact that people are not aware of - is this not common knowledge?

I am not Catholic but even I was aware of their stance on abortion and in case you missed it, they are opposed to it on the grounds it is a form of homicide. Given this, the Catholic Church has acted consistently with their beliefs in excommunicating the mother in this case. Their position is that:

Homicide can only be justified in a narrow set of circumstances.
Abortion is homicide.
Therefore: Abortion can only be justified in narrow set of circumstances.

The narrow set of circumstances that exist in law as defences to homicide do not include consideration for who the father of the victim is, what crimes he has committed against you and how traumatised you feel. This may be harsh, but it is the law. As a law student I can assure you that if you find yourself in a court of law and you say to the court "but your honour, I hired a hitman to stab them to death because their father raped my daughter" you will not get off a homicide charge. The court will sympathise with your plight, they may view it as a form of provocation, which may mitigate your sentence, but it is not a defence that will excuse homicide.

Self-defence where a threat to life is imminent and for which there is no other alternative is a defence that will fly, however, it is not clear that this was the case here (despite the reported commentst to the contrary). As NZ Conservative pointed out, there pregnancies can be being successfully managed in children of this age, modern medicine can achieve this.

Given all of this, please point to where the Catholic Church erred in or acted inconsistently with their reasoning. [Pointing to the step-father's alleged lack of excommunication is a red herring as being wrong on another matter does not make you wrong on all.]

Now, before the Hand Mirror et al can accuse me of supporting child rape or conduct some other bogus psycho-analysis as feminists of their ilk are wont to do when other women disagree with them, let me be clear.

Rape, particularly rape of a child, especially when it is done by those whose relationship with the child is supposed to meet the threshold of 'parent,' warrants the death penalty.

However, I must argue stridently that the death penalty should be carried out on the offender and not a third party.

It is not a justification to take someone's life because their father committed a heinous crime and another person is suffering because of it or because of how you might feel if they go on living.

On other blogs where I have commented on this issue, I have been accused of being indifferent to the plight the mother and her child faced and of lacking emotion. The first thing I want to say to this charge is that I would hope that when dealing with an ethical issue I would lack emotion. Clear, rational thinking is vital when confronted with highly emotional issues.

If I am honest, the minute I heard this story my reaction was of emotion. I have an almost 9 year old daughter and I would happily kill to protect her and am certain that I would struggle to limit myself to 'proportional force' against anyone who harmed her in that manner. Most parents reading this will be able to relate to the instinct I am speaking from.

However, if we contemplate harming the born children of such an attacker we should immediately know that it would be wrong to direct our instinctive parental-protection-violence towards them. Why so, then, do we not have this instinct when we contemplate killing the unborn children of such an attacker? What assumptions are inherent in the different response?

Inherent in this response is an assumption that the unborn lack some feature that the born possess. What is that feature and can it rationally justify the different responses?

Maybe it is the fact that we are horrified that the child, not only raped, now has to deal with pregnancy and birth.

Does abortion un-rape her? Think about the method of abortion; is it any less traumatic to have instruments inserted into her vagina, people looking and touching, pain, medical risk from the procedure?

More importantly, though, is the trauma of having to go through pregnancy and birth and deal with all that entails, justification for homicide of people we are not making assumptions about? Could I justify killing you for that reason? No? Then, why can I kill a fetus for that reason?

Is it the fact that these are rapists children so somehow they are less human. Just think about that one. Is it fair or just to treat a born person whose father is a rapist this way? No? Once again, the unstated assumption that a fetus is not on par with a born person is evident.

Cases like this one, when you strip away the emotion and rationally assess them come back to the same position:

If abortion is not homicide, then any and all abortion is morally benign.

On the other hand:

If abortion is homicide, then abortion must be treated the same way we treat other homicide.

You cannot solve this dilemma by getting hysterical, accusing those on one side of hating people, pointing to other things they may be doing wrong or turning your brains off because you are justifiably horrified at child rape. Set your emotions aside and think the issues through consistently; start here.

RELATED POSTS:
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 1
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 2
Sentience Part 1
Sentience Part 2
Viability
Abortion and Brain Death: A Response to Farrar
Abortion and Capital Punishment: No Contradiction
Imposing Your Beliefs Onto Others: A Defence
Published: Boonin's Defense of the Sentience Criteria - A Critique
Published: Abortion and Capital Punishment - No Contradiction

Whaleoil and David Farrar are in disagreement over some comments by Garth George regarding abortion and child abuse.

Garth George says:

I have said it before and I say it again: The number one cause of abuse against
women and children is abortion.

David Farrar says:

I disagree.

I think there would be less child abuse if there were more abortions. The world would be a better place if those who are not suited to be parents did not become parents.

Whale Oil says:

I think they both are missing the point.

We have become a society that tolerates and indeed allows violence against children it is just a matter of where you draw the line that is the argument.

Garth George draws the line at conceptiona and David Farrar draws the line at birth. (I think, perhaps he would like to clarify when it is ok to kill babies and when it is
not.)

My view is that we are indeed a sick society at whatever point we kill and excuse it away with weasel words like foetus, procedure, first trimester etc.

Likewise my view about most of the recent cases of horrific child abuse is that they are no more and no less anything but late term abortions. The simple fact is that the parents of the children had no more respect for the life of the child than someon having a “procedure”.

You see if we accept that you can kill children at up to 21 weeks from conception then why not at birth or why not at 5 years old, or even 18 just before they can vote. For me there is no difference. The Nia Glassie’s and Kahui twins are simply late term abortions by parents who no longer respected the life of their child. As long as we fail to respect human life then we will continue to get these case and no one should be at all shocked by it all.

Whaleoil has a point, something Adolf agrees with me on, though David Farrar’s argument is not new; in, “Abortion a Feminist Perspective”, Susan Sherwin mentions that feticide may be justified in order to prevent child abuse.

[F]eminists recognize that women have abortions for a wide variety of compelling reasons. … knowing the fathers to be brutal and violent, may be unwilling to subject a child to the beatings or incestuous attacks they anticipate; some may have no other realistic way to remove the child (or themselves) from the relationship.[i]

In addition to outright abuse, she also suggests child neglect.

Women who suffer from chronic disease, who believe themselves too young or too old to have children, or who are unable to maintain lasting relationships may recognize that they will not be able to care properly for a child when they face the decision.[ii]

The argument is a two-premise syllogism. The first premise asserts that permitting feticide prevents child abuse or future child neglect. This is because it destroys organisms that will probably be abused in the future. The second premise claims that it is permissible to kill an organism if we know that it will probably be abused or neglected in the future.

The second premise is false. Consider a new-born child born into a context whereby one knows that it is likely that it will be abused either physically or sexually in the future. If the major premise were true, then killing that infant to protect it from abuse would be permissible. In fact, according to this principle, it is acceptable to kill any person, child, teenager or adult whom we know is likely to be abused in the future.

In order to be plausible, Sherwin and Farrar must limit the kinds of entities that the principle is referring to. It must be restricted to exclude entities that are infants or other human beings such as toddlers, adolescents and adults. However, the proponent of this argument must assume that fetuses are not human beings in the same sense that infants are. The argument is sound only if feticide is not homicide.

Engaging in feticide to prevent child abuse is only justifiable if feticide is somehow the morally-better option. If the two are both homicide then one will be engaging in the very action one is trying to prevent. Sherwin and Farrar’s argument relies on the assumption that feticide is not homicide. Farrar has, of course, argued for this assumption, he maintains that a fetus is not a human being until it acquires an ECG which Farrar places at 20 weeks. As I argue in, Abortion and Brain Death: A Response to Farrar, this argument is unsuccessful as are the other attempts to place it at viability, sentience or personhood.

[i] Sherwin, Susan. “Abortion a Feminist Perspective.” In Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, 5th ed., ed. Bonnie Steinbock & John D. Arras, (Mountain View CA: Mayfield Publishing Co) 1999, 361.
[ii] Ibid.

RELATED POSTS:
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 1
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 2
Sentience Part 1
Sentience Part 2
Viability
Abortion and Brain Death: A Response to Farrar
Abortion and Capital Punishment: No Contradiction
Imposing You Beliefs Onto Others: A Defence
Published: Boonin's Defense of the Sentience Criteria - A Critique
Published: Abortion and Capital Punishment - No Contradiction

A few weeks ago wide publicity was given to a study that concluded that NZ women are the most promiscuous in the world. (The fact that, this study had some serious scientific shortcomings having neither a control group nor a random sample group was not so widely publicised.)

What was interesting was the reaction by some that this study as somehow validated permissive sexual mores. To cite one typical example, at the recent family first forum a question was asked from the floor about what would be taught in sex education courses at public schools. The response, from at least one politician, was that this study showed that encouraging people outside of a monogamous sexual relationship to practise abstinence was unrealistic.

Now this morning we see another study has come out this study suggests that sexual molestation of children is prevalent in NZ it suggests that one in four women have been sexually molested. I note the almost universal response from our politicians and media and quite rightly so, is to condemn these practises and exhort NZers to change any actions and attitudes that lead to such behaviour.

I am confused: I thought that when a significant number of people engaged in a sexual practise, then it was unrealistic to condemn it? I thought the state was supposed to simply accept contemporary practise and alter their values to fit it. Can the politicians who make the aforementioned argument about sex ed answer me this: When are you going to advocate that the state to teach safe child molestation techniques in public schools?

The reality is that we do not look to contemporary practise to determine what’s right and wrong. Rather we use principles of right and wrong to critique contemporary practise. Despite their trendy sloganising, our politicians know this, or at least they do when it suits them, but conveniently forget when it doesn’t. If contemporary liberals want to justify their values to others, they need to provide arguments for them. Not assurances that these practises are fashionable or trendy or that “all the cool people are doing it” or that “Kinsey showed 10% of people do this” etc. Unlike some people in parliament and the media many of us grew out of our teens sometime ago.