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From: kurtzman@uscvax.UUCP (Stephen Kurtzman)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: "The child of a fiend"
Message-ID: <5@uscvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Sep-85 12:01:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: uscvax.5
Posted: Mon Sep 30 12:01:11 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 06:27:36 EDT
References: <5986@cbscc.UUCP>
Reply-To: kurtzman@usc-cse.UUCP (Stephen Kurtzman)
Distribution: net
Organization: CS&CE Depts, U.S.C., Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 51
Summary: 

In article <5986@cbscc.UUCP> pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul M. Dubuc) writes:
>
>I also watched the PBS special on abortion last week.  ...
>In the pro-choice film that followed "Concieved in Liberty",
>a woman related the story of how she had been the victim
>of a rape that resulted in pregnancy.  In her final remarks
>she condemned the anti-abortion view as being one that would
>"force her to bear the child of a fiend".  While not trying
>in any way to lessen the heinous nature of the crime of rape,
>I couldn't help but notice that her statement implied that
>she had projected her hatred for the rapist onto his child.
>Is this a legitimate thing to do?
>
>I wonder how many people are walking around today who are the
>sons and daughters of fiends in the same respect.  The implication
>of the woman's comment is that there is all the more reason that
>their lives should have been snuffed out in the womb.  Does
>the child conceived as the result of rape or incest somehow bear
>some the responsibility for the crime?  Do pro-choice folks really
>support abortion on demand by sustaining this stigma?  If that
>stigma is just for the fetus, how does it become unjust when
>that person is born (*if* it does)?  The circumstances of conception
>haven't changed.
>-- 
>
>Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd


Whether or not blaming the fetus/child is a legitimate thing to do it is
a human thing to do. I do not claim to understand the psychology of rape,
but it seems to me that when such a violent and invasive act has been
perpetrated against a woman she may perceive questions of right and wrong
in a totally different light than a man or non-raped woman. 

I watched that movie also. I did not get the feeling that the lady was trying
to imply that the child would be a fiend. I got the feeling that she was
psychologically unprepared for carrying the child of a rapist to term.
Undoubtedly people will debate whether it is right to allow a woman to
abort in such an event, regardless the psychological ramifications of forcing
a woman to carry such a fetus/child to term are complicated and unfathomable
for the person not in such a position.

Paul, I think you misunderstood what the lady was trying to say. To put this
in a little closer perspective I pose the following question for you: If your
wife were raped and bore a child from that rape, could you love that child
without thinking of the henious circumstances under which the child was
conceived? No doubt you would be able to some (maybe most) of the time,
but sometimes you would probably look at the child and have intense feelings
of hate for the childs father. If you could overcome those feelings and not
let that affect the way you treat the child then you are a good man. 
Probably, most people are not that good.