Pro-life atheists

[Ben Davis]

I have always been pro-life. My understanding is that no matter what the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy, bad or good, rape or not. That child that innocent baby had nothing to do with it.

This is true however you're falsely equating a clump of cells or an unfeeling, unthinking foetus with a baby. This is easy to do and can take some self-discipline to overcome (most of us are programmed to protect young, after all) but it's necessary in order to make sure you give the matter balanced consideration. The fact is that a foetus can't be considered a baby until it reaches viability (~24 weeks). If you want to argue regarding 'the potential' of the foetus to be a baby, you face the challenge that MFM made about having to consider sperm & eggs in the same light.

They are without blame, why place the blame of a rapist on a baby, wasn't that childs fault.

Once again with the continued false equivocation (foetus/baby) but I've covered that already. So on to the false transferrence of responsibility (the baby is being blamed for the rape). An abortion is not the mother 'blaming' the foetus in any respectable use of the term 'blame'. What happens instead is a series of complex psychological traumas (analogous to PTSD) which disconnects the woman from normal maternal instinct. In order to prevent further suffering and protect the mental well-being of the woman, it's often better to abort. In a large proportion of raped women who successfully give birth, the child (an actual baby/child/life) suffers neglect or abuse resulting from the maternal disconnect. By arguing in favour of forcing raped women to give birth, you're actually arguing in favour of increased child abuse.

Why should it suffer?

As MFM said, there's no such thing as a foetus sufferring before ~18 weeks as there hasn't yet been enough development.

There is always adoption. Don't want it, give it to someone who cannot have a child, who's spent a fortune on having kids without success.

This is true however this view still doesn't take in to account the suffering of the woman/mother.

As a Buddhist, (moderately monastic) the view is that life begins at conception and all life is valuable.

Okay but why should your belief be allowed to result in human suffering?

My dear kid brother, would not be here had his 12 year old mother aborted him. She had him, gave him up for adoption. In doing so my mother and I have had the pleasure of having him in our lives (my adopted family could not have children)

Then it sounds like your mother made the right decision, in this case. However you need to consider what might have happened if circumstances had been different. What if abortion had been the right thing to do? What if your mother or brother would have suffered, unnecessarily as a result of taking the pregnancy to term? Can you think of circumstances in which your mother would have preferred to have an abortion? These questions are necessary in order to empathise with women who are faced with that choice. It's worth remembering that one case where things 'work out for the best' isn't enough to seriously challenge the right to choose.

All in all, I'd prefer a world where abortion is unnecessary, where child welfare is a high priority for governments and societies, where rape is unheard of, where prospective parents aren't forced to choose between 'financial realities' and having a child. However that's not this world. It's an ideal worth fighting for but it doesn't divorce you from the necessary considerations of our current society.