LogFAQs > #926081240

It's an interesting, but weird argument. Even if it was completely true, the problem is that it seems like an appeal to tradition... and a largely unnecessary appeal. If you're arguing that life begins at conception, the circumstances of the birth wouldn't change whether or not abortion is murder. Therefore people who argue against abortion logically shouldn't be baking in exemptions like these, especially since the unborn child did nothing wrong. The *only* exemption that might come into play is one where the mother's life was threatened, because then it's one life vs another.

Conversely, if you're arguing that abortion is legal because unborn children aren't people, then they shouldn't be treated as people under other contexts -- such as when they count as an additional victim in a death.

wolfy42 posted...

His argument is stupid though, of course humanity would exist, and considering all the suffering that would have been avoided, it might be slightly kinder.

He's talking about removing the progeny born through rape or incest, not stopping the crimes/events themselves. And given the length of human history and how interwoven everything else, the effects of removing everybody born under those circumstances would be unfathomable. If you deleted all bloodlines resulting from rape or incest, it's entirely possible that would nuke the entire current human population.

darkknight109 posted...

Remember in 2012 when Todd Akin gave that cringey "legitimate rape" comment and everyone - including Republicans - agreed it was fucking terrible and basically blackballed him?

Man, those were good times. Back when a dumbfuck comment would be met with condemnation instead of people rushing to explain why it actually was a totally fine thing to say.

The difference with Todd Akin's remark is that it referenced some fake bodily defense mechanism and therefore had no basis in reality. By contrast, a lot of human bloodlines have rape and incest in them.

Yellow posted...

"What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?" he said at in Urbandale, Iowa. "Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages taken place and whatever happened to culture after society? I know I can't certify that I'm not a part of a product of that."

I like how this is a completely asinine and incorrect thing to say outside of being totally disgusting. He also has no clue how this whole "evolution" thing works.

The rapists wouldn't pass on their genes, and the rest of humanity would take up their space. Dumbshit.

Except that's not what he's talking about at all. However, if you did want to take a scifi-esque argument involving an alternate timeline where every union not born of consent and through non-relatives had died by some magical means, humanity would still most likely be fucked because the birth rate would drastically decline while the murder rate would probably stay about the same. (Especially if you're counting cousins under incest.)

The rapists themselves not passing along their genes wouldn't necessarily change unless you believe that only the children of rapists grow up to be rapists, which I'm not sure has any basis in reality.
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