Hell yeah. I hope they stand their ground against the Church types.

I'm glad they did it.... but I wonder what it will mean for them?? The Catholic church has mucho dinero......

I'm glad they're standing up for what they feel is right and giving the church the middle finger in the process. If people remained frightened of the church, change would never happen.

Way to go Amnesty!

Interesting...
Per the New York Times......



" U.S. May Abandon Support Of U.N. Population Accord


Article Tools Sponsored By
By JAMES DAO
Published: November 2, 2002

The Bush administration, embroiling itself in a new fight at the United Nations, has threatened to withdraw its support for a landmark family planning agreement that the United States helped write eight years ago.

The reason for the threat is contained in two terms that the administration contends can be construed as promoting abortion.

The terms -- reproductive health services and reproductive rights -- figure in the final declaration of the United Nations population conference in 1994 in Cairo, which embraced a new concept of population policy based on improving the legal rights and economic status of women. The declaration has since been endorsed by 179 nations."

I have a question about the Amnesty's stance on abortion - and also a number of other posters' stances on abortion.

When listing the limited circumstances under which abortion is considered "okay", why is incest listed as one of those cases where you consider abortion to be okay?

Rape by definition is not consentual, but incest very well could be consentual sex - and if it were not consentual it would fall under the rape category. So for the people (including Amensty International) who consider abortion to be okay only under certain circumstances - why is incest one of them?

Hmm...interesting point.

I think it's probably because of the increased risk of genetic abnormalities. Mind you, I'd have thought that if it was a wanted child then the foetus could have the usual scans to check for physical soundness, so really any abortions wouldn't be because of incest but because of poor foetal health.

I was always under the impression that it wasn't consensual incest. Never really thought about it.

I was under the impression also that incest is normally between an adult and a minor which automatically makes it statutory rape.

Ah, but if it's rape, then it falls under the category of rape.

Why is the extra category of incest needed?

Isn't it still incest if adult brother/sister have consentual sex? Cousin? Half-siblings?

Why would that make it okay for them to have a theraputic abortion (from the perspective of those who list certain circumstances under which abortion is okay)?

I wonder if people have really thought about it when they just list off the criteria: rape, incest, severe abnormality, serious danger to maternal health (or some subset of that list).

Edited to add: I'm not trying to start an argument here, I just honestly don't understand.

I think with incest it goes more towards the health of the child. Also in most of these cases it does involve a person who is young and under the influence of the person who impregnanted her so giving them a choice is the matter is beneficial to there overall health.

I don't think there is any real reason behind it, other than some people who got pregnant that way (either through consensual relations or not), might not want a child that would result from it.

For the reason stated before; because rape-incest is just as horrible as "normal" rape, if not worse because it's often a loving family member that does it to the poor child. And of course because incest just isn't conducive towards making healthy babies.



If any of them are under age it's rape AS WELL. It doesn't automatically become "just rape". It is incestual rape.



I'm not sure what pro-lifers think about it, but I think it's because of the rape aspect of it, and because it leads to more genetic abnormalities.



I personally think incest is a completely different category and I don't see why it's so hard to understand... Does it sometimes include rape? Yes, but that doesn't mean you can just say "Oh well then it just fits in the rape category", that's a little disrespectful...