Paul Ryan is being consistent. He is, in fact, being more consistent than Mitt Romney, or any number of other politicians who favor outlawing abortion except for cases of rape or incest.
If you accept the premises that (a) an unborn fetus is a human being and (b) the rights of a human being to life trump all other considerations (without due process of law judging otherwise for the human being's crimes), then all abortion is wrong, except for the horrid trade-off cases of saving the mother's life vs. the fetus' life.
I can understand that position and respect it (even though I disagree with it) more than the idea that human life is of infinite value unless conception occurred because rape or incest. Because that's visiting the sins of the father on the child, which I think most people would agree is wrong.
Of course, those are very different circumstances for the mother in these cases. To be violated or abused in such a fashion is awful; to be compelled to be reminded of said violation or abuse for nine months through a pregnancy could be even more awful.
But … if we're talking about a coequal human life here, it's difficult to see how even that extreme unpleasantness and anguish justifies the moral equivalent of infanticide.
My own personal opinion is that the decision in this case of how to value that unborn life has to be left to the person most intimately involved in its development: the mother. I have neither the wisdom nor the standing to tell a woman — any woman — what she is compelled in such a case to do or not to do.
(And, no, even my personal contribution of genetic material does not trump such a right. When men are able — or forced — to undergo pregnancy, they can have a say in the matter.)
My personal theology, while valuing human life, does not consider a fetus to be the equivalent of a born child, nor does it consider abortion the worse fate that can happen to a human soul.
So I remain, personally, very pro-choice.
But I respect Ryan's position for its consistency, even if it's politically or emotionally unpopular. Because either a fetus is a human life as worthy of protection as a newborn infant, or else it's not, and having special cases for the circumstances of conception only muddies the waters in a way that falls far short of a Solomonaic splitting the baby.
Reshared post from +David Badash
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Paul Ryan Calls Rape A ‘Method of Conception’ As Romney Expands Abortion Position
Paul Ryan, while discussing rape, Todd Akin, and abortion, told a reporter that rape is just a “method of conception,” totally ignoring the woman who was raped.
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Your personal theology, as it were, and mine, walk hand in hand.
A conceptus has the potential, if it becomes a fetus, to become a human being. It is not yet a human life.
If I declared every potential legal idea a full-fledged law, wouldn’t I be laughed out of public life? I don’t think it’s as much a lack of scientific understanding that makes people (mostly men) decide that human life begins at the end of an orgasm, but as a clever way to control women’s lives.
Not buying their “reasoning” or “Biblical teachings”. Ask a Rabbi when Jewish law believes that there’s a human life inside. Ask a few more folks if they think that some allegedly adult “post born” folks are human life.