I think you can argue mitigating circumstances if you want to, but I find it hard to do personally. After all, the only basis for banning abortion in the first place is that the fetus has rights which society is entitled to protect. What you are arguing is that the manner in which a protected life is conceived can affect the right of the child to live or die. That is, if the mother acknowedges that the conception was consentual, you have a right to live; if the mother contends that the conception was rape, you lose your rights. But on what philsophical or logical basis do you say that the child, who has no voice or choice in how he or she is conceived, loses the right to life because of the circumstances of his or her conception?
When a child is born we don't condition its rights on whether it was conceived by consent or rape. The father is not more or less liable to pay child support, the mother is not more or less obligated to prove care, the child isn't restricted in the school they can go to, the social services they're entitled to, etc. In the case of born children we make no distinction. Why should we before they are born, if we are according them the right to life in the first place?
I don't say you can't make the argument successfully, though I personally can't. But that's the argument you have to make and defend, and I don't see that you've done that yet, or even attempted it. |
