Rape: Whose baby is it anyway?

[barts]

According to the article Raped, pregnant and ordeal not over,

...in the vast majority of states -- 31 -- men who father through rape are able to assert the same custody and visitation rights to their children that other fathers enjoy. When no law prohibits a rapist from exercising these rights, a woman may feel forced to bargain away her legal rights to a criminal trial in exchange for the rapist dropping the bid to have access to her child.

When faced with the choice between a lifetime tethered to her rapist or meaningful legal redress, the answer may be easy, but it is not painless. For the sake of her child, the woman will sacrifice her need to see her once immensely powerful perpetrator humbled by the court.

I know it because I lived it. I went to law school to learn how to stop it.

So, should male rapists have custody and visitations rights to the children they father?

[NoJingoLingo]

This is ridiculous. This is a no-brainer, we should have a law against such stupidity. We should get to that right after we pass more voting laws.

[Angry Citizen]

Well, under a fair system of justice, they wouldn't live long enough to be able to exercise such a right.

[grandpa]

Well, under a fair system of justice, they wouldn't live
long enough to be able to exercise such a right.

So, in your view, fair = "Kill 'em!"? In our brief lives on earth, we'll probably learn of all kinds of terrible deeds. Some we'll probably even witness, and some we may even commit ourselves.
For example, I tend to view warfare in general as a huge breach of justice, but I won't go so far as to see armies at war and say, definitively, "They shouldn't live."

It isn't so simple as "One thing is right and another wrong." These matters deserve a little more thought than that.

Grandpa h.

[Angry Citizen]

I agree. Lethal injection or gas chamber - tough decision.

[barts]

I agree. Lethal injection or gas chamber - tough decision.

So, a man who is inebriated has sex with a woman whom he's on a date with and who is also inebriated, and who thinks he has consent, only to discover later that the sex was not consensual, fathers a child, and is convicted of rape should be executed. Is that your view?

[Darklordabc]

Yes I think he/she should have visitation rights. They have already been punished by a prison sentence, why should they be extra punished by not being able to see his/hers biological child. Obviously this depends on if s/hes even fit to be a parent in the first place, but that is a precondition that applies to all non-criminals alike.

[Angry Citizen]

So, a man who is inebriated has sex with a woman whom he's on a date with and who is also inebriated, and who thinks he has consent, only to discover later that the sex was not consensual, fathers a child, and is convicted of rape should be executed. Is that your view?

I'd pull the trigger myself.

[barts]

I'd pull the trigger myself.

I'm sure there are many people who would gleefully welcome a lawful excuse to murder someone in cold blood. I'm sure that in the United States the right to "pull the trigger" on people convicted of crimes could even be auctioned off to the highest bidder or distributed by lottery to be more fair. And, I'm sure, as you seem to show, many people would take enormous pleasure in gunning someone down.

[Angry Citizen]

Barts, is this your formulaic response to anyone who advocates the death penalty? You've made largely the same post in every thread on the subject: a barrage of "I'm sure"'s intended, presumably, to showcase an air of superiority over such barbarity. I, however, am unimpressed.

[barts]

I, however, am unimpressed.

I can assure you that impressing you is not something that ever interests me. And, I'm sure you'll agree, that whether you're impressed or not has no bearing on the merits of an argument, which, in this exchange, you seem to be avoiding.

I am, however, very interested in your simplistic, relatively thoughtless commentary as it seems to reflect the views of at least a significant minority--if not a majority--of people, particularly in the United States, and even more particularly in your state. The casual and cruel callousness--even giddy eagerness--that you seem to have toward killing people for either personal delight or revenge seems to be quite common in the US. As you know, most developed countries long ago ended the death penalty because joy of killing and revenge were shown not to be deterrents. Unlike in many parts of the US, in most developed countries public safety is of paramount concern not revenge.

I'm curious as to why people who like you are well educated, at least in one highly specialized and narrow area, and do give some thought to some issues on some occasions can be so sanguine about, as you say, "pulling the trigger".

Surely, an inquiry into why some people take pleasure in killing others while others don't has some merit, but perhaps you don't agree and simply assume that if you personally enjoy something then it must be right even if it results in the unnecessary deaths of other people.

[Angry Citizen]

I'm curious as to why people who like you are well educated, at least in one highly specialized and narrow area, and do give some thought to some issues on some occasions can be so sanguine about, as you say, "pulling the trigger".

When a human being so willfully disregards another's life, then that human being ceases to be a human being and becomes an animal. Everything that makes a man a man - culture, empathy, humanity, civility, a willingness to get along with its own species - becomes forfeit. As such, they are no longer entitled to the basic protections afforded to ourselves by virtue of the social contract. They are given their day in court. Should it be shown beyond all doubt (i.e. through DNA evidence) that he or she is guilty of a crime so severe, so life-rending as rape or murder, then that person should be put down as the vile subhuman it is.

Perhaps that is our difference. You also hold animals in reverence. I hold no such reverence. Merely possessing the quality of life has no bearing on one's right to exist.