It may be that pro-life advocates just don't have an answer for the cases of rape and incest. Pro-life advocates will normally say life begins at conception and go on to prove their point with the heartbeating at two weeks or something along those lines. And a large part of their argument is that basically if you did the deed you face the consequences.

But when it comes to the subject or rape and when a person didn't have a choice, there is no way to continue to support their believe of pro-life without telling the person to basically deal with it.

So my answer is that it just sounds good to say that abortion is okay in the cases of rape and incest for pro-life advocates, because they still believe that the "child" should be able to live but they can't bring themselves to tell those who've been raped to deal with it. That's just my opinion.
Source(s):
Debate team

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I suppose some pro-life advocates may be able to relate in the extreme cases such as incest or rape... they understand the fear the mother feels from the rape plus the pregnancy, or that the child of incest would be deformed, or whatever. So they feel guilty about the idea of being pushy with them.

But I can tell you as a former pro-life activist (I'm not currently pro-life but I can still explain that opinion from an inside point of view since it used to be mine), that standpoint is frowned upon by a lot of others. They believe that ALL life is precious, from conception until natural death, and it doesn't make a difference how the child was conceived or what defects the child will be born with. It doesn't change the fact that, to them, it's still a child.

(I edited this from my original answer... I thought the question was saying explain being pro-life, I didn't catch that it's explain being "pro-life except rape and incest." Whoops, sorry!)
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The whole problem with the pro-life position is that its advocates are in favor of basically using children as a way to punish unprotected sex.

And the argument about life beginning at conception is absurd too. Where is there a beginning? You have the two people, they're both alive. Their respective sex cells are alive. When a sperm and egg join, the result is alive. Life started about a billion years ago, and it's an ongoing process.

The reason abortion is not murder is because murder only applies to human BEINGS, with "being" being the operative word. Being a "being" means being (phew!) an individual. An embryo/fetus is not an individual--it is a PART of the woman. Until it reaches the point where it could be biologically separated (meaning it no longer relies on the life-sustaining processes of the woman to sustain itself) without perishing, it is NOT an individual and should not be treated any differently than any other living/human body part. Said point isn't clearly defined of course, but we know it lies in the third trimester (month 7 at least), which renders the whole abortion thing moot because nobody waits seven months to abort an unwanted pregnancy. Abortions only ever happen that late if something's seriously wrong and the fetus and/or the pregnant woman's health are at risk.

The majority of abortions are done within two months of pregnancy. To get some perspective, realize that, at eight weeks, the embryo is about the size and shape of a bean, and an inch long at the most. The irony is that, without prior exposure and training, none of these pro-lifers would even be able to IDENTIFY an embryo at this stage as human. Embryos destroyed at this stage were never conscious, never sentient, and can't feel pain (that ability only comes in the late third trimester too).

So, to finally answer your question directly: there is no logic. The anti-choice (which is what it really is) position is not one arrived at by logic, but by romantic self-delusion about what exactly an embryo/fetus is, and/or religious delusion about the origin of souls (e.g. they will say the soul enters at conception, but identical twins are the result of the embryo splitting into two AFTER conception. So, does each twin have half a soul? Does the soul get ethereally Xeroxed? The list goes on and on). It's an emotional premise, not a logical nor rational one.

No one with a real understanding of embryos/fetuses would freak out over destroying a blob with fewer cells than a newborn fly, especially if they were aware that a good TWO-THIRDS of fertilized eggs (i.e. conception has occurred) fail to implant and are destroyed by the body as if they weren't fertilized at all. That's right--according to the pro-lifer's logic, tons of "children" are being "murdered" on a daily basis without a single medical abortion ever occurring. For every pregnancy, there are on average two such "murders".

There's the "logic" for you. Sorry if I was rambly, but the nonsensical nature of this whole premise drives me nuts.
Source(s):
http://www.womenshealthmatters.ca/centres/pregnancy/pregnancy/second.html
http://www.stronghealth.com/services/womenshealth/maternity/trimesters.cfm
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=10765

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