"...except in the case of rape or incest."

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Body autonomy.

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Don't people have basic autonomy over other resources also, (with the exception of government taxation). What right does a newborn have to demand that you use some of your resources to take care of it?

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I don't know. I'm not comfortable restricting late-term abortions because that doesn't give a woman much time to:

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1) suspect pregnancy after a missed period
2) obtain and perform a test for pregnancy
3) locate an abortion provider, possibly in another state
4) save money for procedure, lodging, travel
5) arrange work schedule to permit several days' absence
6) travel to provider, submit to tests, be counseled, have abortion

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I mean it's not like you miss a period and you're in there the next day, having the abortion. Not to mention that there are a whole lot of organizations whose stated purpose is to delay your abortion by whatever means necessary until it's no longer legal for you to have one.

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I'm not talking about late-term abortions in general. I'm talking about the week or two before labor; surely the woman knows she is pregnant by this point and have ample time to get an abortion.The reason I'm pushing for this extreme case is because I'm trying to test how far you'll stress your notion of body autonomy. According to your logic, it seems perfectly permissible to kill this fetus, which for all intensive purposes is the same as a newborn baby.If you agree that abortion should be allowed in cases such as these, do you also agree that this results in the killing of a baby?

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I don't believe a mother-child relationship exists between a woman and an unwanted pregnancy. It's more of a relationship of antagonist-defender.

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So exactly analogous to a woman and tapeworm?

I don't believe raising a child if that is what one chose, or giving it up for adoption (if one did not choose to raise a child), is a punishment. That said, I totally agree with your point that as gov't steps in to say all pregnancies must go to term, that it should help provide care. Heheheh... You have control over the basement, that's why you have responsibility to clean up anything that happens to it. You don't need to have control over nature to gain that responsibility.And I still do not believe I have a responsibility to take care of any "weaker member" of society. I would want my gov't to do so, but I don't believe it is necessary. There are no absolutes for me, and societies have survived without such ideas. What are such societies like? Well as far as I can tell every society has some weaker members they do not protect. The prolifers are specifically making the same argument you are, and saying you are ignoring a certain class. Uhhhh... actually you do. You have the ability to make life and death decisions for them, as well as sanction them in ways you cannot do if they were not your spouse. Parents have control over pretty much every aspect of a child's life. They decide where kids can go and not go, who they can hangout with or not, they can inflict corporal punishment as well as confine them. Okay let's put one point to bed. We both agree that if laws are in place making sure that women give birth, a duty falls on the gov't to provide care for the child.However, that does not mean that a woman aborting a child has "taken responsibility". Let's use your same example. If the parents give the kid a hamster and he kills it saying he knew he wouldn't have wanted to take care of it, no one would say the kid "took responsibility". What he did was void himself of having to take responsibility. Society as a whole has decided that? You could have fooled me on that one. And even if it did that is something that can change as society changes. Society at one time believed killing a black wasn't murder... did that void such concerns from "real" moral responsibility. I think you are confusing popularity with some form of absolutism regarding moral responsibility here. It almost smells of a no true scotsman. Actually it does. I find this funny as the people of Amsterdam have just done that very thing! This week they installed popup "gates" on several blocks (including mine) to keep out certain elements and stop certain types from parking on my street. Heheheh... sometimes what society does to assure children have the "best life possible" makes a person want to abort. I don't think moral and reasonable are interchangable. But assuming they are, all this suggests is that abortion prohibition can be reasonable and was right up until the SC made a very controversial decision which allowed an unreasonable practice (abortion) to begin, which eventually became tolerable. Okay that's a bit too hyperbolic for my tastes. Anything against one's will is not "rape".And no I was not saying she was begging for it. I'm saying sometimes people find themselves in a position where they are not free to choose, and have responsibilities to do things they may not want to do. There is a valid question if she has such a choice, just as its not obvious parents have a choice not to feed their kids, or a pet owner to neglect their pet.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

But I'm saying specifically that that is not what she chose. She chose to abort. If the law won't let her do it, she is being punished. Well, I am basically pro-life. I'm also pro-choice. Do you have kids? I count myself lucky if the neighbours aren't on the lawn with torches and pitchforks, wanting to lynch the little hellions. Now, I know you weren't that goodie-goodie when you were a kid. Uh... no. Society won't let them do that any more. See, society has more control over the parent than the parent has over the child. At the risk of beating another innocent analogy to death: What if he took the hamster to a vet and had it euthanized? (Remember, we're not talking about a woman beating her child to death. We're talking about a medical procedure.) That is a way in which people take responsibility for their pets all the time. Yeah. Pretty much. (I'm not as familiar with your society as I am with my own, of course.) Well, I didn't say society is always right. I don't think there are any "absolutes" when it comes to morality. I think there is a pretty-damn-near absolute responsibility to take care of the weaker members. It's mainly the qualifications for membership that can change.Don't you confuse popularity with democracy. On any given day, a referendum might ban abortion. But democracy introduces a long-term component. Laws take a long time to change - constitutions take even longer. The moral values of "society" tend to be tempered by those delays.To a large extent, there is "no going back". Slavery won't likely be re-introduced. Women will likely retain the vote. I said it doesn't give them the right. I didn't say it prevents them from passing bad/unreasonable/oppressive laws. But the ongoing moral consensus eventually removes the worst and most oppressive. I prefer to think of myself as dodecahedral. As crashfrog might say, violation of one's "body autonomy" is rape.(I'm rather proud of that idea, actually.)

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Ringo:The person you are debating is an admitted moron. He believes xxx porno is okay to be viewed by minors because persons with Ph.D.'s say its okay. Persons with Ph.D's say apes morphed into men and life on this planet was planted by aliens.Holmes is an advocate of child porn like his "legitimate" Ph.D. sources; he seeks to validate his inability to attract an adult person of the opposite sex by whitewashing what perverts do who cannot obtain the former.Ray

You are suspended, Ray.You know better than to post insults.

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Well, clearly they don't. You mentioned taxation, that's one instance; another instance is the joint property I own with my wife. We could even be in a situation where ownership of that property could be disputed. I can buy and sell property, and the government can even seize it against my will via eminent domain.That isn't true with our bodies. It's illegal for me to sell my organs and absolutely no one else but me can have a claim of ownership over my body. (That's called "slavery" and its illegal.)One's body is a unique possession, and as such owning it confers unique privileges. One of those is the absolute right to determine who gets to use it or take residence in it. The week or two before labor actually occurs? Or before it could reasonably be expected to occur on its own? Or before the earliest it could be artifically induced? I think at this point the fetus should be evacuated from the body by whatever expiditious means are avaliable. If the fetus survives, great. Someone can adopt it. If not, well, it should have taken residence inside a mother who was interested in being pregnant. I dunno. Infaticide could be a mercy, in some situations. "Exactly analogous?" What does that even mean?

To Others... I just want to make clear I am actually on the same side of the abortion debate as ringo. I am only discussing what I see to be flaws in his argument. And I am certainly not trying to be mean to him. The subthread title was a jokey thing riffing on the fact that his avatar is a gunslinger. Not sure how I engendered such wrath from someone I wasn't even talking to, but wish to defuse any misunderstandings now.To Ringo... Just let me know if this is getting boring or unproductive. I actually felt like it was relatively productive. Testing arguments and all. Don't want to make this a huge issue or something. Okay let's think about this carefully. She did not "choose" for an abortion either. Regardless of what happened, she found herself in a position where she was pregnant and did not want a child. Thus she was faced with three odious choices: destroy the fetus so it will not go to term and not have to be cared for by anyone, go to term and let someone else take care of the baby, or go to term and take care of it herself.Anti-abortion laws remove one of those odious choices based on the concept that that choice involves harming (killing) another living being. Arguments of whether a fetus is a living being aside, we accept such limitations by law on our behavior in other circumstances. Thus it is not a punishment, it is an elimination of a choice which involves the violation of another being's rights.She is left with choices that do not violate the rights of another.I'm hoping that I am drawing out why this is not really an argument of punishing a person or forcing something on someone, the underlying element which decides everything is whether the fetus is a living being. I never know what to put for any side. I'll stick with AA (for anti-abortion) from now on. First of all that a child can attempt to go around the will of parents does not mean that parents are not given legal control over their children and can force many different decisions upon them. Second I am not sure about Canada but I know that the US and Europe still allow parents to engage in corporal punishment and physical detention of their children. Third, while there are limits you are only proving my point as society is shown to have control over the actions of a parent for the perceived welfare of the child.That last point really has to be understood, that society might have more control than a parent does not argue that society has less control over the actions of an individual. Definitely fine to go with having it euthanized. I think my point remains. If the child had it euthanized because he didn't want to care for it he would not be considered "taking responsibility" for it. It is avoiding responsibility. Many people do this but it does not change what is being done. I had a gf that was in a job where he euthanized animals for this very reason, it was definitely NOT considered "care" by those doing the procedure.The only time euthanasia is considerd "care" is when an animal is in pain, and will likely die that way. I don't know much about Canada, but from what I hear it is beginning to trend right, just like the rest of the west. In any case abortion is definitely NOT a decided issue in the US or Europe or it wouldn't be topical. Heck, the dutch have an abortion ship that they place off coasts of other nations that don't allow abortion (including EU nations) so that women can get the procedure done in int'l waters. I don't think this is true at all. I feel a personal desire to help those in need, but recognize that this is not a universal feeling and that whole societies have operated just fine without such ideas. In some cases it is a detriment to have such policies.Think of the animal kingdom, the weaker members may be cared for to some small degree but in the end most of them are shunned and left behind. That results in strength for the rest of the members.Only our technological ability has given nations with such technology an ability to care for weaker members that is not practical for other nations. Ahhhh... this is definitely a point of disagreement. Doesn't history show that there is most certainly "going back". As far as I can tell history is essentially a story of humanity ebbing and flowing on all issues. Look at the mideast for a good example, or the rise of fundamentalism within the US.As far as I can tell we are actively re-inventing slavery. Temp work is replacing real work (so humans are shuffled around as unimportant cogs), and debt is becoming mandatory while also harder to escape. As far as women retaining the vote, there is a party here in Holland that wants to change that, and I believe they got a slight boost in the next election.I might add there is already less freedom of communication and to act than there was. There were stict laws, they were lessened, and now they are more strict (with no rational basis for having reintroduced restrictions). But logically it can give them the right. You mentioned a social contract, but that is an amorphous thing. You can say it doesn't give them a right, but if consensus is that it does, then it does.Of course if you disagree you can always try and opt out of that contract, or get them to change their minds, but that is different than there being some absolute sense that they don't get such rights. That seems an idealism which is not matched by historical example. The US is engaged in activities which had been banned and thought incapable of a free democratic nation not 20 years ago. Hitler rose amongst a relatively democratic nation.There was once a trend that was for removing restrictions on humans, but that can be seen as having happened in the past, only to be reversed, and it appears to be reversing once again. Well you can use that terminology if you want, but it is not currently correct, and I dislike such usage. It appears part of a trend of making anything connected with sex a negative thing, pretty much the worst thing in the world. Its not bad enough to say a person has been forced to do something against their will, we must connect it to terms involving sex against will because that makes it worse.Rape is a category of violation. Violation or forced activity is bad enough and indeed as bad as it gets, whether sex is involved or not.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

There is now a real biological basis for this argument over here .

I think it does make it worse than other kinds of violating acts. In our culture our genitals are hidden from view and held to be something deeply intimate and close to ourselves. Rape isn't just a violation of one's space, or of one's will, or of one's rights, but of one's very self. I think that's a worse crime; I think the intimate, sexual aspect of the violation makes it much, much worse.But I guess our opinions on that can differ.Oh, by the way - I did get the joke in the title and I thought it was funny, for once. This message has been edited by crashfrog, 03-18-2006 11:41 AM

I'm the first to agree that my arguments can be thin (stream-of-consciousness and all - I'm makin' it up as I go along, folks). I'm just trying to thicken 'em up. I'm glad you think so. I think I'm getting close to where I've told you eveything I know. ------------- But they've removed the one choice that she wanted to make. Suppose she goes into a restaurant and the choices of entree are chicken and crab. She's allergic to shellfish - the waiter tells her they're out of chicken.Does she really have a choice? She is left with a choice that violates her rights. (Maybe that's why the courts have struck down anti-abortion legislation?) Sorry, you're not - not for me, anyway. It looks like a life sentence - or even a death sentence. I don't think I do understand that. At least, I don't agree with it.Society has the same control over a parent as over a child. The parent's control over the child is within that framework.The parent also has responsibility for the child, a responsibility which is governed by society. Society has a responsibility to the individual, whether parent or child.The child - having no responsibilities at all - would seem to be the least "controlled" of all.(But I'm starting to lose track of what that has to do with the topic. ) (Please don't mangle my analogies. ) We are talking about the difference between neglecting a hamster and euthanizing it. You might think there are other choices that "should" be made, but euthanasia is certainly more responsible than neglect. (You're a bit heavy-handed in deciding for everybody else what they consider "care", aren't you? )The analog (aaarrrghh!) with abortion would be saying that it is only "responsible" if the fetus would likely die anyway. It's a short-term "trend". It's happened three times already in my lifetime. Every time, the righties just show what a**holes they are and make it worse for themselves in the long run. (But that's another topic.) I may have missed the news every night for the last few years, but it's my impression that abortion isn't very "topical" in Canada. Gay marriage is certainly more topical, and even that is fading fast.I'm optimistic that the rest of the world will catch up eventually. Hmm.... I heard about a new-fangled invention called the "Internet", or something like that, that was supposed to allow instantaneous communication around the world. We never had that when I graduated from fetus to baby.I wonder how this "Internet" will reduce our freedom of communication? (Yet another topic.) No, different societies have different standards of how to help those in need. I have never heard of a human society that had no such standard at all. By definition, it can't be a "society" unless the members take care of each other. Once again, you are talking about the level of care, not a "to-care-or-not-to-care" situation. (And, of course, it is medical technology that allows us to provide safe abortions.) Workers have always been mistreated by employers. It's just insulting to compare that to slavery. I guess I'm thinking of "rights" in a more absolute sense than you are. The US Constitution (or is it the Declaration of Independence?) speaks of "inalienable" rights. The UN has a "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". No consensus can remove those rights - it can only pass laws that violate those rights. Nonsense. (And you are aware, of course, that the first one to mention Hitler automatically loses the debate. )

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Well, clearly they don't. You mentioned taxation, that's one instance; another instance is the joint property I own with my wife. We could even be in a situation where ownership of that property could be disputed. I can buy and sell property, and the government can even seize it against my will via eminent domain.

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That isn't true with our bodies. It's illegal for me to sell my organs and absolutely no one else but me can have a claim of ownership over my body. (That's called "slavery" and its illegal.)

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One's body is a unique possession, and as such owning it confers unique privileges. One of those is the absolute right to determine who gets to use it or take residence in it.

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I guess this is the crux of the argument here. I think in the case of late term abortions one shouldn't have complete body autonomy.I see no special or significant change in the fetus resulting from giving birth, so I don't see why it is such a heinous crime to kill a newborn when its outside of the womb and not a heinous crime to kill it when its inside the womb.Just as a mother has certain responsibilities for the well being of the child outside the womb she should have certain responsibilities when its inside the womb.

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The week or two before labor actually occurs? Or before it could reasonably be expected to occur on its own? Or before the earliest it could be artifically induced?

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For the sake of argument, the point when the fetus is indentical to healthy newborn.

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"Exactly analogous?" What does that even mean?

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Sorry for the vagueness. What I meant is does the mother have no more responsibilites towards the fetus than she does towards the tapeworm.

Well, one sigificant change is that the fetus is no longer entirely dependant on the organs of another human being for almost every bodily function.I think that's quite a significant change. Well, I think she does have certain responsibilities. It's just that none of those responsibilities mandate that she maintain an antagonistic fetus inside of her uterus. Healthy newborns have inflated, functional lungs, an operating digestive track, and the capacity to render food into a usable form (rather than relying on the mother's digestive tract as an energy source.) No fetus shares these characteristics. I'm not sure. I don't believe that she has any responsibilities that mandate that she offer her uterus as lodging to an antangonistic human being.

Argggggh! More analogies! Unfortunately this one was loaded. Her being allergic is something vastly different than her simply not liking shellfish (let's say she's jewish). Raising the kid or giving it to foster care is not the same as having to do something which will certainly adversely effect you in a physical way.A more appropriate analogy is that she really likes meat, she wants a thick juicy steak or slab of ribs or a nice char broiled chicken. She decides to go out with a bunch of friends for a nice dinner at a really nice restuarant (or maybe she gets dragged there). Instead of what she wanted, she winds up being taken to a vegetarian restuarant. Everything sucks. She orders a fish entree, the least repugnant of the choices, and is told that the new management is pure vegan and so it no longer exists on the menu.Yes, she has a choice, though bounded by restrictions set by others. That happens all the time. Ahem... I have a choice of paying for a meal, or shooting the cashier and taking it for free. It is not a violation of my rights to mandate I can't shoot the cashier. When there are two individuals, there is a competition of rights and the right to live is almost always the trump card, most especially if the other is simply "the right to do what I want with my body".The only time she could make such a claim is if the fetus does not have rights. Which is what I keep pointing to is the crux of the whole argument. Well that is just as irrational as an AA protester viewing a fetus as if it is an actual baby that wants to live and has expressive thoughts.As soon as one is pregnant there is a risk of death, no matter what you decide. Thus the concept that a restriction on abortion is a death sentence for the mother is absurd. And ironically abortion is most certainly a death sentence for the fetus (which you don't seem to mind).If you view raising the kid as a life sentence, then give it up for adoption. That intrinsically neither kills you nor chains you (except for the period till birth). ??? Children have almost no rights. They are the most controlled, besides animals. I have no clue what you are talking about. Still their right to life and health is enforced by society over the rights of the parents to do what they want. That would hold for abortion too, unless the fetus is not considered a child. No. I just said I knew people that worked doing the very thing you were talking about. A kid having his hamster euthanized, because he doesn't want to care for it is not considered "care" by at least some (all the people I knew) in that field. It was repulsive and a lack of care. A person that cared would have provided care until someone else could be found that would take over.Let me ask you this, if you have a different definition of "care" such that it extends to euthanasia when an individual chooses not to provide for a weaker being under his/her immediate control, then would euthanasia of an ailing relative or an irritatingly spongy relative be considered "care"? Wouldn't infanticide be considered "care"? Or would be suffering in life, yes. Well, I feel that there has been a shift made here. It can be a responsible decision to abort for many other reasons, but that is not the same thing as "taking responsibility for" the fetus. I wish I was optimistic that I could move to Canada. Oh, bad bad bad. Distance and number of people one can talk to due to technology advance =/= freedom. That can certainly be a form of freedom, but is not sufficient. China has the internet, they are regulating it. We have the internet, we are now regulating it. Less freedom regarding content all the time.I suppose one day when China rules the world, they'll come up with a great device allowing instant thought communication to absolutely everyone in the world (especially all those in gov't). If all I get to say/think is "I like chinese, long live little red book" there is no increased "freedom" of communication. The internet has already created less freedom to communicate, because of local concern over content. More laws are being introduced all the time to effect how and what people can communicate, even outside the internet, based on the numerical/spatial freedom that the internet gave us. That they must help the weakest? Are you kidding? Let's start with Sparta. I agree that societies are by definition groups of people that provide some level of support or regulated interaction between them. But that says nothing about who gets focused on for care.There were many societies, especially pre tech civilizations, which could not afford care for the weakest. You put your care for those that were strongest and most likely to benefit the group as a whole. Weaklings were left to die, if they were not killed outright. I suppose if you want to call that "care" you can, but those that remained alive were usually ostracized and victimized, usually believed to be cursed and certainly a burden. That does not suggest the neglectful and violent deaths were a form of tender mercy. I didn't say we had slavery yet, I said we were reinventing it. I described the paths we were going down to reintroduce it. That said, you do understand there are still slaves and slavery in the world, even in the west? You even have liberals arguing that illegal aliens should be allowed to be in the US to do the work regular americans would not want to do... ignoring that they are fighting for slave wages and treatment for this underclass. They aren't arguing to make them full citizens of equal wage and rights, otherwise they'd have hired americans. Do you honestly believe that the above mentioned documents set out actual "rights" that we really possess, and cannot be change by consensus? While their hyperbolic language is inspiring, they are simply lists that certain members of the societies from which they emerged set for themselves. I find the UN declaration somewhat loathesome and dictatorial even.The fact is that there are more rights than those enumerated, and yet not recognized by either the US or the UN, based on popular social consensus of what is NOT a right. By interpreting written rights differently (same words different meaning) we can and have gotten different results, with no need or ability to create laws which violate these rights.Rights do not come from Gods. You must fight against the society around you for every right you demand. Your success determines what rights you will enjoy. Thankfully there is some general common consensus at this time on a few, but they are already changing... just as the drafters of the Constitution warned would happen. Uhhhh... Hitler DID rise to power from within a democratic nation. That they clamored for or knuckled under to a tyrant does not change the fact. The point is that free people have often taken steps backward and gladly put the yoke on their own necks.There's a new rule if you hadn't heard: the first person to mention that the first person to mention hitler loses, when mentioning Hitler actually applies to the argument at hand, loses. Heheheh.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

I want to start by stating that feelings and opinions are not objective and so I can't really argue against them. All I can do is point out when they involve factual inaccuracies, logical inconsistencies, and failing that or in addition to that explain how another view point might have a greater emotional appeal to a person.Thus the following is not to say you or anyone else cannot feel the way you do about sex or violation, or how terms should be used, in some objective sense. There is nothing objectively "wrong" or "invalid" about it, beyond factual inaccuracies or inconsistencies I mention.I will greatly abbreviate this, because I suspect it is OT, and more or less is a conflict of opinion. I don't know what you mean by "our" culture. The entire world does not look at it that way at this time, certainly hasn't in the past, and is not even uniform throughout the US. What can be said is that those who have ascribed to a particular brand of Abrahamic (and almost especially later Xian and Islamic) dogma regarding sex and body view it that way. That would be the same for those members of cultures influenced/dominated by such doctrines. Such concepts are readily trackable, and not inherent to humans nor uniform throughout any nation, or set of nations.I can't remember if you said you had been to mainland Europe, but the body phobia many US citizens have is not present there (I guess I should say here). Genital exposure does not have the same meaning or level of meaning. Nudism is much more common as well as nude imagery.That genitals are personal (part of one's body and sensual moments) and important is one thing, that that has anything to do with being hidden is something else entirely. That is a duplicity born of ascetic religious, usually abrahamic principles (and specific strains at that) regarding the body and I do not personally understand why any seriously introspective free thinker would choose to hold or promote such understandings.There is no question that such views are growing in popularity with the rise of abrahamic fundamentalism and popular liberal ideology based on certain feminist doctrines (ironically having accepted the same abrahamic standards as a foundation for social theory). And it indeed has been very well played in US media. I find this disheartening, but it does not make it real or a standard for any culture much less "our culture". While that is a valid personal opinion/feeling, it is not factually true, and a viewpoint I would argue against. Rape really is just a forced sexual encounter, a breaking of another's will, which may or may not be a violation of one's rights (that depends on the society's laws). The only way it can become a violation of one's self is to the degree that one views sex as the entirety of one's being, and more to the point one's unchallenged sexual power as the entirety of one's being.This is unhealthy as sex (though important) is not all there is to a person's life, and tying one's "self" to some mythical "flawless" condition will only cause more harm. Those that have been victimized are further victimized, by being told that their very self has somehow been damaged. That is the very thing that the rapist was trying to do, and thus one empowers and justifies the rapist. It also justifies the image of the victim of a singular crime, as an eternal victim or "damaged goods".Those that have yet to encounter such a situation are prepared to make it worse psychologically than it has to be, or factually would be.And for those that have encountered other brutal crimes, it invalidates their experience as not being as bad for lacking a sexual dimension. This is going to sound really insulting, and I don't mean it to be. I think this kind of attitude is only possible from a standpoint of someone who has not enountered crime, and I mean real crime first hand. And thus judges it from unreflective popular social expectations, or only having experienced rape and accept popular social expectation. Sort of an ivory tower approach.From a personal viewpoint ranging in encounters from sexual assault (which most would call rape), to nonsexual child abuse, to fights and robberies, to (brutal) attempted and actual murders, I have no clue what you are talking about.While sex is "initimate", a rape is not. It is a forced use of one's body. Violence and fear is the key factor for horror and violation and damage. That a penis forced into a vagina (or other orifice) under threat of stabbing can be considered more of a personal violation than a knife actually pushed into your body cavity with no sexual overture and no way to possibly passify the attacker accept your own death, I am left scratching my head.From a scientific aspect, it has been found that despite popular opinion sex and violence are not synonymous. Violence and threat of violence is the primary source for longterm physical and psychological trauma. Rapes can be extremely damaging, but are generally keyed to the level of violence or threat of violence and not the level of sexual intimacy (which itself is usually culture specific) involved. Of course length of the incident(s) may also be a factor, thus repeated crimes can be potentially more damaging psychologically than a singular crime of greater violence.Of course expectations and pronouncements that rape victims must be "more damaged" in some intrinsic way by family and friends has been noted to not be helpful for people trying to recover and move on. It stops being a singular incident like a mugging, and becomes a lifelong badge of identity. In a way the "friends" extend the crime. If I have not been persuasive, then you can of course differ in your opinion and not be "wrong".That said, and I already have said way more than I intended to, this came up not in the context that rape should be considered a worse violation than other crimes, but because Ringo suggested that all violations of will should be called rape. He said you have suggested this though I do not know this to be true.The idea that every violation of will should be called rape, because rape is the worse thing that can happen, and so we should hyperbolize everything to the worst thing that can happen, is less than useful or healthy sounding to me.Among other issues, I doubt most rape victims want to be used as the category of the "worst thing that has ever happened", and even if true have other lesser issues be called rape just to make it sound bad. That's abusing a class of people for propaganda. And as I suggested this is simply part of the culturally recent trend to spice everything with sex if they want to make it seem worse, and in the process (part of the cycle) further defame sex.Sorry about the length of the post.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

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While sex is "initimate", a rape is not.

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All person to person, hands-on violence is incredibly intimate.