The Democratic Party was running with comparisons of Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock to Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) after a debate response about pregnancy and rape.
Akin, who’s challenging Sen. Clair McCaskill (D-Mo.), got his RNC and NRSC funding pulled in August after making comments in a TV interview about pregnancy being less likely to result from “legitimate rape.”
Mourdock, the state treasurer who defeated Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) in the GOP primary, is in a tight race for the seat with Blue Dog Democrat Rep. Joe Donnelly.
At tonight’s debate, he was asked about abortion in the case of rape. “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God,” Mourdock said. “And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
The state Democratic Party quickly pushed out a video of the comment titled “Mourdock: God Intended Rape.”
“The God I believe in and the God I know most Hoosiers believe in, does not intend for rape to happen — ever,” Donnelly said in a statement. “What Mr. Mourdock said is shocking, and it is stunning that he would be so disrespectful to survivors of rape.”
“God creates life, and that was my point,” Mourdock said in his own statement after the debate. “God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that he does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick.”
Richard Mourdock quickly became a trending topic on Twitter. Mitt Romney stumps for Mourdock in a new ad set to air this week, calling him the “51st vote” needed to repeal ObamaCare.
“Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock’s comments, and they do not reflect his views,” said Romney press secretary Andrea Saul.
stand your ground mr murdoch. the anguish of a birthmother, sexually attacked, doesn’t trump the life of a baby. period. those who take that position are flat out wrong, both logically and spiritually. take a page from mr. akin. simply reiterate the pro-abort position of your opponent, apologize if your wording of the principle was clumsy and misinterpreted (it is certainly being misreported) and move on.
Another male without a clue. You miss the point that most women are pro-life And Pro-choice. There is NO pro abort position lord sanctimonious AND the worst excuse for a Christian.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that those who willfully procure, perform or assist in the procurement or performance of an abortion are instantly and automatically excommunicated, regardless of the motivation. Even if the mother’s life is in danger, that NEVER justifies doing violence to the baby. At most, it justifies administering treatment despite the danger to the baby’s life or inducing labor/performing a caesarian-section to deliver a live, premature baby.
Intention is the difference between induction and abortion. A mother’s life can be saved by inducing labor and early delivery, by c-section if necessary, while trying at best to also save the baby. Obviously that is not always possible, but if the baby is viable it should be tried. Abortion (particularly late term is nothing more than the intention to kill the unborn).
There is no distinction between being pro-choice and pro-murder, as long as you are pro-choice as Democrats are. The male has a better clue than you do.
“You miss the point that most women are pro-life And Pro-choice” Um…what?
Another girl without a clue. You fail to comprehend that most “pro choice” males are pro abortion and see you as something to be used and forgotten.
People with strong pro life convictions should stop expressing them in forums where they are not relevant.
A political debate in which a question starts with “do you feel abortion is wrong . . .” should be rejected by a candidate as having an irrelevant premise.
A question that starts with “will you vote to make abortion illegal if . . .” is a legitimate question, however, and would likely be answered by the most pro life candidate in a way that does not cause the unthinking to get a case of vapors.
Do you ever wonder why Democrat pols are not asked “do you support funding publicly funding abortions?” or “do you support minor girls impregnated during the course of statutory rape being allowed to have abortions without parental or police notification?” or “do you support the legality of abortion from being addressed by legislative bodies?”
It should make you wonder.
Actually there are pro-abortion anti-natalists in our society and even in our government. They believe that the Earth is overpopulated and encourage an agenda that discourages reproduction. John Holdren, our science czar wrote a textbook called “Ecoscience” in which he made the case for forced abortions. I used to be “pro-choice” but personally opposed to abortion, until I realized that the true fascist resided on the antinatalist side of the fence. I am still pro-choice, meaning I believe that a women has the right to choose to have children without interference from the government and has the right to oppose the teaching of antinatalist and population control ideology to her children. Keep your fascists out of my womb.
I agree with you.
Anyone who says “Personhood begins at conception–but I’ll make an exception for rape or incest” is being both logically and morally inconsistent.
Murder is murder, regardless of how that person was conceived.
And it’s logically inconsistent too–because we don’t make such exceptions for infanticide. We don’t say that it was O.K. for a woman to drown her baby in her bathtub, or feed that baby poison, if that baby was the result of rape or incest. She’ll still be arrested and charged with homicide.
So if we don’t make exceptions for rape or incest after the baby is born, how can we justify such exceptions before the baby is born–unless we don’t regard the fetus as a true baby? (That last position is the position of the pro-choicers.)
There are only two consistent positions:
Personhood begins at conception, and taking that life is murder, regardless of how it was conceived
Personhood begins some time after conception, and taking that life before that time is not murder.
Anything else is a weasel position.
Yep. Murder is murder, then. The death penalty is murder. War is murder.
Either all killing is murder, or it’s not.
And if it’s not, and if you can justify “collateral damage” (aka the death of innocents during war), then you’ve just made a case for the rape/incest exception.
It’s no more inconsistent to say that abortion after forced impregnation via rape is justifiable than it is to say the death penalty is justifiable or war is justifiable or collateral damage is justifiable.
quite correct, not all killing is murder.
Abortion on demand, for any reason at any time–which the Dem party platform–that endorses murder.
Yes, but we’re talking about abortion in the case of rape.
Legally speaking, abortion is not murder, however, and that’s not likely to change. Nor is the death penalty in some states, killing for self-defense, collateral damage, etc.
But when prolifers push this notion that ALL killing is murder, far too many of them don’t really believe that at all. Which is my point. It’s a rare person who doesn’t justify killing under one or more sets of circumstances.
It is the intention that makes the difference. Is labor being induced early to save the mother from physical illness or severe mental anguish (in the case of rape) while also giving a best effort to save the unborn (obviously this depends on the stage of pregnancy, until a certain point death would be assumed without necessarily having the intent to kill) or is the intention to kill the unborn child. Intention makes all the difference, especially during the later stages of pregnancy.
Of course not all killing is murder. The situations are not always equal.
That said the gulf between killing an innocent child who had no choice in its progenitors killing criminals and enemy combatants is pretty massive.
What about the deaths of innocent bystanders during war? My point is no one has a “pure” prolife stance. No one. Yet the same people who support “pre-emptive” wars that result in the deaths of innocent bystanders would force a woman to carry to term a pregnancy violently imposed upon her body.
It’s absolute hypocrisy from start to finish. Unless you are against all killing under any circumstances, you’re not prolife. You’re just anti-abortion and maybe anti-killing under some other circumstances, but pro-killing under others.
In justifying abortion on the basis of rape or incest you are saying that those born of rape or incest are somehow more evil thus should be destroyed even if they manage to be born.
But then the progressives have long supported eugenics, seeing most people as human pollution which needs to be euthanized.
No. That’s what YOU are saying.
What I am saying, and I speak for no one else, is that rape victims ought to have the right to refuse to carry to term a pregnancy that has been violently forced upon them. She also, obviously, has the right to choose to continue a forced pregnancy, to raise that child or to allow the child to be adopted.
She gets to decide, without coercion, without being manipulated and preyed upon by those who have a vested interest in the outcome, and without force.
Why not allow women to sacrifice their babies to the Great Mother (Ga’ia), to be burned alive? After all it is their choice, from their bodies.
Or why not force sterilization on poor women? After all the poor only pollute the planet by their mere existance.
And doesn’t the evil of rape result in the child being evil thus needing to be destroyed.
What you suggest isn’t even remotely related to the topic at hand.
We are talking specifically about women who have been forcibly impregnated as the result of a violent crime, and their legal right to terminate those pregnancies, not sacrifices to pagan gods, or forced sterilization of the poor (although that you’re for that is not surprising since you’re for forced pregnancy).
All you prolifers can do is make up gobbledygook situations, or argue strawmen.
If you believe rape victims should be legally forced to carry to term any pregnancy that results from the rape, then just say that. Man up and say it — say that any woman who is raped should be detained by the state and forced to carry a resulting pregnancy to term.
Because that’s what you’re _really_ saying, no matter how you try to deflect and distract and play silly rhetorical games.
I’ve said exactly what I believe — that a rape victim should have the legal right to terminate a resulting pregnancy even though doing so is ending the life of a human being.
C’mon — for all that you and Jeannette and Jack and James like to sneer and condescend at me for saying exactly what I mean, you don’t seem to have what it takes to do the same. Pretty telling, that.
In justifying abortion on the basis of rape or incest you are saying that those born of rape or incest are somehow more evil thus should be destroyed even if they manage to be born.
But then the progressives have long supported eugenics, seeing most people as human pollution which needs to be euthanized.
I gather that genocide is acceptable as long as it done via abortion, forced sterilization or euthanizing the old and the sick.
The Mourdock comment was about rape. He said nothing about eugenics, sterilization, or euthanization.
Sigh. Sounds like the Romney campaign didn’t get the full transcript before rushing out a statement.
Read Aborted Women Silent No More. Most women who abort after a rape go thru traumatic depression. Depression from the rape compounded exponentially by they fact that they then killed the innocent baby. Suicide rate is astronomical.
When raped women DECIDE to bring their babies to term and then adopt, they garner joy of at least ONE good thing coming from that tragic event. These boots will distort any quote JUST to promote their right to execute their offspring.
He should find women from pregnancy center who will campaign with him and give testimony about their tragic story and wonderful ending. That they DIDN’T kill the innocent for the crime of the father
Good Lord. Fine go with that belief. BUT you may NOT legislate your view on me or any other woman. your comments are absurd But again may you Choose for you, your daughter , your mother to have a child of rage, hatred, disease and to forever be reminded of such.
Sure we can, just like we can legislate that private revenge is illegal.
Fortunately, you are not on the US Supreme Court. Abortion is legal in the USA and will remain so, and even many prolifers despise those who would force victims of rape and incest to carry a resulting pregnancy to term.
Yes we are supposed to make murder illegal.
OK, please show me where Mr Mourdock proposed legislation to enforce his private beliefs.
OTOH, the current administration gives not a whit about Catholic organizations being forced by existing legislation to provide contraceptive services in their health care coverage, which are TOTALLY against the Church teachings.
Who is speaking from the real world, and who is making stuff up? Ask yourself.
tom
BINGO!
Oh, wait, now you would not only force a rape victim to carry a resulting pregnancy to term, you would force her to hand that baby over for adoption…? All based on anecdotal evidence and/or your religious beliefs?
Right. Because now she’s just damaged goods, not worth much, and the only “good” than can come from her now is supplying the demand of the adoption industry.
How about you let her make her own decisions? Or are you in cahoots with the rapist?
Talk about reading comprehension. Even the most basic research and studies show that abortions are very traumatic experience that the majority of women regret when they have on. Depression, reduced fertility and a slew of other problems can come from having one. There is no doubt in my mind that the only thing worse mentally for a woman than a rape would be to abort that child after the fact.
Not to mention that this is simply passing the father’s sins on. Why should a baby be murdered because the father is a criminal? Murderous child soldiers are to be pitied, but blameless babies are to be dismembered? How is that moral in any way? Actually this is even more tragically hilarious when you consider that the people who think the baby should get the death penalty for being the product of a rape would flip out if we said we should execute every rapist as well.
And finally I’m curious as to the amount of abortions that are actually a result of rape and incest. I read once that it accounts to about half a percentage, so defending abortion by using the rape/incest argument is basically a total straw man.
You’re lumping all abortions in with abortions in the case of rape. Also, women exhibit those symptoms after miscarriages, and women who were forced to “give” up their babies for adoption also exhibit those same symptoms.
Your personal feelings about what you think other women should or should not experience are not any rational basis for law, nor are they relevant to what each individual woman might choose to do if she becomes pregnant via rape. It’s not your decision. What YOU have no doubt about in YOUR mind isn’t what another woman may have no doubt about in HER mind.
Terminating a pregnancy that is the result of rape is not punishing the child for the father’s crime. It is the unfortunate side effect — collateral damage — of terminating a forced pregnancy, much like removal of an ectopic pregnancy results in the death of a child.
Alright then let’s not base law on what I personally feel. Let’s base it on fact. A baby is a human being. Killing a human being is murder. Hence killing a baby is murder. Plain and simple. No justification can be used to endorse the murder of a baby. You can try to dodge around it all you want but in the end you are no different than slave owners, Nazis, and any number of other eugenicists and evil people throughout history who committed atrocities because they believed the people they committed them against weren’t human. And no matter how hard the left tries to prevent it the fact is that abortion is a losing argument, and in 100 years it will be talked about in history classes in the same paragraphs as the Holocaust.
All killing isn’t murder, though. We justify some killing — self defense, war, collateral damage during war, the death penalty. So, no, that abortion results in the termination of a human life doesn’t make it murder. As a matter of fact, abortion is legal in this country, so there’s no question that it is not, in fact, murder at all.
To remain on topic, are you saying you would detain an impregnated rape victim and force her to carry the pregnancy to term? You would criminalize abortion — all women who have aborted are murderers and belong in jail serving life sentences (or sitting on death row — oh, the irony…)?
You believe any other human being has the right to usurp another’s body — use it against that person’s will — for self-serving purposes?
Don’t take away their justification. There are so many women out there who need some good touchy feely justfication for their abortion on demand. Wouldn’t you spend your life trying to justify it if you had dismembered and sucked out your own offspring just so you could keep partying or advance your career or buy a new wardrobe or a new car or just didn’t have the courage to do what other women have been doing since the dawn of time?
“there are so many women out there who need some good touchy feely…………..” And what do you base that statement on? You’ve personally interviewed how many women, who had abortions, about how they felt, and over what period of time?
Who do these Republicans think they are? Obama, whose gaffes are covered up and spinned by the MSM? How could they be so stupid?
This fool was saying “And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” It’s “life”. Why the hell didn’t he say “… that life is something that God intended…” These fools don’t think, they spiel talking points and get loss when they are nervous.
Loss two seats due to stupidity!
#!@^&#!@!# nincompoop!
We really need to establish a boot camp for candidates that teaches them basic survival skills, like answering predictable gotcha questions on rape, abortion, gun tragedies, and other MSM hot button favorites.
This guy and Todd could end up leaving Harry Reid in charge of the Senate and able to shut down Romney’s recovery plan. I hope Mitt has long coat tails that can pull a number of close Senate races into our column, because with allies like this he’s going to need them.
Dear old guy As a man you obviously care not one whit about what this ignorant man is saying. so simply cover up so that nuts like this run our country. Perhaps Republicans should consider saner candidates then no one would have to teach them to ‘sound’ normal.
@Kiki:
“As a man you obviously care not one whit about what this ignorant man is saying.”
What does my sex have to do with what I care about? We are all humans.
I am a Libertarian who is part of an ideological coalition that has banded together to achieve common goals. I don’t agree with every stance of every faction in the coalition nor do I expect them to always agree with me. We are united by our common goals and I prefer to avoid public disagreements over those things we cannot agree on in order to advance the cause.
I do not think being an absolutist on the right to life is ignorant or insane, it is just a different moral stance than my own on a difficult subject, one that many in this country hold. I grant others the right to follow their own conscience without my attempting to convert them or denounce them.
I know there are not enough votes or support from the public for an absolute ban on abortion and know it will never happen. Currently we have nearly an absolute right to an abortion despite the vast majority of the country wanting a more reasonable set restrictions on it. Current law is further to the other side of the political center than Richard Mourdock is to the pro life side. What he said is less extreme than supporting abortions for any reason in the 9th month of pregnancy.
That being said, he should have given a better answer. He is not on the ticket because moral absolutism on abortion is a big issue in Indiana or the nation. He is on the ticket to represent the coalition that is the Republican Party, and voicing his private views on this divisive topic harms the interests of those who have invested a great deal in his candidacy.
The Democrats have labored mightily to make this election about women’s issues. That is a diversion they need because on the big issues, like the economy, energy, the rapidly growing nanny/police state, and the foreign policy mess they have a straight F report card for the last four years. Personally I do not want to see us sidetracked in to a discussion of what has been an endless and divisive debate that has gone on for my entire life with no hope of resolution. Whatever happens on abortion or anyone’s pet issues is less important than saving the country.
Excellent points. Democrats, with the help of the MSM, continue to get way too much mileage out of milking the social issues for all they are worth & foolish GOP pols continue to fall into their trap. Will they ever learn? I doubt it.
Now, I thought Democrats were for the little guy/gal; but I guess they’re not for the littlest of guys/gals.
Social conservatives are going to talk themselves right into extinction. That’s 2 US Senate seats now lost. This situation has to be addressed. If social cons cannot control their mouths, please don’t run. You’re losing sure bet seats.
I missed the part where the election already happened. Last I heard, Akin was neck-and-neck with McCaskil, and was even pulling to a slight lead.
I’m in Missouri. Last I read, Akin is 4-6 pts behind Mccaskill. A candidate has to be really, really bad to be behind an incumbent once as loathed as Mccaskill.
lol. I’ve been hearing this for 30 years now. What’s hilarious is when someone comes along and says, “uhhhh, i thought we settled this along time ago. where did all these antiabortion rethuglicans come from”.
Sooo, it’s a capital crime to have a rapist for a father. But of course most of these pro-abortion citizens are against capital punishment for convicted rapists.
Joe Donnelly has been pretending to be a pro-lifer all along, but when the rubber hit the road, he couldn’t resist being a Democrat.
No. No one is forcing pregnant rape victims to abort. The state is not insisting that all pregnancies that are the result of rape are to be terminated.
The law allows for each woman to make that decision for herself.
Please get your facts straight.
Legal abortion is here to stay. But supposed prolifers such as yourself would rather harp away at that rather than do the hard work of eliminating the reasons why young women might choose abortion in the first place.
Also, when men like Mourdock claim God’s plans for some people include forced impregnation via rape, other men hear that as a valid reason for raping women.
When prolifers are truly about the dignity of all women, the autonomy of all women, then maybe people will listen to you. Right now, you make it plain as day you think women who’ve been raped don’t deserve their autonomy going forward because they’re just dirty damaged goods now anyway, and the least they could do is suck it up for nine more months and pop out a baby to feed your adoption industry.
Wow, you’re all over the map with this. Try addressing what I actually said instead of barking out PP talking points and maybe we could have had a rational discussion. But hey, it’s all the same to me; both liberals and conservatives agree on one big issue, that there are just waayyyy too any liberals. I’d rather you change your minds, but you’d rather think of children as “intruders” (below) and kill them off, so I figure we have about 30 more years of people like you, and then your genes are gone forever, whew!
There’s only so much I can do or say to convince you otherwise, and there’s not really anything you can do or say to get me to change my mind that children are a blessing and a gift, no matter how they’re conceived so have a good one.
(Love that shrewish “sweetie” below lol)
oops! *too many liberals
Ah, now I’m a “liberal”, a word that now has about as much meaning as “feminist” these days.
You asserted, and I quote, “Sooo, it’s a capital crime to have a rapist for a father. But of course most of these pro-abortion citizens are against capital punishment for convicted rapists.”
You’re equating abortion in cases of rape with a state enforced sentence. I’m pointing out that women choosing abortions in cases of rape is not the same thing as a state-imposed death sentence.
Again, get your facts straight. Sweetie. LOL!!11!!!
Jeannette – They’re not liberals, they’re Leftists. The only thing they’re liberal with is liberally spending other people’s money and liberally terminating the lives of the unborn.
Define “they”.
Also, really, really have to love Jeanette’s reveling and delight in my death (of course, I’ve got five kids and a bunch of grandkids, so my genes aren’t quite as gone as she’d like).
You “prolifers” show your true colors every time you turn around. Lolz. LOL. !!1!. OMG.
Was Mourdock expressing his personal opinion or explaining how he would legislate? There is a big difference in that context.
Ron Paul, for instance, tells audiences that he is a Christian and personally opposed to abortion. As a Federalist however (Mourdock makes a big deal out being), Paul believes it is beyond the enumerated powers of the Federal Governemnt to restrict – and would violate the 9th and 10th Amendments if the Federal Government did try to restrict the practice. (This is pretty much my view also)
“A Christian can’t get equal time unless he is a looney or committing a crime.” -Steve Taylor
The outraged pro-choicers here aren’t thinking through what the pro-lifers are saying.
Most pro-lifers, particularly ones motivated by religion, believe that life begins at conception. That is, the moment you have a fertilized egg you have the moral equivalent of a human being. That being the case, being against abortion in the case of rape or incest is the only logically consistent position they can take. The life being ended isn’t the guilty rapist’s, it’s the innocent child’s.
We don’t execute the children of murderers or bank robbers, right? How then can you justify killing the child of a rapist?
I personally disagree with the pro-life stand on when exactly that’s a human being in the womb, and anyone else is also free to disagree with them. But dismissing them as insane or “bad Christians” isn’t a reasonable counter-argument. It’s just an ad hominem issued in bad faith.
He’s not a bad Christian – just a terrible politician.
No argument there. He served up a soundbite that positively begs to be misrepresented.
Mourdock said something else that the Dems pounced on.
He said that if the rape victim became pregnant, God had intended it that way, just as God intends every other human life.
I guess Mourdock doesn’t regard the rape victim getting pregnant as a horrible thing. Because if it were a horrible thing, he would have to conclude that there are many horrible things in this world that God is not responsible for–like that one, for example.
In my own philosophy, God was no more responsible for the rape victim getting pregnant with the rapist’s child, any more than God was responsible for the Holocaust of the Jews. Horrible things happen in spite of God, not because of them.
Why they happen, theologians and philosophers have been wrestling with for thousands of years. Some believe that even horror shows like the Holocaust and the 9-11 terrorist attack must be part of God’s plan too–otherwise God would have stopped or prevented them. Personally, I do not believe that. Let’s remember there are other interested parties, like Satan.
But all this is NOT a subject for a political debate two weeks before a national election. Social conservatives feel the need to talk about this stuff all the time, even in apparently inappropriate venues.
Well, if you’re like the President and believe that having descendents would be a “punishment”, then you would have a hard time accepting that pregnancy, a new life, is a blessing. The women I know in this situation who have brought their children to term say they were glad to have brought something good out of the horrible situation.
I know it’s weird, but many Christians think that children ARE a blessing, no matter how they came into this world. I guess Kiki here and Joe Donnelly can be horrified all day long, but I’m glad Jack Nicholson and little Grace (my friend’s daughter) were born. (and I really really like all of my family’s “unplanned pregnancies” of all ages, fwiw; as far as I know, none were due to rape though).
There is a huge difference between a woman being forcibly impregnated against her will via rape, and a man who also happens to be a father committing armed robbery or murder or whathaveyou.
If you can’t see that there is something deeply, deeply wrong with you.
Again, you make no attempt to actually argue your position. You simply state it as fact and dismiss someone who disagrees as having something wrong with them.
Let me summarize the pro-life position for you, since you seem to have a problem following it. They believe:
1) a fetus is a human being
2) a fetus is completely innocent of any wrongdoing
3) abortion ends the life of the fetus
ergo
4) abortion ends an innocent life
So not only is there not something defective about a pro-life being against abortion in the case of rape, it’s in fact the only principled position they CAN take. Despite your snideness, if someone accepts premises 1-3 then there actually isn’t a difference between an abortion in case of rape and killing the child of a bank robber. In both cases you’re punishing, with death, a person who has done nothing wrong.
Now, if you disagree with premises 1-3 you should present some kind of valid, logical argument in defense of that position (who knows, if you do that it’s possible someone might even listen to you). If you can’t do that then it means you believe something you can’t defend, in which case there’s something very, very wrong with you.
No — you’ve failed to make your case that abortion for a rape victim is even remotely related to killing the children of a man committed of, say, grand theft auto.
Also, pro-lifers have yet to make their case for justifying collateral damage deaths during war, or the death penalty, or even war itself while at the same time claiming abortion in rape cases is wrong.
Wow, you’re a walking compendium of logical fallacies. It’s really amazing to see. I could teach an entire critical thinking class just using your posts.
I laid out the reasoning in four easy to read points. Well, easy to read for most people, apparently you’re a special case. You seem to think that dismissing an opposing point of view is the same thing as arguing against it. I assure you that it isn’t.
As to what you’re saying about war it’s just a complete non-sequiter. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
But since you did bring it up I’ll do you the courtesy of answering you. The difference is that collateral damage in war is by definition unintentional. Abortion is deliberate and willful. One is unavoidable, the other isn’t. Somehow though I doubt you’ll be able to grasp that.
Sweetie, you’re not nearly as clever as you think. Calm yourself down, already, ‘k?
Yes, I agree with premises 1-3.
I also believe it is justifiable for a rape victim to rid her body of an unwanted intruder, just as many people feel it’s justifiable to rid their homes of unwanted intruders.
Some bizarre notion that abortion for rape victims is the same as rounding up the children of convicted felons has nothing to do with the topic at hand, either. Those children haven’t been violently forced inside another person’s body.
Collateral damage is not “intentional” so it’s okay? Fine. Let’s run with that. Abortion in the case of rape is no less unintentional. The goal is to rid the body of a violently imposed pregnancy. Hey, a kid dies during the process. So be it. The goal isn’t to specifically kill that child for revenge (which is what your ridiculous analogy asserts). It’s to prevent further violation and intrusion of another’s person.
omg James, I can’t believe you don’t see Nora’s point!!!11!!!! She’s exactly right, making a woman carry a child she didn’t want there in her womb is JUST LIKE if someone broke into your house and put a baby in there. Of course a woman should be able to kill the baby and throw it out of her house into the winter night. I can’t believe you would want to force a woman to keep an unwanted baby in her house until the authorities were able to come and safely take the baby away!
OMG, JEanEtte!!!! Lolz!11!
No, abortions in, for example, the third trimester are always a homicide. When done for convenience, they are murder. The law can’t change that anymore than it could define black to be white, or for 2 plus 2 to be 5.
In the event a woman doe snot want a baby and is pregnant–for any reason including rape–if it gets are far along as that, she should have no recourse to murder the baby to avoid bringing the baby to term. There’s nothing about a rape which is made any better by following it up with a murder.
Your statement about collateral deaths in war is a non sequitor. In war, the point is to kill people who are not an immediate threat to you, to prevent them from achieving their political goals. There is an intention expressed in the Laws of Armed Conflict, which seek to minimize the deaths of non-combatants–but those same rules presuppose they will occur and that they are not murder. In part, because striking legal targets in spite of the inevitability that innocents will also be killed, offers the opportunity to bring the war to an end, reducing the killing overall.
No such opportunity exists when a woman has her baby murdered in an abortion.
The ludicrous circumstance brought up, that criminalizing the murder of a baby who is the product of a rape, is like planting a baby in someones home and expecting them to care for it, doesn’t work because in both cases, the child can be abandoned at the homeowner or woman’s option to the tender mercies of the foster care system.
No one has to care for a child they can’t or won’t. But it should be criminalized to murder a baby.
Stay on topic. We’re talking about rape victims who have been impregnated against their will by way of a violent assault upon their person. A woman who seeks an abortion in such cases is not likely to seek a third trimester abortion, so late term abortions or partial-birth abortions aren’t pertinent to the discussion.
Collateral damage is pertinent. The goal of the woman is to prevent further unwanted intrusion upon her person. In terminating the pregnancy forced upon her by violence, the child is collateral damage.
It’s odd that you’re perfectly okay with slaughtering innocent children, including the unborn, during acts of war in order to further your political agenda, but you think a rape victim aborting a forced pregnancy is evil. That doesn’t sound “prolife” to me. It sounds “pro SOME life, SOME of the time, as it suits my agenda”.
Re the home invasion analogy — which is the one I made (Jeanette equated pregancy-via-rape with putting a baby in a stranger’s house, not me) — if you agree that a homeowner has a right to defend himself, including using lethal force, from an unwanted intruder, then abortion in cases of rape shares some similarities. However, in the case of a home intrusion, a homeowner may be able to rid his home of the intruder without using lethal force. A rape victim cannot rid her body of the unwanted intruder (an intruder forced inside her against her will via a violent physical & sexual assault) without killing the child, however. The child is collateral damage in her effort to free her body from being usurped by an unwanted intruder for nine months.
We’re not talking about women who don’t want to care for their already-born children. We’re talking about a woman who has had her freedom and her body taken away from her. There is a very big difference, and that you equate a rape victim who has been made pregnant against her will with someone who doesn’t want to bother with children is disturbing. On the other hand, your mindset echoes that of Mourdock (and Ryan, and Smith, and Walsh, and Napoli, and Akin, et al.).
“Stay on topic.”
It’s hysterically funny you wrote that after you brought civilian casualties in war into it.
You wrote:
“And if it’s not, and if you can justify “collateral damage” (aka the death of innocents during war), then you’ve just made a case for the rape/incest exception.”
I have no respect for you Nora, and I shouldn’t, because you think somehow a rape gets ameliorated in some fashion if it is followed by a murder. The Democratic Party platform plank if any abortion any time.
That’s reprehensible.
Hit enter too soon, “t” is me.
“There is a very big difference, and that you equate a rape victim who has been made pregnant against her will with someone who doesn’t want to bother with children is disturbing.”
That you think a baby isn’t a baby if they are the product of rape, so killing them isn’t murder–that’s disturbing.
Remember that the Democrats are fighting for is any abortion anytime for any reason. The pro-lifers don’t actually have the more extreme position here.
By staying on topic i mean the topic of abortion in cases of rape. If you want to make an analogy, fine. But trying to turn this into a discussion of late-term abortion is straying off topic.
I have never once said a baby conceived by rape is anything other than a baby. I have, actually, been quite clear that i absolutely consider the unborn child a baby, a human being.
In the case of rape, however, I believe the woman should have the choice to abort.
I do not believe the abortion ameliorates the rape. I believe it prevents further violation of the woman if she does not want to continue that pregnancy.
I don’t care whether you respect me or not. I don’t even know you.
I hear a lot of concern for the unborn baby. Where is your concern for the welfare of the rape victim? Where is her choice in all this?
As long as the pro-abortion side–aka, Democrats–think murdering a baby should always be legal if a doctor gets paid to do it, or as long as it was very recently in the womb…
..Compared to that extreme position, I should give a damn?
Murdering babies is way worse.
God, I am so sick of conservative candidates totally stepping on their d**ks on these gotcha questions about this topic from a biased media!
Two Senate races in jeopardy because these guys couldn’t just remember their talking points!
As an Indiana resident, and life-long Republican, the only reason I’ll vote for Mourdock is the prospect of a chance for a Republican senate majority. If his opponent would commit to caucusing with the Republicans, I’d switch. I’m sick of politicians, as well as others, who claim to speak for God.
Since I believe life begins at birth, I have no problem understanding the outrage people can have at notions like no abortion even in cases of rape or sexual abuse.
The child of such a union would be a walking talking dagger, forever reopening a wound in it’s mother. Even adoption would be awful as each movement of the child would bring each movement of the rapist to mind.
Can you not see the damage this would cause? To mother and perhaps to child?
Any god that would want this is a god that deserves to be spit upon and reviled, to have it’s temples cast down and it’s holy books destroyed and wiped from human memory.
Women say “It was like being raped again”.
Oh wait, that’s actually what they say about their post-rape abortions.
Senate is lost.
I believe it is God’s will that the Senate remain in the hands of the Democrats.
lol, nice trolling tho
Abortion in the case of rape is a topic which is a perennial favorite of political candidates and journalists. It has replaced the argument of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It always draws attention, particularly by those who rarely think deeply. I would add, rape by a Martian, to add to the vacuous titillation and legal taxonomy.
There is great evil in the world. There is also stupidity. Does anyone really judge that if Richard Mourdock or Todd Akin were seated in the Senate Chamber, would their presence lower the wisdom of this crowd? Are their words any less stupid than “the emanations and penumbras” upon which our national abortion policy has rested for half a century?
The correct answer on abortion, for any US Senate candidate, is to reflect the words of Judge Scalia on the topic. There is nothing in the Constitution on this matter. Ergo the authority rests with the states and the people. Ergo it is not within the US Senate’s authority to criminalize. We do have authority over federal funding actions. If elected, I will vote accordingly.
It would force a landslide.
“Does anyone really judge that if Richard Mourdock or Todd Akin were seated in the Senate Chamber, would their presence lower the wisdom of this crowd?” Hard to say. The Kennedys are gone, and so are Joe Biden and Barack Obama, so the average IQ probably has gone up recently. Jim Webb isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s retiring (though neither of his potential replacements are “all that”, either).
Here are the facts about abortion in the USA:
- There are over 1.2 MILLION abortions every year, and the reasons are:
•74% say having a baby would interfere with work, school, or other responsibilities.
•73% say they cannot afford to have a child.
•48% say they do not want to be a single parent, or have relationship problems with husband or partner.
•Less than 2% say they became pregnant as a result of rape or incest.
Yes, I know the percentages don’t add up, as respondents can chose more than one reason.
My information is dated, but revealed that abortion due to rape was circa 1 in 5000, and many (most??) of these were due to statutory rape, e.g. consenting but underage women. Such data is suspect for obvious reasons. But it reveals the bias of those who politicize this evil for personal agendas. It also explains, in part, the attempt to characterize the forcible subtotal as “legitimate rape”. Without using vulgarities, what is the correct term of reference, the word? Paul Ryan worked on this legislation and dropped it; he did not have a solution, rigorous legal terminology differentiating two acts.
Mathematically, America could drop the national number of abortions to circa 200- 300 if it was based solely on the broader definition and a much smaller number for what-ever-you-call-it. If politicians were honest, and they are not, all would acknowledge that the overwhelming problem is due to a complete lack of self discipline, and respect for others. The correct motivational words were once called personal standards, and shame. Although informed by religious tenets it is not strictly a religious issue; every religion, throughout history has taken a stand on abortion. What do we want our societal standards to be and who decides in a democratic republic?
Mourdock is not the problem, hundreds of thousands of people with no self worth is the problem. (There are a few legitimate exceptions.) Ubiquitous lying is the root problem, the reason we never solve this serious societal problem.
The RvW decision has established legally that a woman’s reproductive rights trump all arguments (including my own) against choice; it’s really not any more complicated than that. We can all engage in arguments back & forth ’til the cows come home for all the good it will do; it’s just a case of creating a lot of sound & fury that signifies virtually nothing. Until a case comes before the USSC that prompts a repeal, this will remain the law of the land.
Of course, it keeps being revisited every generation because of the Roe Effect.
bobbcat – You are no doubt correct, but IMHO, Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. There is no basis in the Constitution to make abortion a federal issue. Indeed, I suspect that Roe v. Wade is a lot like the Dred Scott case. As I read the latter I could see Chief Justice Taney reaching for the penumbra of the Constitution, as did the justices in the former. Hopefully, a future Court will see the error in Roe v. Wade and reverse it so it is no longer a federal issue.
The court’s decision was based on the notion that privacy was implied in the due process clause of the 14th amendment. IOW, it did not believe the states have the right to pass laws which delve too deeply into the personal decisions of their citizens.
bobbcat – Where is the right to privacy guaranteed in the Constitution? The fourth amendment’s right to be secure in one’s person is only against unreasonable search and seizure. Any other suggestions?
That’s where the key word implied comes in. Remember too, they also utilized the wording in the ninth amendment which speaks of rights not clearly enumerated belong to the people. Also, bear in mind the law does allow the states to impose limits with regard to late-term abortions, with the right of choice to its fullest extent only during the first trimester.
bobcat – Two more thoughts: 1) Implied is, I guess, where the penumbra come in. And BTW, Taney did the very same thing in the Dred Scott decision. For him, it was implied in the Constitution that blacks nowhere in the United States could be citizens. 2) When the Court lays out a course of action (as in the trimester rules) it is no longer adjudicating; it is legislating. By doing so, it is overriding Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution, and thereby making law unconstitutionally.
And how is forcing a woman pregnant as the result of rape to carry that pregnancy to term and bear a rapist’s child not an unreasonable seizure? How is it not involuntary servitude other than punishment for a crime, per the Thirteenth Amendment? How is it not slavery?
If aborting a child conceived by rape is murder, then find, convict and execute the rapist; it’s his responsibility. It’s his responsibility for making an embryo an accessory to his crime. Yes, a woman may choose to carry a rapist’s baby and perhaps even find some meaning in that. Another woman may consider the changes to her body, the risk of complications that could damage her body, the small risk of death in childbirth, and the like, physical threats that she morally may resist, with violence if necessary.
I once had to fight off a would-be rapist, and had it taken injury or death to stop him, I would have inflicted that knowing I had the right of self-defense.
I had a friend who was impregnated by rape, carried the baby to term, and put her up for adoption. It was a devastating experience. She fell into a severe depression every year on her birth daughter’s birthday. On the seventh birthday, she killed herself.
18 years later, I had to explain to that baby, now a young woman, that her birth mother was actually a good person too fragile to cope with the emotional and psychological complexities of that experience. She looked me up when trying to get to know her birth mother, because my name was on the coroner’s report as someone who’d inquired about my friend. She contacted me 10 days after I’d buried my own father.
Incidentally, her birth father wanted nothing to do with her.
Life is messy. Miscarriages happen, spontaneously, often in the first trimester, perhaps in 10-25% of all impregnations. Might a loving God, who apparently accepts that phenomenon, welcome the soul of an aborted rape baby on the same terms as the soul of a miscarried baby? My own trust in God inclines me to say yes; your mileage may vary.
First, we cannot presume the salvation of the miscarried and aborted. They died in a state of Original Sin, so we dare not take the place of God by declaring them to be in Heaven, despite the fact that we hope for God’s mercy because He does not desire that any perish. Second, the eternal destiny of the victim is wholly irrelevant to the fact that murder is a sin. The Holy Innocents who were slaughtered at Herod’s order did go to Heaven as martyrs, but that in no way mitigates Herod’s guilt for shedding their blood.
Beth just south of Berkeley and just east of San Francisco – I was just addressing the Constitution of the United States and nothing more. If you go back to my earlier points, you will see that my objection to Roe v. Wade is that it was wrongly decided, not whether abortion should be legal. I likened that decision to the dreadful Dred Scott decision for a very specific reason. It is that interpreting the Constitution to say something it doesn’t is very dangerous. Sometimes we like doing the result, but sometimes doing so effectively destroys the Constitution. (An example would be the Kelo decision that has done grave damage to the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment.) Remember, the Constitution is meant to be a restraint on federal power, not to give the federal government (including the Court) carte blanche to do as it pleases. With respect to abortion, it is up to the states (and by extension, its citizens) to determine whether abortion should be legal or not. Republican democracy can be messy, but it is important to follow the process, otherwise we can kiss the republican democracy good-bye, not right away of course, but little by little, our freedoms will get chipped away until they are gone.
If there really is any “trouble” with the Constitution, it would be the fact that it is just vague enough to open the door to interpretation. It’s an unavoidable dilemma though because there are so many issues today that did not exist back then. One way to deal with it though, IMO, would be to take the Constitution at face value & subject it to as little interpretation as possible. If they handled it that way, gov’t indeed would be much smaller, much more simplified & governance would be less complicated & more efficient. Not about to happen though without going through another revolution. JMO.
We do see eye-to-eye on wishful interpretations of the Constitution, Jack in Silver Spring. Likewise for abortion laws being a matter for the states. Please don’t think I was picking on you in particular. I do like your bringing up the Dred Scott case, because I think of that case when I see people who want to pre-empt individual conscience, and the right not to be violated, when it comes to abortion in the event of rape-caused pregnancy.
Further, to address myth buster’s response to me citing theological concepts of original sin, I take issue with the idea that terminating a forced pregnancy involves murder. Killing in self-defense is killing in self-defense, not murder. If someone wants to experiencing bringing a child into the world and placing it with a barren couple as a blessing, that is her individual right. If someone else experiences that as the violation that goes on violating, for the rest of her life and all of her subsequent family life, that, too, is her individual right and a very, very reasonable reaction.
I am familiar with the concept of Limbo, and I do not care to parse the concept of pre-baptised individuals being forever precluded from experiencing the bliss of the Divine Presence because of accidents of birth or stillbirth. Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of the concept of original sin. Any concept of original sin and how that plays out; there are plenty of them. Personally, I’m more of a grace is abundant, omnipresent, persistent and opportunistic kind o’ gal.
The fact that miscarriages happen, and happen with some frequency, even in an era of modern medicine, and very often when the fetus has severe genetic damage that seriously impairs its chances of surviving and thriving, suggests it may not the the Divine plan that every conception result in a live birth. Maybe the Divine plan involves something other than rapists controlling women’s lives and the force of law backing up that control. I’m not seeing much of a difference between opposing abortion in the case of rape and opposing Born Alive Infants Protection Acts.
The argument for allowing abortion in the case of forcible rape especially is that the woman who is now pregnant had her freedom to choose taken from her. It is not an unreasonable point of view and is in fact a fairly moderate one. Mourdock should no better than to step in such a trap. What a stupid thing to say.
Been a conservative since the Ford administration. I believe life begins at conception and it is a precious gift from God.
It seems to me like we’re all too willing to run off the cliff to war on this issue. We land at the bottom along two fronts. Predicated on “we don’t understand/hate women/want to control their bodies” — or — “you hate children or anything and anyone that interferes with your lifestyle choices. A quick peek at the posts on DailyKos will show this.
Both paths of argument end with ad hominems: “Radical! Now I must attack you.”
Nora — I appreciate your views. I’m not comfortable with them. Perhaps our side (conservatives) need to re-check with the psalm: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” We must care for the injured. Beginning with the woman, and offer the same care and respect for the child.
Mr. Akin and Mr. Mourdock need to remember that we’re (they’re) not smart enough to begin to make comments about Gods will. If our side wants to say anything that resonates, we’re probably not going to want to fully embrace it either.
All of the opinion sharing here is utterly moot. At this point in man’s technological development any woman with an unwanted pregnancy can simply catch a flight outside the US (to a civilised country) and take a pill or get a procedure. Flights are more affordable than raising a child.
Result? This issue is a waste of bandwidth. Even if the statist social “conservatives” were to somwehow “win” this issue, it isn’t enforceable. It’s not a real win. The only thing the statists could accomplish is the manufacture of even MORE hatred from those who value liberty and eventually cause a backlash that will put an end to this brand of statism in the name of the social conservative god.
Republicans need to stop wasting time with this nonsense and concentrate on issues that they can win on — economy, defense, energy, foreign policy, etc.
And yeah you social “conservatives” are statists. The liberals think they have the right to dictate the law because they reckon they’re smarter; the social conservatives reckon they can dictate the law since they claim to speak for their god. Doesn’t matter what the excuse is or who does it, statism is statism, and you social conservatives are no better than the socialists.
Your comments are well thought out. I have yet to comprehend how a “social conservative” can be an advocate of small government and no deficit spending with one hand. But with the other hand, advocate for using big government to impose religious ideology on the country.
Article VI of the US Constitution says there shall be no religious test to hold public office. Yet, these self-proclaimed “conservatives” demand that their preferred candidates must be opposed to abortion, birth control, equal rights for gays, etc.
It’s good to see that candidates like Mourdock, Akin, Tom Smith in Pennsylvania, and even Paul Ryan, with his co-sponsorship of bills advocating personhood & re-defining rape, are showing their true colors and their actual personal agendas. Anyone who votes for these guys isn’t voting for a better economy or more jobs; they’re voting to support the personal religious agendas of those candidates.
If it actually was a religious test, you’d have a point. Instead, it is a question of ethics in a public servant. Their concern may be motivated by their faith, but there’s noting in the constitution that says an individual must be an atheist, is there.
Besides, the issue has perfectly asectarian framing of equal import.
Can a baby be murdered for convenience? For around 80% of the population, the answer is no.
Wow. You’re working hard to square this one. Are we to believe that if god really intended that particular life, he can still have possibly had no part in the act which caused it? Explain that to me. If god intended that pregnancy, can we therefore absolve the rapist of the sin? He’s just doing god’s work, right? Or, if he’s NOT doing god’s work, who are we to refuse the mother some say in the outcome?
If god intended that pregnancy, I can’t see how anyone can claim that he didn’t intend the act itself. Is this guy’s omnipotence just very selective, or what?
I agree that the guy has been misquoted, but in this case I really don’t think it makes a lot of difference to the wrongness of the statement that he DID make. He still believes that women should not have the option of a termination in case of rape, and that’s appalling.
God doesn’t create life – sex creates life. People do it. Let’s leave gods out of it and just sort out our own affairs.
Ah Techno, you have stumbled onto a very good question, that of theodicy. Somewhat more simply, if God is good, why is there evil in this world? I certainly don’t have an easy answer to that, and I suspect no one else does.
The answers will indeed remain elusive, as no one has yet to rise from the dead to tell us all about what’s on the other side. I do wonder though if it isn’t a mistake to personify God; even though it is said that we were created in God’s image, must we assume that we are like Him in every other aspect?
After an NDE in Purgatory a few decades back, I don’t have the specific answers you want, but I can tell you that Heaven (I could see into it like through a two-way mirror) is much better than Hell (could see into the entrance but there was a drop-off so I couldn’t see all the way down and was VERY reluctant to go any closer). Purgatory kinda sucked but not nearly as much as Hell. The whole story is long, and I have a knack for making a short story long, but it was very clear that it’s a good idea to die repentant and humble. Lots and lots of both repentance and humility.
ROFLMAO!!!!!! THIS explains a LOT!!!!
No, this has nothing to do with theodicy. It’s about agency and choice. A politician declared that a pregnancy following rape is god’s plan, and now folks are trying to split hairs and claim that the cause WASN’T god’s doing (therefore we should cut the politician some slack) but, because the conception IS god’s doing, we shouldn’t let the rape victim have any choice in the matter anyway.
So skip the “moves in mysterious ways” hedge and get on with justifying your own reasoning. If you can’t, then let’s not be supporting a guy who wants to use that reasoning to take away a woman’s right to choose.
Techno said, “blah blah blah blah”, and I agree…
…That Thomas Aquinas fellow was an idiot for even considering the question.
/sarc
If only ole’ Tom was here to post an opinion about it. But all we’ve got is Jack and Bob.