-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Richard Mourdock, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Indiana, made the following statement during a debate: “but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” Mourdock later explained that he doesn’t believe that God “pre-ordains” rape.
Mourdock’s view of God attempts to deal with the conflicting concepts of the goodness of pregnancy and the evil of rape. His view is incoherent.
The conflicting concepts of evil and an omnipotent God have been noted by Epicurus (circa 300 BC):
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
Mourdock believes the pregnancy is preordained even if the rape was not the intention of God. How does Mourdock account for the rape and still maintain a belief in God’s omnipotence? Today, a Sophisticated Theologian™ would claim that the rape was an expression of the rapist’s free will. While that argument may let God off the hook as far as the preordination of rape, it raises other problems.
The vicim, by her own free will, may decide to take an emergency contraceptive preventing fertilization or implantation. If the rape was not preordained by God due to the free will of the rapist, then the pregnancy could not have been preordained due to free will of the victim.
The Republican Party’s solution to that problem is to remove all forms of contraception so that women have no other choice but to carry to term. When there are no choices, there is no free will.
While many view the passing of genes to their offspring as a gift, it also fulfills a biological imperative to perpetuate their existence. If a rape victim exercises her free will and decides to reward her rapist by passing along his genes to the next generation, that is her choice. However, the state has no business rewarding the rapist with the gift of a child.
H/T: Mike LaBossiere, Jerry Coyne, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Sally Quinn.
Michael Scoggins,
What a surprise. I hope many read carefully.
The right to oneself. The right to make your own moral decisions. The right to bear the moral and material consequences, but with societies support to us all as usual. Much to be had there. Far from all in this paraphrase.
Swartmore mpom,
The Boston Globe just endorsed Elzabeth Warren.
In Senate, Warren would lead where Brown has fallen short
OCTOBER 28, 2012
http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2012/10/27/election-endorsement-elizabeth-warren-for-senate/RpqzpCLnVh0epLaNYBpicJ/story.html
Romney surrogate and ally Gingrich says “get over it” on Mourdock’s rape comments.
Typo: Company strength is about 80-225 troops
Elaine, they are really pushing that Benghazi attack as if it were a game changer. Most people with a pulse understand that Benghazi was a consulate in a former private home and not the Embassy in Tripoli. Furthermore, it was not a squad size attack, it was at least platoon strength. Remember it was at first described as a “mob.” That indicates it was at least platoon size. Since there was little cover and no real defensive positions at the consulate, it would have taken a force of at least company strength to defeat them. Furthermore, Paul Ryan and Ron Johnson voted against more funds for embassy security around the world.
A consulate is just an office, not an embassy.
For those not familiar with troop strength nomenclature:
Squad = 8-13 troops
Platoon = 26-55 troops
Company = 8-225 troops
The reason they are pushing Benghazi is to create a red herring to deflect attention from their idiotic statements about rape and the war on women.
@Idealist: Until men can bear children, they should accept that natural law.
I think that is bad logic; we do not leave war up to only the soldiers, we do not leave all medical decisions up to only doctors (hence our determinations on malpractice), we do not leave the definition of crime up to only the police that must enforce it. More generally, we do not (or should not) leave the decision of legality up to only those that would be restrained by the law.
I think you have missed the point that, at some point, the actions of a pregnant mother affect TWO lives, not just her own; and if she were afforded 20+ weeks to realize she was pregnant and terminate the pregnancy before ever reaching that state, she is presumably in that state by choice (and in rare circumstances in which she was coerced or in a coma and unable to make a choice, I think different standards apply.)
I think the issue of how the pregnancy began, by rape or voluntary action, ceases to be an issue if the choice to continue past the fifth month is entirely the considered choice of a mother that could have aborted without conditions at any time prior to that point.
Ron Johnson, Mitt Romney Surrogate, Dismisses Abortion Issue: ‘It Doesn’t Even Move The Radar’
Posted: 10/28/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/ron-johnson-mitt-romney-abortion_n_2032145.html
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON – Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said on Sunday that the issue of abortion will not play a role in the elections next Tuesday, despite media attention to it. “I’ve had one person talking about the abortion issue during this entire campaign,” Johnson said on Fox News Sunday. “It’s just — it’s not even an issue here in Wisconsin, it doesn’t even move the radar at all.”
Johnson’s comments came in response to a question from host Chris Wallace, who played tape of Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock saying that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape. “I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen,” Mourdock said.
Wallace asked how women can plausibly support such candidates. “Abortion doesn’t even show up,” Johnson said, insisting that the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi is a much more important issue to voters.
The potential child, aye, there is the rub.
But nature itself aborts about 25 percent of all conceptions after implantation but before birth.
Which god decided that? And can we understand why.
Pose as many metaphysicals as you wish. And they ARE nice to contemplate. But reality and men who would control women and their childbearing wombs are a pressing matter which we as humans can address.
and who knows, maybe we humans will be able to reduce the number of of miscarriages to the joy of women seeking a child.
Meanwhile we have said that women own themselves and the fruits thereof. seems reasonable to me.
Until men can bear children, they should accept that natural law.
PS I think Nal did a fine job of stageing the problem and leaving the discussion to us.
@Michael Scoggins: Let me preface my statement by saying I am an atheist without religion or supernatural beliefs of any description. I would not find repeated abortion as a method of birth control abhorrent in any way, if the abortion were conducted in the first 5 months of the pregnancy.
However, I find zero difference in the personhood of a fetus sixty seconds before it hits air and draws a breath, than I do immediately after that event. As an atheist, I do not define personhood based on arbitrary or mystical criteria, I define personhood through my best biological understanding of what makes a person different than other living entities we have zero problem with killing, such as cells, bacterium, parasites, or (if you prefer living things with human DNA) skin, blood, tumors, moles and diseased limbs.
I have reviewed the details of fetal brain development on this blog in the past, so rather than repeat that exercise here, I will cut to the summary of my reasoning: At the END of life, we are coming around to defining person hood based upon brain functionality.
I believe it would make sense to do the same for the fetus. The brain in the fetus does not take over control of bodily functions until the 24th week; in week 20 there is brain matter and neurons, but it has still not connected into a nervous system. No premature fetus born in week 20 has survived (the earliest known is 21 weeks, 5 days, with heroic life support efforts).
Whether it “looks” human, or has a face, hands or a beating heart, or a face, is all irrelevant. A brain dead body can have all of those. Burn victims may have none of those and still be regarded as worthy of revival.
So that translates into my stance on abortion. We do have the complicating factor of a woman involved, but I think the question of her choice is resolved by giving her five months of pregnancy to make the decision to abort or proceed. I would give precedence to the life and health of the mother after that, in cases of severe preclampsia or other issues (such as cancer); and I do not have a problem with aborting severely deformed fetii.
A normal delivery is in 38-42 weeks; but there are almost never problems for babies born at 32 weeks or later. I think the gray area is between 20 and 30 weeks; with a declining deference to the mother’s decision (from ‘any reason at all’ to severe reasons only), and beyond 32 weeks, I think abortion is terminating the life of a human being.
To me I find no rational reason, in the 37th and 38th week, to declare “birth” as an event that bestows personhood and rights upon a fetus. I think that is a gradual process that begins about week 22, I do not think there is a bright line to be drawn; it is a continuous minute-by-minute shading as neurons develop and interlink. My reason for drawing a bright line at week 20 is that I feel certain (based upon evidence) that line is in the non-human part of that spectrum, and my reason for drawing the other bright line at 30 weeks is I feel certain (based upon evidence) that line is very close to the border where we have to start thinking we are dealing with TWO human lives, not just one, and the law should consider that fact just as it does for interactions like self-defense, murder, rape, battery, and so on. I am not proposing specific punishments or crimes, I do not think even late abortion is necessarily equivalent to murder (it might be more similar to self defense).
I just reject that the bright line is respiration. We used to legally define death that way too, or by the cessation of heart beat, and the ability to resuscitate individuals, even after many minutes without respiration, is what prompted discarding such laws and moving to brain states instead.
Scalzi’s article: Every time you say “I oppose a woman’s right to abortion, even in cases of rape,” what you’re also saying is “I believe that a man who rapes a woman has more of a right to control a woman’s body and life than that woman does.”
Revised: Every time you say “I oppose a woman’s right to abortion, even in cases of rape,” what you’re [doing is worse than raping her; you’re saying that I have] more of a right to control a woman’s body and life than that woman does. [It’s like you’re right there with me, raping her over and over and over. I do the raping, but you’re the one that forces me on her. You’re screwing with her far more than I ever did. Only you do it in the name of God. Ultimate power and divine control! It doesn’t get any better than that!]”
WellCallme — I believe every word you have said.
This morning in Washington, DC, mothers are marching on Washington to protest a common practice in this country’s family courts. When a child claims that he or she has been molested by his or her father, the father’s lawyer and the fathers’ rights groups advise the fathers to sue for custody saying that the mothers made up these allegations to “brainwash” the children and to alienate the children against their good fathers, and more than 80% of the time, these allegations against the protective mothers of molested children WORK and the children are taken away from their mothers and handed over to the fathers THEY HAVE ALREADY SAID MOLESTED THEM. When this happens, usually the mother is forced into “supervised visitation” and if the visitation supervisors report that the mother is hugging the child or telling the child she misses them or any number of “wrong” moves, she loses her visitation too. If the child cries when the supervised visit is over, the mother can lose the visitation for UPSETTING the child. This has been happening ever since the beginning of the time when the feminists tried to get good child support laws put in place for mothers so they wouldn’t have to seek welfare when they were divorced. The fathers decided that it was cheaper to take the kids away, get a low-paid child-care worker or a second wife or girlfriend to manage the kids, and collect child support from the mother. Of course, allegations of abuse against the father were called “vindictive” and fed right into that system.
Strange to say, your daughter’s experience is not unusual. Men who beat, rape, threaten, throttle, molest, physically and emotionally abuse, neglect, medically neglect and even SELL their kids get primary custody and every other benefit the law can possible throw their way. It’s a slave market every single day in every single county in every single state of the union and DC as well. Sign of the times.
It was much better when we were honest and said MEN OWN their children. It was much better when we were honest and said MEN CONTROL their wives. It was much better when we were honest and said women and children have no rights. This, what we have now, is an elaborate fraud.
That’s . . . mildly frightening pete. 😀 Nice to see the “Buddy Christ” is making a come back though.
http://mygoddesigns.com/my-god-is-a-republican-jesus-t-shirt/
Michael Scoggins, you said most eloquently what a lot of us have been thinking. Well done.
This morning, I was watching one of my favorite Saturday morning TV pundits, Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry. She gave one of the most righteous rants I have seen in a long time in the form of an open letter to Richard Mourdock.
Well said.
Let me preface my comments by emphatically stating, I support a woman’s right to choose. Let me also state I find repeated use of abortion as a means of birth control morally despicable, given there are so many effective alternatives. I too find Richard Mourdock’s comments concerning the role of God in such a situation ignorant and appalling. I have to say though that if one opposes abortion based on the contention that abortion is murder, as I expect Mr. Mourdock does, then he is more honest than those contending they oppose abortion, yet allow an exception for rape (lately Romney and Ryan). What I mean is the fetus that may result from a rape is as innocent as any other. If that pregnancy is aborted, how can one who considers abortion murder condone this murder?
In this argument against legalized abortion, one finds the strongest argument for a woman’s right to choose. The moral difficulties in deciding which abortion is justified and which is not precludes legislation and disallows any government role in defining the conditions under which a pregnant woman must make these essentially moral determinations. In fact, when Mr. Mourdock intones God as part of this discussion and ties God’s will to this situation he ensures a separation of church and state argument should prohibit any legislation he could propose.
It is time that those who oppose a woman’s right to choose on these essentially religious, moral grounds understand that if in their view abortion is abhorrent to God and an unforgivable sin, then it is God’s role to sit in judgment of that sin, not federal or state government’s role. I truly can’t understand those of faith who seemingly don’t have faith in their God’s ability to be the ultimate judge of a woman’s actions. I know their counter argument is that a government which approves of abortion is damned by God. What they don’t seem to understand is that support of a woman’s right to choose and government defense of that right is not approval of every act of abortion. It is recognition neither they nor government has any right to approve or disapprove. I believe only people who have no respect for beliefs different from their own can see this any other way.
Pardon me, James.
OS is correct, although Nal does know all of that.
James in LA,
Nal is correct. There is no active moderation here. There are four words that get comments into moderation via filter: f*ck, b@stard, b*tch and a$$hole. Although no official explanation was ever given for this change, it occurred around a time when we where having incidents of drive by trolls who were doing little more than swearing in an almost random and nonsensical manner (pure disruption tactics). I suspect that is the why behind that. Having more than two links will get you in moderation (that’s the WP default setting to combat spam). None of us tend the moderation queue as a general rule. If one of the GB’s happen to be in the Admin section and somebody says something about moderation, we might (might!) go in there and approve something. Also, WP is fickle. Sometimes it will flag something for moderation that has no business going there. It happened to me earlier this week. Sometimes it will also flag a comment as spam for no apparent reason too. We can’t do anything about those last two bugs. The only rules that can get you banned are threatening someone with physical violence, revealing an anonymous posters identity without their permission, or stealing another posters identity. All of those are addressed on a case by case basis and JT has the ultimate say on who gets the boot. But there is no active moderation. None of us want the headache. No one is censored here for simply having an unpopular view and no one is censored for content with the noted exception.
Thank you, Nal. Re-read the post and it could be read to grandmothers at 10am on broadcast T.V.
@Wootsey, when you moderate a lot of forums you literally do not have time to track down the intended feelings of posters who violate stated policy. Some systems say “this comment was removed”. Most give you no notification at all, and this is the wisest course, as it ruffles the fewest feathers, the moderator’s included, who cannot be expected to enroll him or herself in every single argument made by the community, for or against or neutral with flourishes. They have to come at it from the Fourth Position: the forum rules. It sets up a lot screaming and shouting over the same.
In this particular case, it appears the system gives no indication as to the “why” of the situation, so the moderation is arbitrary and ineffective on the face of it.
I would prefer no censorship, and full anonymous posting. I am presently working on projects to make sure this kind of system always remains available.
To stay even whisper-thin on-topic, Mourdock violates the compact between citizen and government when he invites the god-bully into the public square to continue to push women around. In 2012, this tactic has exceedingly limited shelf life and will be rejected. Again.
If the Republicans take all three branches of government and have their way, the criminalizing of abortion is only the beginning. After all, a woman might slip away to Canada or Europe and have an abortion over there.
So we can look forward to mandatory pregnancy tests for women at airports and border crossings, or else outright prohibitions on travel for women of less than a certain age.
Or, women will be defined to have a status something like “wards of the state,” to be monitored by the Fertility Police.
Total elimination of abortion leads inexorably to the enslavement or at least constant monitoring of young women. I wouldn’t be surprised if women lost the right to vote, and maybe even the right to drive. Welcome to Saudi America!