Are Pregnancies Even from Rape a Gift from God?
Are Pregnancies Even from Rape a Gift from God?
According to CBS News and a number of other outlets, last night Republican candidate for an Indiana U.S. Senate seat Richard Mourdock suggested that pregnancies resulting from rape are "something that God intended to happen." He was in the midst of a debate with two opponents, explaining how he believes that "life begins at conception," and how he would only allow for abortions in circumstances in which the mother's life is in danger.
"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."
As expected, Democrats jumped on the statement: "The God I believe in and the God I know most Hoosiers believe in, does not intend for rape to happen—ever," said his Democratic foe, Joe Donnelly said. "What Mr. Mourdock said is shocking, and it is stunning that he would be so disrespectful to survivors of rape."
Many media outlets are expressing shock, unable to concieve of a God or a world in which God might actually make something good from something horrid, that the child of rape or incest could be considered a divine gift. Note the tone and disgust of the Atlantic Wire summary of the story.
It's hard to believe that anyone would really believe what Mourdock seemed to say, that rape itself is intended by God. And in fact, even he doesn't believe it. He later clarified: "What I said was, in answering the question form my position of faith, I said I believe that God creates life. I believe that as wholly and as fully as I can believe it. That God creates life. Are you trying to suggest that somehow I think that God pre-ordained rape? No, I don't think that. That's sick. Twisted. That's not even close to what I said. What I said is that God creates life."
Though a prime example of gotcha-politics, this incident raises other issues, issues weighted with glory even. It almost goes without saying that for Christians, while rape is a terrible thing, in the providence of God, this too can be redeemed, a tragic event from which love can emerge. And yet we live in a society in which many find this view intolerable, outside the bounds—anathema. This is a delicate conversation we're a part of in America, one that requires us to eschew the cheap advice or platitudes of Job's counselors, to be sure. Then again, it may be even more "disrespectful to the survivors of rape" to fail to tell them about the wondrous redeeming power of God, even in the most horrible circumstances.
A Fractured and Beautiful Faith
Streaming This Weekend, May 24, 2013
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Claire Guest
"How did I change from prominent abortionist to pro-life advocate? In 1973, I became director of obstetrics of a large hospital in New York City and had to set up a prenatal research unit, just at the start of a great new technology which we now use every day to study the foetus in the womb. A favourite pro-abortion tactic is to insist that the definition of when life begins is impossible; that the question is a theological or moral or philosophical one, anything but a scientific one. Foetology makes it undeniably evident that life begins at conception and requires all the protection and safeguards that any of us enjoy. Why, you may well ask, do some American doctors who are privy to the findings of foetology, discredit themselves by carrying out abortions? Simple arithmetic at $300 a time, 1.55 million abortions means an industry generating $500,000,000 annually, of which most goes into the pocket of the physician doing the abortion." - Dr. Bernard Nathanson
Claire Guest
Hey Jon, I'll make a deal with you - once you've carried children in your body and then birthed them (as I have), we'll discuss the reality of the baby's life in the womb again, okay? As for rape, I've stated in all my posts that rape is WRONG. It is a CRIME. The bottom line is, how is it JUST and RIGHT to kill the innocent child for the crime committed by the rapist? To kill the child is JUST as wrong; it is also a crime in God's sight. PUNISH THE RAPIST - yes. Two (or more) wrongs can never, ever, ever make a right. I do not forget the woman - but you and your ilk DO forget the baby. You are willing to make the innocent child pay the ultimate price for what the rapist did! Our society has become SKEWED by accepting abortion on demand, to the point that people cannot even discern right from wrong anymore. The Lord said WOE to those who call good evil and evil good. We MUST look at everything from HIS point of view in order to have any wisdom at all.
Jon Trott
Claire, I don't have the space to deal with all the assertions you make (the one about "the child in the womb is NOT 'a part of his/her mother's body'" alone would take me paragraphs). But rape is not an unpleasant event; it is a catastrophic event. It alters the victim's life in permanent, tremendously destructive ways. Its uniquely terrible mixing of rage, violence, and the complete twisting of something we think of as tender and mutually shared into an act of attempted murder of another's psyche... no. No. There is no way I want the government to tell a woman who has been virtually annhiliated by such violence that she must now -- MUST -- bear to term the child of the rapist. No. You forget the woman. And that is what my fellow pro-lifers seem always willing to do. A full orbed pro-life position would never require a woman to bear to term the child of a rapist. Her own conscience might guide her to bear the child... or she might find it unbearable to do so. Her choice. Our prayers.