re: Indiana Republican: When life begins from rape, "God intended" it [W:266]
Pasch's thoughts!
The rapist deserves punishment. The rapist caused the situation. The child has done nothing wrong. By hurting an innocent third party, more people make themselves into monsters that belong in prison. Saying that hurting innocent third parties is not permissible does not force anything on anyone, and yes I resent the hell out of that.
What about the innocent third party that is the woman? She didn't do anything wrong either, but somehow the law should take away her freedom to live her life as she chooses, because of the criminal actions of another. The choice to carry a child, or not, is hers, not his. Why should his crime take away her freedom?
Pregnancy sometimes happens when sex occurs. Rarely, some jerkwad who belongs in prison will force sex on someone. If these two events unfortunately align, the solution to the problem created by violence and wrongdoing is not more violence and wrongdoing.
Sex didn't occur here. Rape did. Sex is mutually consensual. The solution is not forcing the woman to carry a child because of a rape, that is the violence and wrongdoing.
I don't think they're saying rape is Gods intention (this comes from not having read the OP at all, just the thread title), rather that God wants the life conceived, regardless of how it was conceived.
And yet it would not be conceived if not for rape. So did god make the rape happen?
Not really, God didn't make the rape happen, He merely places the same value on all innocent life.
Even the ones he creates with degenerate diseases who die, slowly and painfully, within a few years of life? That doesn't sound like god values them at all, since if one of us did that do another person, we would call it torture and murder.
Yes it does, US policy is determined by policy makers, most of whom assume to know the will of a supposed deity.
So why should we allow them to make policy based on unfounded assumptions? They don't even agree on what the will of supposed deities are. Romney's deity says not to drink coffee. Leiberman's deity says not to eat shellfish. Mourdock's deity says that rapists are entitled to determine the destiny of their victims. Virginia policy makers' deities have said that humans of different races were never meant to marry, since he put them on different continents.
How about we don't assume when we're making policy?
a) In the overwhelming majority of cases, you brought that someone into existence through your own deliberate action. If you invite your neighbor in, you can't then shoot them in self defense for trespassing. There's a relatively early Simpsons reference to be had here, but I'll move on. The fact that in this case you're causing your "neighbor" to exist doesn't take away from the argument, mind, it adds to it.
If you invite someone into your home, you can revoke that invitation any time you want. Then they have to leave. If they try to use force to remain there, then you can defend yourself.
b) Even in the rape scenario, this justification fails. A home invader is an aggressor - you are permitted to shoot them in part because they have violated your rights and they demonstrably have no respect for you and may be assumed to continue to aggress and harm you. Self-defense is appropriate against a home invader? Who is the aggressor in this absurdly uncommon yet far overly discussed "rape pregnancy" scenario ? The rapist.
Why can't the fetus be the aggressor? It is siphoning off the woman's bodily fluids without her permission. That it lacks the mental capacity for intent does not change this. And there is no physical way to protect the woman from this action than to abort the pregnancy.
That's the general thought process here imho. The RAPE is a horrible, terrible, awful thing. The child, in their mind, came about due to the Rape but is not inherently a "horrible, terrible, awful thing". What people are doing, through their own biases, assumptions, and feeling and are trying to suggest that somehow because he's saying the child isn't a horrible, terrible, awful thing that he's somehow saying the Rape isn't. I simply disagree, and don't see how one can adquettely make such an argument.
No one really thinks that a child, even one that results from a rape, is a horrible terrible, awful thing. It is the forcing of the woman to carry a child the resulted from rape that is the horrible, terrible, awful thing. The child isn't, the carrying of the child is.
And if it gets aborted, God intended that too.
Thank God for Abortion.
Indeed, if god can create rape, why can't he create abortion?
I think there's an important question that this brings up. Is everything that happens God's will? If so, how is there sin? After all, if you're just doing God's will...
Yeah, that part confuses me. Zyph's coparison about a reality show sort of makes sense, but the people on a reality show signed up for it. They agreed to live in a certain place, be filmed, abide by various rules from producers, and all sorts of other things. No one agrees to be here on Earth, and certainly doesn't agree to have their freedom constrained to such a degree.
The main thing that the anti-abortion side needs to understand is that punishment of the child is not what anyone desires. It is protecting the woman, the person who has been raped and victimized, from suffering further harm. Even if one opposes abortions where pregnancy came about from completely consensual sex, no woman agrees to become pregnant from a rape. How can her right to her body, her health, and her destiny, be less than that of a fetus? Who owns a person's body besides that person?
