{"id":52249,"date":"2012-10-25T14:51:21","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T19:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=52249"},"modified":"2013-02-03T19:11:59","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T00:11:59","slug":"rape-and-other-gifts-from-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/10\/25\/rape-and-other-gifts-from-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Rape and Other \u201cGifts from God\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Cross-posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/carolineheldman.wordpress.com\/2012\/10\/24\/rape-and-other-gifts-from-god\/\" target=\"_blank\">Caroline Heldman&#8217;s Blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>During a debate this past Tuesday, Indiana Republican senate\u00a0nominee,\u00a0Richard Mourdock,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/daily\/intel\/2012\/10\/mourdock-god-intended-pregnancy-from-rape.html\" target=\"_blank\">made\u00a0the case<\/a>\u00a0against the rape exception for abortions: \u201cI\u2019ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God, and even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So according to Mourdock, God intends for rape to happen, and the outcome\u00a0of rape is a gift from God.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cY1SEq2o9LY\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What puzzles me is how Mourdock\u2019s rape enthusiast comments fit with Missouri Republican senate candidate Todd Akin\u2019s recent comments\u00a0that \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/ezra-klein\/wp\/2012\/08\/20\/rep-todd-akin-is-wrong-about-rape-and-pregnancy-but-hes-not-alone\/\" target=\"_blank\">legitimate rape<\/a>\u201d (read<a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/weigel\/2012\/08\/20\/akin_when_i_was_talking_about_legitimate_rape_i_meant_forcible_rape.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cforcible rape\u201d<\/a>)\u00a0rarely leads to pregnancy because, \u201dIf it\u2019s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mourdock and Akin\u2019s beliefs, when considered together, produce a bizarre philosophy. I would like to know: Why would God create female bodies that reject\u00a0God\u2019s \u201cgifts\u201d? And if women don\u2019t get pregnant from \u201cforcible rape,\u201d does that mean that God doesn\u2019t intend\u00a0\u201dforcible rapes\u201d? Put another way,\u00a0does God only intend certain types of rape, you know, the ones that come with \u201cthe gift\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>One-in-five Americans agree with Mourdock\u00a0and Akin\u2019s\u00a0abortion stance. Razib Khan\u2019s<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/gnxp\/2012\/08\/who-rejects-right-to-abortion-in-cases-of-rape\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GeneExpressionBlog+%28Gene+Expression%29%20\" target=\"_blank\">analysis<\/a>\u00a0of the General Social Survey shows that\u00a020% of Americans think abortion should be illegal in cases of rape.\u00a0Republicans\u00a0with lower levels of education\u00a0who identify as extremely conservative and believe the Bible is the word of God are more likely than other Americans\u00a0to hold this belief.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/10\/abortion.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-52250\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/10\/abortion-500x704.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/10\/abortion-500x704.jpg 500w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/10\/abortion.jpg 566w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For Mourdock, Akin, and more than 50 million other Americans, God truly does work in mysterious ways.<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\">Caroline Heldman is a professor of politics at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxy.edu\/faculty\/caroline-heldman\">Occidental College<\/a>.  You can follow her at <a href=\"http:\/\/carolineheldman.wordpress.com\/\">her blog<\/a> and on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/carolineheldman\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/carolineheldman\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cross-posted at Caroline Heldman&#8217;s Blog. During a debate this past Tuesday, Indiana Republican senate\u00a0nominee,\u00a0Richard Mourdock,\u00a0made\u00a0the case\u00a0against the rape exception for abortions: \u201cI\u2019ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God, and even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2083,55,2094,2090,85,8121,42,133],"class_list":["post-52249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortionreproduction","tag-gender","tag-gender-politics","tag-gender-violence","tag-politics","tag-election-2012","tag-religion","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52249"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53691,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52249\/revisions\/53691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}