You know, when I saw reports that Rick Santorum had answered a question about rape and abortion and his daughter, my first reaction was “meh.” But then I saw the actual quote. It’s one thing to say that a woman should make the choice to carry and deliver a baby conceived by rape; it’s another thing to claim that they should accept it as a gift from God.
SANTORUM: Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.
I have long believed that the Christian conception of god was incoherent and barbaric, but a god that gives women the “gift” of a baby from a rape? With gods like that, who needs devils?
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a hangman on tyre
January 25, 2012 at 1:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, when you consider how the bible recounts how Jesus was conceived it makes perfect sense……..
Do you think Mary was asked if she wanted to be impregnated by god? Of course not, and look how that turned out!
Taz
January 25, 2012 at 1:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So if you don’t conceive, then not only were you raped but god hates you.
Raging Bee
January 25, 2012 at 1:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If Santorum’s own wife or daughter was raped, and impregnated by it, would he consider that a “gift from God” too?
The few words Santorum says on this subject are dead wrong on so many levels at once, I’m actually kind of impressed. It would take me FOREVER to describe all the horrific atrociousness of his words. Right now I’ll just say that Santorum is not only excusing rape, he’s glorifying it, and virtually deifying rapists as the bringers of gifts from God.
If Santorum really thinks rape-babies are a gift from God, he should be willing to adopt every one of them whose mothers are willing to give them up. (I’d kinda like to be a fly on the wall when he floats that idea with his wife…)
Second Cousin Ogvorbis, OM. Twice Removed by Request.
January 25, 2012 at 1:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is the line that blows me away. Keep in mind, he wants to deny even the possibility of choice. But for his daughter, it would be a choice.
Asshole.
Tobinius
January 25, 2012 at 1:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is so creepy – even by Yahweh’s standards.
Raging Bee
January 25, 2012 at 1:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Often we hear recovering drug-addicts talking about the “tough love” they got from loved ones, which forced them to confront their problems and take action. Often they call such tough-love a “gift from God” that was given to help them be better people. So is Santorum implying that rape is an act of “tough love” that brings its victims gifts from God that makes them better women for happily accepting them?
chigau (同じ)
January 25, 2012 at 1:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Try to imagine being that child, being raised by someone with that attitude.
teawithbertrand
January 25, 2012 at 1:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If I didn’t know these words came from Santorum, I’d call Poe. This guy is an absolute monster.
carolw
January 25, 2012 at 1:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A rape-baby is definitely one “gift from God” I would return. How can politicians with real-life wives and daughters hate women so much? My mind is officially boggled.
d cwilson
January 25, 2012 at 1:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I would hope that even Santorum is not that twisted. A drug addict needs “tough love” to motivate them toward seeking help for their self-destructive behavior. There is nothing self-inflicted about being a rape victim.
interrobang
January 25, 2012 at 1:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s one thing to say that a woman should make the choice to carry and deliver a baby conceived by rape; it’s another thing to claim that they should accept it as a gift from God.
I’m honestly not seeing much of a difference here. Both involve Santorum deciding for (and wanting to dictate to) women what women should do while completely ignoring tiny little things like the women’s agency and circumstances; the difference is merely of degree, not kind.
“Have the baby, or else, bitch” is not really that much different from “Have the baby, or else, bitch, and be happy about it.”
d cwilson
January 25, 2012 at 1:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m sure her would, because it would give him another mind to indoctrinate into his weird belief system.
Bronze Dog
January 25, 2012 at 2:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…Is it bad that the phrase “rape babies as gifts” made me think of the Catholic Church?
Back on the intended topic, does this mean that we’ll be seeing the anti-contraception crowd protest against women’s right to acquire means of self-defense?
d cwilson
January 25, 2012 at 2:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s more like, “Have the baby, or else, bitch” vs. “Have the baby and be grateful for the gift you dirty whore”.
naturalcynic
January 25, 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
On L & O SVU, Olivia Benson [Mariska Hargitay] plays a cop who was the result of her mother’s rape. Every once in a while this comes up with her character.
Tobinius
January 25, 2012 at 2:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
d cwilson says:
Unfortunately, I don’t think that Ricky and his followers would agree with that statement.
bbgunn
January 25, 2012 at 2:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m shocked he didn’t try to trivialize rape even more with the ol’ “When god gives you lemons, make lemonade” line. Santorum really does give fecal matter a bad name.
Raging Bee
January 25, 2012 at 2:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life…
So Santorum’s allegedly all-powerful, all-wise, and infinitely compassionate and loving God gives his most precious gifts in a “broken” way that causes untold damage to the poor women who are supposed to carry them to term and then care for them? How can a God be so all-wise and so fucking careless and incompetent at the same time?
And what kind of early role-models could lead someone to imagine such a God as good?
Sorry about the multiple posting, folks, but hey, I already gave you my excuse for it!
Raging Bee
January 25, 2012 at 2:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A drug addict needs “tough love” to motivate them toward seeking help for their self-destructive behavior. There is nothing self-inflicted about being a rape victim.
That’s probably not true in the Christian Reich’s eyes. Have you noticed how many of that lot blame rape-victims for being raped? This “tough love”/”gift from God” schtick fits right in with that mentality. That’s why I mentioned it.
danielkast
January 25, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…accept what God has given to you.
The only way this makes any sense at all is if God was responsible for the rape in the first place…
…which, of course, He was. Because it’s all part of The Plan<TM>.
lofgren
January 25, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He can’t actually deny the possibility of a choice. He wants to make one of those options illegal, but factually women would still have a choice to go to a back alley abortionist, or maybe just have her brother kick her in the stomach real hard. Just as there is no real way to take away my option to, say, kill you for the fun of it, you can’t actually take away the option for abortion. Just make it way less safe.
I agree. This follows necessarily from Santorum’s other positions. As a bonus:
1. A woman who does not conceive from rape must have something wrong with her, because god didn’t even deign to give her his precious gift.
2. A woman who is bitter or unhappy about conceiving through rape is an ingrate on top of being a slut.
3. If the woman had just gotten married and let a nice man impregnate her, god probably would not have had to rape her in order to give her a precious gift.
4. If the woman refuses to have sex with me, she is trying to stand in the way of me giving her god’s precious gift, and I don’t have to feel bad about raping her.
anandine
January 25, 2012 at 2:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
how Jesus was conceived
As I recall, god disguised himself as a swan to seduce her. Or was that a different god?
Bronze Dog
January 25, 2012 at 2:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The scary thing is that I’m jaded enough to actually expect rationales like this to come from rapists and their apologists.
d cwilson
January 25, 2012 at 2:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You may be right. Some of them are about one degree away from the Middle Eastern extremists who believe that rape isn’t a crime so much as a punishment.
TCC (fka The Christian Cynic)
January 25, 2012 at 2:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
anandine: That was Zeus, if I remember my Greek mythology correctly.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find the statement as appalling as some do. Santorum’s not saying that the rape is a good thing, just that a possible product (a baby) is a gift from God. Santorum would say that about any baby. Now, obviously most people around here are going to disagree in a literal sense, but it isn’t even close to the most appalling thing Santorum has ever said. In a nutshell, he’s just saying that something good can come from something bad, which is almost trivially true.
I think the arguments about trivializing rape are at least a little more on-target, but that goes more to Santorum’s no-abortion-whatsoever position, I think.
And the rest of the extrapolations? Most of those are exponentially more disturbing than what Santorum said, with no evidence that Santorum meant, implied, or believes any of them.
lofgren
January 25, 2012 at 2:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sure, because Santorum is pretty clearly unable to follow his own logic to its inevitable conclusion.
steve oberski
January 25, 2012 at 3:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This seems to be a popular trope with the religious.
In the Language of God, Francis Collins wrote:
Strange that these “gifts” from god usually involve something horrible happening to someone else.
The victim’s role is that of a meat robot moving through the narcissistic and solipsistic fantasy world of the believer.
There is no room for empathy in this world view.
tacitus
January 25, 2012 at 3:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Haven’t seen the show, but if she says “well I wouldn’t be here if my mother hadn’t kept me,” that’s true, but then if her mother had had an abortion, it’s likely that some other daughter or son would have been there (well, somewhere) in her place.
In other words, the claim that we would have 55 million more Americans if it was not for legalized abortion is a simply not true. I would wager the real number is much less than half that when you consider the number of children who are born to those mothers after their abortions.
Either it was part of God’s plan or it wasn’t. If it was, then the plan was to have the mother be raped all along. If it wasn’t, then if the baby is any kind of “gift” then it was, as he plainly states, a gift from God that she should accept with joy and thanksgiving.
I agree that he would argue that all children are gifts from God, but that is typical of the shallow thinking that allows many Christians to rationalize the irrational. Think any deeper and it all begins to fall apart.
andrewhall
January 25, 2012 at 3:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Other things Rick Santorum was probably thinking, but didn’t say:
1. Well, women getting raped is all part of God’s plan.
2. Women who get raped obviously never prayed enough.
3. Hey, everything from God is a gift! You got raped? Thank God for it!
4. Women who get raped should be like Job and not complain. Job wasn’t a complainer.
5. Wow, be thankful God only allowed the rape and pregnancy to happen. Have you read the Bible? God has allowed much worse stuff to happen.
raven
January 25, 2012 at 3:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I tried for a long time to discover a difference between fundies and satanism.
There is only one. Fundies exist while satanism more or less doesn’t.
Bronze Dog
January 25, 2012 at 3:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The extrapolations made here ring true for me because I’m mostly thinking about the general context. Whenever religious fundamentalists and rape come up, I pretty consistently read a lot of rhetoric consistent with “blame the victim” coming from such people, and it’s not just anonymous trolls, but church leaders and politicians. I’ve also seen others use “blame the victim” memes in other contexts, such as alties blaming cancer patients for getting cancer by way of negative thoughts.
“Something good coming from something bad” is a charitable interpretation, but given my experience with rhetoric behind the issue, I’m not inclined to be charitable.
Zugswang
January 25, 2012 at 3:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Rape babies – a gift from god unless you previously had an abortion, then god will punish you by giving your rape baby a developmental disability.
raven
January 25, 2012 at 3:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well Cthulhu, clearly Satanorum is a broken human being, a twisted wreck. Who probably never even earned it the hard way through adverse life events.
It’s unfortunate. There are many of them.
But who in their right mind thinks he should be allowed around normal people much less be president of the USA. Even the voters in his Pennsylvania district refused to reelect him senator during the time Bush was president.
ema
January 25, 2012 at 3:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
In a nutshell, he’s just saying that something good can come from something bad, which is almost trivially true.
No, what he’s saying is that no matter how horribly created and what in a very broken way something is, perfect strangers should [be forced to] accept it as a gift from his god.
If you don’t find this position appalling maybe living in a theocracy won’t be all that problematic for you. Just make sure to pray that it’s the same god you happen to believe in and you should be all set.
d cwilson
January 25, 2012 at 3:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wow, so it was a challenge for you, Francis? I wonder what it was like for her.
lofgren
January 25, 2012 at 3:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Something good can come from something bad” is true. And I have no doubt that some mothers have raised the children of their rape and possibly loved them so deeply that they almost find themselves being thankful for what happened to them.
But if I chop of your leg and then try to tell you that you have been given a gift because now you can park in handicap spots, it would not be unreasonable for you to respond that if you wanted better parking that badly, you could very well have chosen to cut off your own leg, thank you very much.
Stevarious
January 25, 2012 at 4:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dare I suggest that, for him, it would depend on the skin color of the rapist?
Nah, there’s no evidence that Santorum is a racist bigot, is there?
Oh, right.
Zinc Avenger
January 25, 2012 at 4:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
First they fight abortion, then they’ll fight birth control. The final step will be to outlaw resisting rape – because think of the unborn babies that could result if those sluts managed to avoid being violated!
Humor. Barely.
michaelcrichton
January 25, 2012 at 4:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, at least the asshole didn’t use the “Aborting a Baby is Raping the Victim Again!” line that I’ve heard some wingnuts use.Good thing too, can’t afford a new computer if I had to punk the screen.
DaveL
January 25, 2012 at 4:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
On a related note, is anyone else seeing anti-choice ads in the sidebar? Why is it they want you to sign a petition saying life begins at conception, but they always show images of full-term infants or what looks like a 28 week preemie?
Sastra
January 25, 2012 at 4:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is a deepity buried in here.
A “deepity” is a statement or idea which can be interpreted two ways. One interpretation is true but trivial; the other interpretation is extraordinary but false. The superficial similarity allows us to slide back and forth between very different meanings, fooling not only others but ourselves. The extraordinary tries to gain credibility from a resemblance to the reasonable.
Making the best of a bad situation after the fact is very different from framing the bad situation as a challenge which has deliberately been given to you in order to help you become a better person. If you view your rape as the result of a combination of evil rapist and chance — being in the wrong place at the wrong time — then one way of controlling the damage could be having an abortion. All things considered, it very likely to be the best option.
If, on the other hand, the real cause of the rape, the ultimate meaning, was that God/Spirit/Universal Energy knew that you needed to learn an important lesson, the simple solution is unlikely to be the best one. You will learn so much more about love and sacrifice and letting go of resentment and ego if you actually have the baby. The “gift” should not be thrown away because then the lesson is being thrown away. You obviously got pregnant for a reason.
All things happen for a reason. The reason is that the universe is very, very concerned that you might become narcistic and self-absorbed and has thus arranged for every event to help guide you away from this. Say thank you.
Santorum cannot get away with the simplistic idea that he’s only trying to encourage women to make the best of a bad situation, that’s all. Bull. He’s sneaking in a deepity and it’s one based on a supernatural view of reality — his own.
grumpyoldfart
January 25, 2012 at 4:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I love Americans – Just standing next to one makes me look a whole lot smarter.
bahrfeldt
January 25, 2012 at 4:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He is proof that evil never quits
raven
January 25, 2012 at 4:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Just think of some of the other “gifts from god” every bit as real and equivalent as rape babies.
Cancer.
Heart disease.
AIDS, TB, malaria, smallpox, polio.
Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes.
Death.
Or even Newt Gingrich, Rich Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin
If god is in charge, he isn’t all that concerned about our well being and continued survival. Why are they even bothering to pretend to worshipping this monster?
Nepenthe
January 25, 2012 at 5:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@tacitus
Actually, the character Detective Benson is quite strongly pro-choice; and being a show about rape, that comes up a lot. Her attitude is “my mother had a choice”. (That might actually be a quote.) (And that choice isn’t glorified either, as her mother became an alcoholic following the rape and Benson implies many times that she wasn’t loved all that much due to the circumstance of her conception.) The other main character for most of the series is a staunch Catholic, but even he really doesn’t brook much opposition to either birth control or abortion.
There are many reasons to dislike SVU, but it’s still one of the most strongly pro-choice mainstream media pieces available.
tomh
January 25, 2012 at 5:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Santorum opposes abortion in all cases, except when he doesn’t. His wife’s troubled pregnancey in 1996 is well-chronicled, you can find his side of the story here, but for me, this statement highlights his hypocrisy. “The doctors said they were talking about a matter of hours or a day or two before risking sepsis and both of them might die,” Santorum said. “Obviously, if it was a choice of whether both Karen and the child are going to die or just the child is going to die, I mean it’s a pretty easy call.” All of a sudden he doesn’t oppose abortion in every case. It seems his wife went into premature labor and made the question moot, though some still claim there was an abortion, but he was prepared to pull the trigger and abort. I guess it’s different when it’s other people’s health that is at issue.
exdrone
January 25, 2012 at 5:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dear NYC:
Sorry about the 9/11 attack, but you’re getting the Freedom Tower out of it, so stop complaining. It’s just a little token of my esteem.
Enjoy,
God
raven
January 25, 2012 at 5:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That isn’t what happened. His wife was given a drug, oxytocin, to induce abortion and had…an abortion.
TCC (fka The Christian Cynic)
January 25, 2012 at 6:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lofgren:
Maybe I should have put “extrapolations” in scare quotes: I don’t think anyone can reasonably claim that the numbered statements above truly follow from the belief that being conceived out of rape doesn’t devalue you as an individual (which is perhaps a more accurate summation than my earlier “something good can come from something bad”).
ema:
Ed’s post doesn’t say that Santorum’s no-exceptions policy on abortion illegalization is appalling but that his stance on babies conceived out of rape is such. I agree that making all abortions illegal is appalling, but I think the statement in question is far more mundane. So no, I don’t support a theocracy.
tomh
January 25, 2012 at 6:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@48
The claim is that she was given antibiotice to bring down her 105 degree fever, which sped up labor, the fetus was delivered at 20 weeks and survived two hours outside the womb. Santorum has pictures of it on his office wall.
robertryan
January 25, 2012 at 6:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I was raped and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
slc1
January 25, 2012 at 6:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re raven @ #48
I think it is a bit more accurate to say that Ms. Santorum was given drugs to induce labor and she gave birth to a 20 week old fetus that died soon after. That, of course, is a therapeutic 2nd term abortion, which Santorum has convinced himself was really not an abortion. He is on record as opposing all abortions so that this procedure would be illegal under a Santorum proposed law.
slc1
January 25, 2012 at 6:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Tomh @ #50
This was hashed out on a previous thread a few days ago. The consensus was that she was given drugs for the purpose of inducing labor, not speeding it along.
Randomfactor
January 25, 2012 at 6:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Rape babies are a gift. The STDs often involved are just the festive wrapping.
Azkyroth
January 25, 2012 at 6:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…and another thing to say that she shouldn’t be allowed to HAVE a choice.
Azkyroth
January 25, 2012 at 7:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The country is full of assholes who can’t get that through their head, though. Odds are, Santorum’s one of them.
Aquaria
January 25, 2012 at 7:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So if the woman dies from being forced to bear a scumbag’s brat, then is that having God have her go through all that pain to call her “home?”
Of course, then there’s the kind of scumbaggery that would put someone through that just before killing them off for good.
Sort of like Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy raping their victims before murdering them.
Azkyroth
January 25, 2012 at 7:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
(It also contains people who insist that blowing off one’s life, family, and responsibilities to get high/drunk all the time isn’t self-inflicted either, but fortunately they’re not taken seriously. >.>)
Aquaria
January 25, 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The claim is that she was given antibiotice to bring down her 105 degree fever, which sped up labor, the fetus was delivered at 20 weeks and survived two hours outside the womb. Santorum has pictures of it on his office wall.
The claim is a lie. She was given Pitocin, which, in that context is used for only one thing, and that is to induce labor.
Do keep up.
tacitus
January 25, 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thanks for the info. It is interesting that so many of those who want to remove the “choice” from others can’t resist the urge to talk about the choices they made — Sarah and Bristol Palin, for example. They have both been lauded for their choice of keeping their respective babies.
Aquaria
January 25, 2012 at 7:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That isn’t what happened. His wife was given a drug, oxytocin, to induce abortion and had…an abortion.
Raven: If oxytocin was used to induce labor, Rush Limbaugh would have some ‘splainin’ to do.
Instead, Santorum’s brood mare received Pitocin, used to induce labor.
raven
January 25, 2012 at 7:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Pitocin is a trade name or brand name for oxytocin.
You are thinking of oxycontin.
Nepenthe
January 25, 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@robertryan
Seriously? Do you have to fill out a form or something, ’cause I never got mine? Now I feel extra sad.
Michael Heath
January 25, 2012 at 9:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Rick Santorum states:
Another conservative intellectual giant awkwardly uses the term ‘choice’ when discussing her own supposed last pregnancy, Sarah Palin. She even goes one step further, making a case against abortion rights equivalent to the predominant pablum conservatives spew when attempting to justify their opposition to gay rights.
In both cases she argues that her personal beliefs have her opposing both. Well I could give a flying fuck, the crux of the issue is whether a candidate is going to defend our constitutional rights or not and if not, why not. The media fails to demand answers within the context of the oath these candidates must take if they win. It’s an invalid argument for a candidate to make a religious argument to justify denying others the protection and free exercise of their rights. Palin’s so stupid she can’t even do disingenuous. She comically trys to make a case her own personal beliefs has her opposing abortion and gay marriage in a way that opens the door to supporting both in the future, while being able to claim she’s not flip-flopping.
This sort of rhetoric exposes the hypocrisy and incoherence of people like Rick Santorum and Sarah Palin. In addition, there are areas of the country where perfectly legal late-term abortions to protect or save the life of the mother are severely compromised. So while we have laws protecting women’s constitutional rights, anti-abortion rights supporters are effectively denying some women these rights which is causing undue suffering to women and their families. Andrew Sullivan, himself someone who leans anti-abortion rights, did an outstanding job of reporting stories of women who quickly needed a abortion given critical health risks who were denied local treatment, mostly due to a lack of training by their local doctors. These at-risk women had to travel to a different state, including some women in the state of NY having to go to Kansas or Colorado. This was a theme he repeatedly blogged about immediately after the Christianist terrorist killed Dr. George Tiller; he wrote a few times he’d had to liberalize his position given these stories and the lack of any adequate rebuttal.
Dr X
January 26, 2012 at 12:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
at Steve Oberski:
I don’t know Collins, but if he is like most parents, he would have been devastated by one his children being brutalized in that way. I’ve known a few Christians who have genuinely forgiven terrible acts by others, and as someone who went through one of the most difficult to forgive experiences a human being can have some 11 years ago, and having faced several years of wrenching struggle trying to reestablish a modicum of peace in my permanently altered life, I can assure you that reaching a place fragile forgiveness was anything but an act of narcissism. It has taken a monumental effort to live according to a principle to which I am deeply committed.
tomh
January 26, 2012 at 1:14 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ #59
I’m aware of the uncomfirmed Pitocin rumor, whose origin is one line in a single 2005 magazine article. Whether it is true or not is immaterial. The point is that the quote in comment #46 shows Santorum’s blatant hypocrisy, in that he would choose an abortion for his wife, to save her life, but would deny that choice to everyone else.
pacal
January 26, 2012 at 6:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So Frothy Mix says:
So Santorum is in effect saying that it is part of God’s plan that the rape is part of God’s plan?
Santorum can go fuck himself.
iangould
January 26, 2012 at 8:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How sad that Mr Santorum will never be able to truly receive and appreciate the gift he so generously wishes on others.
Improbable Joe
January 26, 2012 at 9:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m guessing that if “God” is giving presents to rape victims, I’m sure they’d prefer a pony, or an XBox and a bunch of games… or possibly NOT BEING RAPED IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE!!!!!
Santorum is, well. Is it his stupidity that makes his evil so obvious, or the other way around?
steve oberski
January 26, 2012 at 9:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dr X @65
I don’t know Collin’s motivations either but in the book it was all about him and not about his daughter.
Collins goes on to say:
And this discussion takes place in a chapter of the book whose theme is that God can work through adversity.
So I think this places Collins somewhere on the same continuum as the Rick Santorums of the world.
This is the director of the US NIH, using his daughters rape to enhance his relationship with an imaginary being.
You would think that he might be putting his energy into opposing the patriarchal and misogynistic forces in our society that are seeking to reduce women’s rights to control their own bodies if he was really concerned about the welfare of his daughters.
tommykey
January 26, 2012 at 1:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
With all of these Republican candidates coming out against abortion even in cases of rape, then does that mean that if I were somehow able to rape and impregnate their daughters every year for 20 years in a row, they would make their daughters carry every single pregnancy to term?
Pieter B, FCD
January 27, 2012 at 11:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A few generations ago when one was presented with a valuable gift, proper etiquette required one to say “You shouldn’t have. No, really, you shouldn’t have.”
I think that sums it up. And I’m sure most women in that situation would have preferred a pony.
supachiq
April 17, 2012 at 4:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So many responses. So much controveracy. I’m not sure if i could pick this up from one of your responses- I didn’t manage to get through all of them, but I wanted to know if any of the respondents to this post had actually experienced being a recipient of the “gift”? I have and i chose to have the baby and i have never looked back since! I don’t regret any part of my decision to have him. he doesn’t look anything like me but I love him none the less and have far more peace with the fact that I had him than i would have ever experienced if i’d aborted him (the thought never even crossed my mind cos i immediately saw him as a gift. I immediately remembered all the women who were unable to conceive and experience the fullness of motherhood; some who lost their spouses who could not understand their plight). I realised how lucky I was, regardless the circumstance under which my son was conceived. I pressed charges against the offender, which were later dropped as on the grounds of insufficient evidence (typical of our justice system). I then resolved to confront the perpetrator, forgive him and give him a chance to redeem himself. Isn’t that, after all what Jesus would have done? I’d like to think…And I did just that. And I am at peace with my decision. My son is beautiful and he is the most perfect gift God could have ever given me! i wouldn’t trade him for the world!
Michael Heath
April 17, 2012 at 5:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
supachiq writes:
What do you expect a criminal justice system to do if there’s a lack of evidence of a crime? Did you pursue a civil case? How do you expect us to validate your claims in this forum when you use a pseudonym?
supachiq writes:
The Sarah Palin argument. Are you advocating that based on your own supposed experience, that other women shouldn’t have a choice to abort, in spite of you celebrating your choice? Did you hurt yourself reaching around to pat yourself on the back? Is this supposed rapist/father “redeeming” himself by at least paying your child support? Where I assume establishing paternity is feasible and therefore demanding support has the law on your side. Does he have joint custody?
Your story reads like it was written by a male anti-abortion rights advocate who fantasies this is how such narratives should go, and not like an actual event.
van tai, van tai hang, thfue xe tai, thue xe cho hang, van tai hang hoa, van chuyen,thue xe tai, thfue xe tai, thue xe cau,
May 18, 2012 at 7:02 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
van tai, van tai hang, thfue xe tai, thue xe cho hang, van tai hang hoa, van chuyen,thue xe tai, thfue xe tai, thue xe cau,…
[...]Santorum: God Gives Rape Babies as Gifts | Dispatches from the Culture Wars[...]…
The Female Body DOES Have a Way to Shut the Whole Thing Down!
August 25, 2012 at 2:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] But what Mr. Akin and his ilk apparently don’t know, is that it can happen to anybody, anytime. And it’s easy to tell someone else’s daughter or wife from afar, who you don’t know, that they should regard the rapist’s seed as a gift from God, and have the baby anyway. As that great sage, Rick Santorum tells the victims, you need to realize you have been given “the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.” [...]