Kicking. Squealing.
President Obama trotted out “rape is rape” on Jay Leno. Unfortunately, it was a complete non sequitur to the Richard Mourdock statement to which he was responding. The evangelical Mourdock uttered a typically “God’s Will be done” argument that rape, like every other occurrence on this planet, is part of God’s plan.
This ventures into the realm of theodicy where philosophers have for ages attempted to reconcile God with the existence of earthy evil. Is evil part of God’s plan, or does evil exist to spite it? This discussion transcends the current “War on Women” gotcha game being played by feminists and liberals. To reduce this argument to the non-spiritual, a good plan would acknowledge contingencies, and that can be done without altering the rules and principles that guide the original plan.
After being led into the discussion by Leno who characterized Mourdock’s statement as being similar to that made by Todd Akin, Obama responded:
Rape is rape. It is a crime. And so, these various distinctions about rape and, you know — don’t make too much sense to me. Don’t make any sense to me. The second thing this underscores, though, this is exactly why you don’t want a bunch of politicians — mostly male — making decisions about women’s health care decisions.
Rape is a crime; nobody said it wasn’t. Katrina Trinko points out the error here. Mourdock didn’t say a word about different types of rape though if Obama was pressed on it his handlers would probably argue that he was mostly talking about Akin’s “legitimate rape” distinction.
At least one liberal writer seems to understand Mourdock’s point. She’s actually been around evangelicals and understands what drives their philosophy. Amy Sullivan writes:
Despite the assertions of many liberal writers I read and otherwise admire, I don’t think that politicians like Mourdock oppose rape exceptions because they hate women or want to control women. I think they’re totally oblivious and insensitive and can’t for a moment place themselves in the shoes of a woman who becomes pregnant from a rape. I think most don’t particularly care that their policy decisions can impact what control a woman does or doesn’t have over her own body. But if Mourdock believes that God creates all life and that to end a life created by God is murder, then all abortion is murder, regardless of the circumstances in which a pregnancy came about.
This satisfies me. I would consider myself agnostic on abortion, but the pro-abortion argument against a pro-life strawman argument has always bothered me to the point that I advocate for pro-lifers.
He’s been on Leno what, 4 or 5 times now?
So, conceiving a child after rape is a thing that happens on occasion, right? How often? Do we have statistics on such a thing? Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that it happens 3000 times a year. This conversation that is consuming the finite attention span of the American public during a presidential election cycle affects .00001% of the population. What a retarded country we live in. How unhealthy is our political discourse that this is what our media chooses to focus like a laser on. The Night of The Long Rope can’t get here soon enough.
I’ve attended to a young woman who delivered a baby conceived by rape. She was joyous and proud of her toddler son. She was poor, with missing teeth, drab clothing, but had lots of energy and smiles. He’s about 15-20 years old now.
I recalled her face, but not the particulars. Did she decline emergency contraception, or conceive despite using it? I don’t remember, but she was certain I attended to her the morning of her rape.
Conception from rape is likely rare, because the emergency contraception is highly efficacious and costs only $40.
I respect Mourdock for the consistency of his logic. Should the circumstances of conception mitigate our respect for life?
Agreed Chuck. I don’t really have a strong consistent opinion on abortion, but the pro-choice people get little sympathy from me because they consistently lie about and misrepresent the substance of the pro-life position.
Pro-abortion people bother me because they mostly refuse to accept the fact that, however you want to look at a fetus, it is another factor in the argument. For example, Sullivan probably never even thought of the fact that her argument could be re-written as:
“I think they’re totally oblivious and insensitive and can’t for a moment place themselves in the shoes of a fetus who is a product of rape, through no fault of its own. I think most don’t particularly care that their policy decisions can impact whether or not an innocent fetus lives or dies”
Most people instinctively avoid making arguments that can be turned around that easily, but it would never have occurred to her to do that, because the fetus doesn’t even come into consideration for pro-abortionists.
I’m like you though, really. I don’t really care all that much about abortion, but I’m just put off by the arguments pro-abortion people make. The first time I heard one use the term “anti-choice”, I realized that they really can’t do much except argue with strawmen anymore.
Classic non-sequitur by Obama. He knew he had a slam dunk for the dummies and down it went.
I met a baby once who was born at about 22 weeks after conception. He was very premature and out he had to come. Kid was doing great. An experience like that can change your views, if you have a reflective nature.
Unfortunately most pro-abortion loudmouths do not have a reflective nature. They subscribe to whatever view is easiest. Against all the evidence they seem to believe that there is no life until baby comes out of mummy’s tummy.
(Obama said) “this is exactly why you don’t want a bunch of politicians — mostly male — making decisions about women’s health care decisions.”
How ironic – I wish our government and Obama himself would follow his own dictum here. Instead the government has stuck its nose firmly into women’s health care decisions. Given Obamacare and the new laws that force insurance providers to pay for “free” BC pills.
The past month or so of the election season has reminded me how much I can’t stand Obama. Obama’s rise is what initially motivated my turn to “extremist right-wing politics” (i.e. the alt-right blogosphere), but for awhile I kind of forgot about him as I focused more on general leftism. But seeing more of him recently has reinvigorated my disdain for the man.
“I respect Mourdock for the consistency of his logic. Should the circumstances of conception mitigate our respect for life?”
I’m pro-life, but that doesn’t mean I think all murder, even of innocent life, is unjustified, i.e. civilian casualties in a justified war effort.
Sorry for spamming, but this is just too funny. On the NYBetaT article on pull-ups, one “male” commenter says:
“I am a 58 year old man; I have been active all my life and am reasonably fit. I have never been able to do a pull up or chin up in my life. Until I read this article I thought that they were sort of a myth — aside from a few freaks, most people (normal people) could never do such a thing. I am still not quite convinced that they are within the capabilities of most men and women. One must have exceptional gifts, and then still train like a fiend, to be able to execute one of these. None of my male friends have ever done one, and I have never met any woman who could do one either.”
Like many things with the media, I dislike the one sided portrayal of the abortion issue. No article is ever written on the extra choice views, which even the savior in the White House supports. The rise of anti-organized religion members in the Dem party has shut down the ability to engage in a simple talk because the Dem side views those religious feelings as invalid. It is like the constant hammering by SSM advocates for people to sacrifice at the altar of SSM one’s religious beliefs. Outside of the bubble of liberal Western civ, to completely discount the importance or just the effect of religion on a person’s approach to any issue is idiotic.
I’m agnostic on abortion as well, but after having a kid, I definitely view the 1.33 mil women in the US who have abortions each year (not due to rape) as irresponsible and selfish.
I take a more sinister view…I think a lot of critics understand perfectly Murdouch’s point. They just see an opening to score political points.
So the people so concerned about rape actually exploit rape for partisan gain.
That’s pretty fucked up.
Mr. Rudd,
You are only “agnostic” about abortion because you have self-consciously decided to stay within a very comfortable “liberated” frame.
Did your mother have a “fundamental right” to kill YOU in utero?
That’s the only question that you need to answer so as to determine whether you are an anti-abortionist or whether you are a bona fide self-annihilator.
one thing i’ve never understood is this:
because of abortion, a pregnant woman has the choice whether or not to be a mother (as i think she should). She can abort the fetus, carry it to term and raise it, or give it up for adoption.
but if i knock a girl up, i don’t have any choices. if i want to raise the kid and she doesn’t, she can have an abortion without my consent. if (what’s more likely) i don’t want to raise the kid, and she does, i can’t make her abort it or give it up for adoption, and i have to pay child support.
i’m not saying i should be able to decide whether or not a woman has an abortion. but why should she be able to decide whether or not i have to pay for the kid? i don’t see how this is fair.
that’s why, although i consider myself pro-choice in the abstract, im terribly sick of hearing about abortion and “a woman’s right to choose” when I, as a man, don’t have any say in the matter at all. i just can’t bring myself to care.
Mr. Conway,
When you become a father, believing that you have “no right” to control your daughter’s body will be seen as the suicidal tendency that it really is.
Think of that most beta of black males, Obama…
He would actually assert that Michelle had the “fundamental right” to kill Sasha and Malia in utero.
That’s pathetic and dare I say, downright evil.
@needname:
I read the same NYT article earlier. The comments would be really good for comedy if people weren’t actually that stupid. So many examples of people going, “It’s not true that women can’t do pullups! I am a woman / know a woman who can do pullups!”
Pretty sure that comment you quoted is just a troll though.
thordaddy,
it’s quite possible i’ll change my mind when/if i have kids. my point was more targeted toward the hypocrisy of those who say a woman has “a right to choose”, but a man has no rights and no choices, only responsibilities, when it comes to childcare. an pure anti-abortion position, like yours, is at least consistent, if not correct.
on the pull-up issue: i rarely see people, male or female, in the gym doing actual, dead-hang pull-ups, where you start with your arms fully extended and end with your upper chest touching the bar. a lot of people think they can do more pull ups then they can, because they’re doing “pull ups” where they drop down about 4 inches and then pull up until their nose clears the bar.
So I guess most of the babies conceived via rape are at least half black. So wanting to have abortions after rape would be racist.
Woman has the prerogative to terminate the fetus, conceived by man and woman, during gestation. After birth, both man and woman are responsible for the child. Is this unfair, to the man? Is the woman given more than her share of power?
That question of fairness does not make sense to me. It seems that it is trying to fit this idea, of fairness or whatever idea, onto the realities of life. Weather or not the woman has the legal right to abortion, she has the natural prerogative to it, unless she is strapped down or something, which is only an absurd condition thrown out as an existing contingency and not as a joke, though perhaps.
Alt-righters, race-realists, traditionalists, and such, i think are into being in accordance with natural rights. Recognizing the realities of nature and not imposing onto them with notions of what ought to be. So, a woman does have the natural right to perform an abortion on a fetus that is in her womb. For what it is worth, i am surprised that that is my conclusion.
Women have always had this natural right; i am not convinced that the cheap-and-ease availability of the surgical procedure has altered the equation, of how this prerogative of theirs affects the next generation.
***************
I just did 12 pull-ups, on the clothesline frame outside, in the dark and cold: locked arms to chin above the bar, no lateral motion, and overhand grip (underhand was easier as a child but now causes too much stress on my frame). I am 42 years old and 20 pounds overweight, and have arms of medium length. This information is included as it weighs on the validity of the opinions offered above, on natural rights.
Please tell me you’re posting on the Lena Dunham campaign video:
“Prerogative” is an interesting word, and it is the right one there. It is a right or privilege based on heredity or class, and in this case the class is the sex, female. It is the prerogative of proximity, to the fetus. The pregnant woman has always had the option of nurturing or neglecting the fetus; the surgery of aborting it is perhaps a difference of degree, rather than a difference of type, though that could be argued either way and it does not matter.
So this has always been a woman’s right. But the language there feels wrong does it not. If it is a woman’s right … why so often wrong. The nature of “rights” is revealed here, to be twisted. Rights are natural, they exist to those with the power and the will (or is it the power and the glory?), but they are … gross, and cruel and unkind. Which in battle might be sung as something, but given to the cruel hand of woman and used on the very child within her, the starkness.
Yes, a “woman’s right to choose” is so, and if it seems seems wrong, then right is understood but half-wise.
Slight correction. Woman’s rights for abortion are indeed, but framing them as a “right to choose” is political, and specifically flattering, to woman, by painting her as rational choice-maker. Aborting a fetus would be a gut-level instinctual decision, moreso than a rational-type choice.
Abortion is homicide. Taking a morning-after pill is the same as smashing an infant’s head against a brick wall, less messy being the key difference. A friend of my wife’s once told her she took a pill the morning after having sex with her husband on her ovulation day. She’s a charming lass and I like her, but in my mind her nickname is “baby killer.”
That said, I am not a pacifist. Some circumstances offer a compelling moral rationale in favor of abortion. Rape being one of those. A married woman in particular should not impose a rapist’s child on her family. The womb-thief should not be rewarded with that womb’s issue.
suburban_elk:
if women have a natural prerogative to terminate a pregnancy, don’t men have a natural prerogative to skip town when they find out about a pregnancy?
PA…
With all due respect, there is simply no good reason to make your nuanced argument.
The abortion issue needs to be framed correctly. The abortionist is not motivated to embrace abortion because of some heart wrenching red herring and the anti-abortionist can’t be swayed in his CORRECT CONVICTION by that same red herring.
From the abortionist’s POV, you have merely showed a kink in your conviction. Moments before, your conviction was “extremism” and now your fig leaf to the abortionist is clear cut evidence that you lack real conviction.
Anti-abortionists can transcend this radically liberal trap. First, we must understand what the abortionist is motivated by AND what evidences his conviction? Secondly, we must simply confirm or destroy that conviction just as they attempt to do to the anti-abortionist.
PA is an anti-abortionist because he absolutely does not believe with 100% conviction that his mother had a “fundamental right” to kill him in utero. There are no religious, scientific or philosophical arguments to employ. It is declared conviction laid bare.
That’s it. That’s the only place the anti-abortionist needs venture when he is engaged with the abortionist.
Now we strike and we confirm or destroy the abortionist’s conviction.
Did YOUR mother have a “fundamental right” to kill you in utero BECAUSE she was raped?
Yes… Self-annihilator. Voluntarily disqualified from the table of civilized human beings.
No… No real conviction for “abortion.” Poseur. Radical automomist. Or, newly convinced anti-liberationist?
Did YOUR mother have a “fundamental right” to kill you in utero BECAUSE she was raped?
I was not sired by a rapist.
And now a question for Thordaddy:
Are YOU obliged to see your wife carry to term if she was impregnated by a rapist?
PA’s position is very black and white, but I can’t find fault with his moral reasoning.
If your wife is pregnant by what she claims is a rapist’s baby, and she wants to keep the baby, you can safely surmise that she was not raped, but was an active and willing participant.
I would guess the vast majority of rapists are mentally retarded. This is why they need to resort to the risky activity of raping women, rather than getting them through more legitimate ways.
PA…
It’s like you didn’t even read what I wrote. I’ll answer your question IF we ever get there and you will get a definitive answer.
Until then…
Think of the nature of your query?
“Have you quit beating your wife?”
That’s exactly the nature of your question. It serves as the radical abortionist’s attempt to frame the anti-abortionist as either “extremist” or poseur, i.e., as radical liberationist. Anti-abortion conviction equals “extremist.” A nuanced exception in cases of raped wives equals lack of conviction, i.e., poseur/liberationist.
No man… The ONLY QUESTION ON THE TABLE if we are to be pulled in this direction is thus:
Did your mother have a “fundamental right” to kill you (the abortionist) in utero BECAUSE you were the product of rape?
If said abortionist was not actually a product of rape then walk it back.
The REAL EXTREMIST is the self-annihilator. And he needs to have his conviction for self-annihilating exposed and destroyed.
The man and the woman are not working together, and both are often irresponsible about sex. So there is a fetus and then a child. The woman has control over it while it is with her, and that usually extends past birth though then there are more and different legal issues and constraints which are a separate question, than the nature of the argument i was making which is pretty similar to the old Might is right.
Abortion is more contentious now these days because men and women are at cross purposes. In the old days, i am speculating, the question of when an abortion was “the right thing to do” would have been considered from the position of both parties, and also its effect on the community, but that last would be more abstract, more an exercise in ethics, since if it was being considered for both parties that would be the community, sometimes entirely.
The issue of abortion is a wedge, to keep men and women from considering their common interests first. If man and woman are looking for the next generation, their kids and the rest in their community, there will still be times when a fetus might should be killed. Mortal health concerns of birthing would be the first. Rape would be the second. The objection to abortion as murder cannot be withdrawn for the fetus conceived of a rape (a real rape, an alley rape). Withdrawing the objection in that case reveals a weak objection, and or requires a lot of clarifying of values and priorities.
The third case, on the question of when might could an abortion be considered, for the benefit of the man, the woman, and the community, is more common: a fetus, an unborn child, conceived between parties not wanting or willing, perhaps not able, to live and raise that child. And distinctions there are; the deformed and retarded on the one hand, vs. the beautiful and lusty but young and unguided. These days those characters have abortions for purposes of “birth control”. The phrase, birth control, could be evaluated as a political euphemism.