George Graham

Rape Pregnancies are God’s Will? I Don’t Think So!

I do not profess to know the will of God. As the old hymn puts it, our Creator is:

Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes.

But I am confident that rape – and pregnancies resulting from rape – are not God’s will.

And I shudder at the false theology embraced by America’s religious right in their obsession with abortion. The latest example is a declaration by Senate candidate Richard Mourdock  (photo above) that pregnancies resulting from rape are part of God’s plan.

“I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen,” Mourdock said during a Senate debate in Indiana last night.

Mourdock would outlaw abortions except to save the life of the mother. His opponent, Representative Joe Donnelly, also opposes abortion but his exceptions include rape and incest.

Mourdock is not alone in co-opting the Creator as a political ally in the crusade against pro-choice legislation.

Abortion is a key issue in this election. The Republican platform spells out the party’s determination to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision that gave women control of their reproductive functions. The platform language makes no exception for cases of rape or incest or even when a mother’s life is in danger.

Here is what it says:

The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.

Republican candidates claim they’re doing God’s work in their anti-abortion crusade.

As usual, Mitt Romney’s position varies depending on his audience, but he has declared he would be “delighted” to sign legislation banning all abortions. You can be sure that if he is elected president, Romney would choose Supreme Court justices who are prepared to overturn the Roe vs. Wade ruling.

Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, is even more committed to a Holy Crusade against legalized abortion. He has sponsored numerous anti-abortion bills in the House of Representatives. One bill even attempts to restrict exemptions to “forcible” rape and another defines life as beginning with the fertilization of a follicle (illustration above).

By giving a fertilized egg all the rights of a human being (including the right to own property!), this type of legislation would not only criminalize abortions – and possibly miscarriages – but also ban the use of birth control pills.

One of Ryan’s congressional allies, Representative Todd Akin, who is a Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, declared that women’s bodies have ways of preventing pregnancy in cases of  “legitimate rape.”

This is not a fringe candidate spouting craziness. A faction of the mainstream Republican Party has accepted the theory for years. And it s this faction that now controls the party.

What these Republicans want is a theocracy in America. They claim exclusive knowledge of God’s will and would impose their beliefs on everyone else. I would not be surprised if they try to criminalize adultery and skipping church on Sunday. Those also are among the Ten Commandments. And if you search the Scriptures, you will find that eating ham is banned, too.

To suggest that this kind of nonsense is the will of God is not just stupid; it is blasphemous.

Click here for the Mourdock story.

Click here for a description of the reproductive process.

Click here for the Republican platform.

About the author

gwgraeme

I am a Jamaican-born writer who has lived and worked in Canada and the United States. I live in Lakeland, Florida with my wife, Sandra, our three cats and two dogs. I like to play golf and enjoy our garden, even though it's a lot of work. Since retiring from newspaper reporting I've written a few books. I also write a monthly column for Jamaicans.com