Posted on 08/25/2012 8:30:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Republican Todd Akin is standing firm. He has refused to bow to pressure to withdraw his candidacy for the U.S. Senate after he made a comment that Gary Bauer of The Campaign for Working Families called, "a gift to our political enemies."
When the Missouri Congressman was asked by a St. Louis TV station to state his views regarding possible exceptions for abortion, he responded, "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." He added: "But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. You know I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."
For all his good intentions of trying to put the focus on the right to life of the unborn, Akins' use of the phrase "legitimate rape," which he later called a "misstatement," and for which he apologized and asked for forgiveness, has resulted in fierce castigations from Democrats and the liberal media. It has also brought calls from his fellow Republicans to withdraw from the race against incumbent Claire McCaskill.
Ann Coulter wrote, "If Akin truly loves his country and genuinely wants Roe v. Wade overturned, he will step aside and allow another Republican to run in his place." Coulter and others have said Akin should have been better prepared to respond to the question.
"How about saying," she offered, "'Yes, it's still a life, but more people are killed in drive-by shootings in Chicago every year. You give us the 2 million abortions that aren't a result of rape and incest and we'll give you the few thousand that are.'"
Coulter was correct in pointing to the huge number of deaths every year at the hands of abortionists. But her response still misses the mark on two points.
As lawyer Rebecca Kiessling, who was herself conceived in rape, says, "Rape exceptions in the law actually put the government in the position of having to ascertain when the child was conceived, who the father is, whether the child was conceived during the alleged rape or during intercourse with her husband or boyfriend, and if the child was conceived during the time frame of the alleged rape, then the government would need to determine whether the sexual intercourse was consensual or not."
According to Kiessling, the "rape exception" only perpetuates injustice against rape victims whose accounts are viewed with skepticism. She says that "it further leaves the majority of impregnated rape victims wholly unprotected under the law. Rape exceptions suggest that a 'real rape victim' couldn't possibly love 'the rapist's baby' and that rape victim mothers don't exist."
This assumption was expressed by Susan Milligan in U.S. News and World Report. She called children conceived through rape, "spawn." Such comments deserve as stern a rebuke as Akin's do. No child is any less human because he or she was conceived during a rape. Such a claim denies the biblical truth that all children-including the unborn-are created in the image of God. The circumstances of their conception are irrelevant. The baby in the womb is an innocent human person whose inalienable right to life must be protected just as much the baby outside of the womb.
Coulter's response also overlooked the fact that abortion itself is a traumatizing experience. The truth is:
abortion hurts women. Giving a woman the abortion option-whether she is the victim of a rape or a married woman with unplanned pregnancy-is not the "compassionate answer." Abortion does not bring healing; it brings misery, pain, and suffering, as millions of women who have had abortions can attest.
After 39 years of legal abortions in America, the statistics on the effects of abortion on women are nothing short of tragic:
•65 percent of women who abort report symptoms Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that they attribute to their abortions.
•Women who abort have a 62 percent higher risk of death from all causes for at least eight years after their pregnancies.
•Suicide rates in women are 6–7 times higher after an abortion.
Supporters of the abortion industry want to hide the truth that abortion is harmful to women. Every woman considering having an abortion should be told the fact that 31percent of women who have abortions suffer health complications afterwards.
•Women who abort are twice as likely to have pre-term or post-term deliveries in subsequent pregnancies.
•Women who abort are more likely to experience infertility, stillbirths, and miscarriages.
•Women who abort have a significantly increased risk of breast cancer and cervical cancer. (See the Elliot Institute's Life-Threatening Risks of Abortion)
As Rebecca Kiessling observes, Rep. Akin is not the first political candidate to have run afoul of the media over the question, "What about rape and incest?" "The problem," she says, "is not with these candidates' values. The problem is how they express them."
Kiessling says candidates should respond to the question by giving the following three-part answer:
First, according to the Supreme Court, the death penalty is "cruel and unusual punishment" and rapists don't deserve the death penalty. However, if the rapist father doesn't deserve such punishment, how can we say that the innocent child conceived in rape deserves to die for the crimes of her father?
Second, Keissling points out, rape victims are four times more likely to die within the next year after the abortion, with a higher rate of suicide, murder, drug overdose, etc.. "If we truly care about rape victims," she says, "we should protect them from the rapist, and from the abortion, and not the baby. A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim-an abortion is."
Finally, notes Kiessling, rape victims choose abortion at half the rate of the average unplanned pregnancy, which is over 50 percent. "Only 15-25 percent of rape victims choose abortion…. The majority of rape victims choose to raise her child - not 'the rapist's baby'-HER child." At her website, Rebecca has gathered stories of women who became pregnant by rape and either regret aborting, are raising their children, or are birth-moms. She also has stories of those who were conceived in rape and/or incest.
The answer to the question, "What about rape and incest?" is clear-and it's not abortion. Two wrongs do not make a right.
-- Dr. Karen Gushta is a writer and researcher for Truth in Action Ministries (formerly Coral Ridge Ministries). Her most recent book is How Can America Survive? The Coming Economic Earthquake. She has also written The War on Children: How Pop Culture and Public Schools Put Our Kids at Risk (2009) and co-authored Ten Truths About Socialism (2010). Dr. Gushta is a former board member of the Broward County Right to Life and is Vice-President of Broward County Eagle Forum. Her doctorate is in Philosophy of Education.
Being pro-life isn’t the same as being psychotic, but forcing a woman to bear the child of her rapist IS.
If she chooses to bear that child, then I support that decision. If she chooses not to bear that child, then I support that decision.
So to answer your question, if a woman decides to kill the child of her rapist, yes, I’m OK with that. If the rapist wanted his child to have a fair shot in life, then he should have thought about that before he forced that child on someone who never agreed to that.
What reason is that?
Thank you kindly, I do appreciate this response very much.
Really? NOT KILLING A BABY IS PSYCHOTIC?
That is some really twisted thinking.
So to answer your question, if a woman decides to kill the child of her rapist, yes, I’m OK with that.
So, if YOUR FATHER raped a woman it would be okay for her to kill YOU?
For what other crimes do you support killing the child of the criminal?
This is a PRO-LIFE forum and you have been pushing abortion all over this thread.
Social conservatives finding enumerated powers in scripture and “moral absolutes” always comes to no good. Anthony Comstock made Margaret Sanger a celebrity. We’d have been better off if he’s left well enought alone.
Look.
If we outlawed abortion (a worthy goal, right?) EXCEPT in case of rape - what would happen?
Millions of abortions would still occur every year, But the girls would all be crying “I wuz raped.”
Rape has been dumbed down enough as it is. A girl gets drunk - gets knocked up by a friend - that is rape these days. The same as a 12 year old being attacked in an alley.
And you want to make allowances for abortion in case of rape? That would only increase reports of rape in America by - say - a million percent.
And still... Abortion in case of rape punishes a baby for the sins of the father.
No abortions. Not ever. No exceptions.
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She will also be bearing her child. The child will have half her DNA, and will be carried in her body until birth.
Why is the one and only person in the equation who is absolutely, without a doubt, innocent of anything the one that faces capital punishment??
I prefer to turn it around on them “why are you guys so obsessed with rape and incest pregnancies? Is this like a goal, a dream, do you need money for a therapist?” That usually shuts them up.
Social conservatives finding enumerated powers in scripture and “moral absolutes” always comes to no good...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah! Damn them “moral absolutes” busybodies. Who do they think they are attacking Margaret Sanger anyway?
They should all leave “well enought alone.”
/s
(I swear. Some days I feel like I’m posting at the DUmp. The number of pro-choice Freepers here is sickening.)
That only one % of abortions are of children born of rape. That 50% of pregnancies from rape are aborted and that is 15,000 innocent victims per year.
Making up or exaggerating a biological mechanism whereby they shouldn’t exist if it was “legitimate” rape is NOT the way to go.
Do these cases concern a woman who is a clear-eyed actor making an independent and rational decision, and later expressing regret over it?
How many of the women who find themselves in the situations described above are themselves survivors of abuse and incest?
If it makes you feel any better, sometimes I do too, reading the kind of false dichotomy polarization arguments that are typical of the liberals.
If I don't find an enumerated power for federal welfare programs, then I must want poor inner city children to starve to death and old people thrown out on the street.
If I don't find an enumerated power for the EPA then I want air pollution and poisoned rivers.
If I don't find an enumerated power for the ATF, then I must want every city to be a war zone with 10 year old gangbangers walking around with machine guns.
If I don't find an enumerated power to ban abortion I must want free abortion on demand and every fetus murdered.
“How do we respond to the claims of rape and incest?”
Punish the guilty. Protect and preserve the innocent.
Think deeply about it.
Why is killing an innocent child a good way to solve the problem? The mother will live the rest of her life knowing that she murdered an innocent child. It will (and does!) only add to her burden.
Two, there are countless married couples who are waiting to adopt babies.
Three, it is senseless and the height of injustice to punish the innocent. What to speak of unspeakably cruel. Can you think of any other crime in which the victim is executed?
Add to that the fact that many women would falsely claim “rape” to be eligible for a rape allowed abortion.
The number of women who get pregnant from rape is small. All kinds of support could be (and no doubt would or is right now) provided by private charities for their pregnancy and birth expenses as well as emotional and if desired, spiritual support. And adoptive parents found for the baby.
Ask any person who was conceived from rape if they would rather have been killed and see what their answers are.
>No abortions. Not ever. No exceptions.
That is an honorable rule for one to live by. I commend anyone following that rule for themselves.
As for reality and getting elected, it can’t be forced onto others. It’s a show stopper. Without the common sense exceptions, one can not be elected to make or enforce ANY laws.
Wow. Just wow.
You admit that it is a child and then you admit you are ok with killing it.
How Nazi of you.
Do you have a uniform to match your attitude?
Actually, the Nazis understood the advantage as defining their victims as something "less" that human beings before murdering them.
Apparently, you do not know how to read very well.
That is some really twisted thinking.
It is your thinking that is twisted.
So, if YOUR FATHER raped a woman it would be okay for her to kill YOU?
My father didn't rape a woman, and if he had raped my MOTHER, then I would support my mother's decision had said rape resulted in a pregnancy.
For what other crimes do you support killing the child of the criminal?
Incest. Try reading next time.
This is a PRO-LIFE forum and you have been pushing abortion all over this thread.
Well, not everyone agrees with this forum or you. A question was asked, and I answered it. The world is not your echo chamber, even though I know you want it to be.
“How do we respond to the claims of rape and incest?”
Punish the guilty. Protect and preserve the innocent.
Simple, just, and the way it should be.
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