Posted on 02/26/2003 1:04:55 PM PST by Remedy
I belong to an on-line support group (me, in a sup-port group, there’s a picture) composed of adult children born of rape or incest. There are more of us in the former category than the latter. Jennifer is our webmistress, organizer, facilitator, coach, head nanny, chief nag (though very nice about it), and the child of a violent rape. Mostly, I lurk. But for some in the group, I am a kind of unofficial chaplain and sometime pastoral advisor. There are children born before Roe v. Wade as well as children born after Roe v. Wade. The handles adopted by some in the group are evocative: "former fetus," "unawares angel," names like that.
We tell stories about how we found out about our birth circumstances, what that knowledge has meant. For every one of us, it was a discovery. No one was raised knowing the circumstances of his birth, but all of us are adoptees who simply wanted to know our origins for medical reasons or just to gain a more complete personal sense of identity. Finding we were children of rape was an incidental outcome, but always a fundamental shock. The biographical fact of adoption, frequently problematic in its own way, can become impossibly complicated with that extra layer of detail squatting on top of it. My conception and birth were the product of stepsibling incest.
If you want a genuine encounter with Angst 101–all the old "why am I here?" questions with none of the sophomoric abstractions attached–our chat room positively wallows in it, and for understandable reasons. These are ordinary people, after all, fairly attuned to the ordinary pulses of good and evil in this world, trying to come to grips with how their life can be the result of something that was so horrifically bad for someone else. Still, as I always ask when that question arises, cannot a child born of rape be an instance of God working good from evil, a lesson that Joseph learned and then taught to his brothers?
We get into discussions about our discussions with pro-choice advocates. There isn’t one of us who hasn’t been told by a pro-choice supporter that support for abortion, especially in those hard cases like rape, is, of course, "nothing personal." I’m sure the delegates at the Presbyterian Church (USA) meeting in Columbus, Ohio, late last June would say the same thing. The PCUSA general assembly voted 394 to 112 in support of an unrestricted right to abortion, at least until such time as the fetus can survive outside the womb. Thereafter, abortion should be done only to preserve the life of the mother, to "avoid fetal suffering," or in cases of rape and incest.
The Presbyterians have adopted a position similar to that of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and like the ELCA, PCUSA’s medical benefits plan for clergy and church workers regards an elective abortion as a reimbursable medical expense. There is no reimbursement for an elective nose job, even if your nose is big enough to qualify as a county in Rhode Island, but that’s just policy, nothing personal. (I am a pastor in the ELCA, but I dropped out of the health plan years ago over its support for abortion.)
Back to Angst 101. Everyone deals with issues of birth and origin–well, they do if they are conscious and sentient. The perilous biologic journey of sperm and egg from conception to zygote to blastocyst to embryo to fetus is just so much random chance that particular questions about the particularity that you represent are inevitable. If somebody had a headache that night, you wouldn’t be here. If the 64-some cells that formed the blastocyst had failed to travel the fallopian tubes, you wouldn’t be here. If the blastocyst had failed to implant itself on the uterine wall, you wouldn’t be here. There are a thousand natural reasons why you should not be here, and the chances of your being here at all are unutterably impossible.
The chances of pregnancy from rape are even chancier. Actual pregnancies resulting from reported rapes are ridiculously miniscule, point-oh-oh-oh-something per thousand. But it is always somebody’s bad luck when they do happen and the "ifs" roll on. If she had stayed out of the parking lot that night; if she had been more aware of her surroundings; if the guy she met hadn’t been a twisted creep; if her stepbrother hadn’t forced her on the sofa. If.
Absent a creator–absent God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth–your conception and birth are exactly that, dumb blind chance. Yet we say that God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, made you. And me. And a very talented, warm-hearted woman named Jennifer, with two sweet kids of her own. Her body itself, and my body, aging though it is, carries a living and breathing rebuke to those who regard human life as a matter of convenience. Against all appearances to the contrary, imagine this: God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, made her, made me, made you. It is more personal than the Presbyterians or the Lutherans will admit.
Russell E. Saltzman is pastor of Ruskin Heights Lutheran Church, Kansas City, Missouri, and editor of the independent Lutheran publication Forum Letter. This is reprinted with permission from the August 2002 Forum Letter, and is copyright 2002 by the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau.
I read somewhere on a recent thread that up to 5%(?) of all eastern Europeans can trace their lineage back to Genghis Khan. Another tidbit that I can dimly recall has to do with Caesar during his campaigns in Gaul - some sort of Latin chant about here comes Caesar, ladies beware, he's got the biggest you-know-what, and so on.
The one thing the enemies of Western heritage don't understand is that we are ALL descendents of survivors of rape, warfare, plague and general mass mayhem.
Absolutely, and as Snerfling said so eloquently, we are ALL products of rape at some point in our long lineage....babygene and SarahW included.
Of course you don't, but untold numbers of women in your family tree that goes back to the beginning of time have been raped. If they hadn't been, YOU wouldn't be here....and you're certain to have some "cretinous genetically inferior sociopath" genes of your own. We all do.
Your knowledge of genetics is analogous to an astrologer's knowledge of astrophysics. But I suppose you are not alone among those duped by PBS-level junk science.
Genetic inferiority has nothing to do with criminal behavior. Genetic inferiority has to do with birth defects and congenital diseases. I know plenty of fine, upstanding people who have inferior genes. I have diabetic, epileptic, and cancerous friends, as well as some with Down's syndrome and other genetic anomolies. None of them are rapists or criminals.
On the other hand, many criminals are stronger and smarter than average. They in fact have superior genes.
Genetic quality is irrelevant with regard to criminal behavior. Educate yourself or shut your ignorant, bigoted mouth.
You can not believe Paul to be an apostle and attribute scripture to a mistake. It is not Paul you pass judgement on, but God. Paul spoke those words while Rome was persecuting Christians and engaged in a war against God. Are you that ignorant?
Look at Hitler's demise, and see what comes of Hussein before you are so quick to condemn the Almighty for the sins of man. Or do you suppose you understand all the ends of God?
Is your view derived from or similar to the following:
Randy Thornhill - The MIT Press and Craig Palmer use evolutionary biology to explain the causes of rape and to recommend new approaches to its prevention. According to Thornhill and Palmer, evolved adaptation of some sort gives rise to rape; the main evolutionary question is whether rape is an adaptation itself or a by-product of other adaptations. Thornhill and Palmer address, and claim to demolish scientifically, many myths about rape bred by social science theory over the past 25 years. The popular contention that rapists are not motivated by sexual desire is, they argue, scientifically inaccurate. The book also includes a useful summary of evolutionary theory and a comparison of evolutionary biology's and social science's explanations of human behavior. A new preface is available here.
"This is a courageous, intelligent, and eye-opening book with a noble goal--to understand and eliminate a loathsome crime. Armed with logic and copious data, Thornhill and Palmer will force many intellectuals to decide which they value more: established dogma and ideology, or the welfare of real women in the real world."
-- Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and author of How the Mind Works and Words and Rules
Killing has to be done in war, but you don't believe in it? Mass murderers can't be executed, but you can kill a drug dealer for selling drugs, or kill an intruder or the unborn, if they're perceived as a threat?
Soooo....You don't believe in killing in war or capital punishment.....but you would approve of the killing of your grandchild or a drug dealer? You seem to be talking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time.
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