Rape

By Tom Quiner

If someone raped my wife, daughter, or sister, I’d want to kill him.

I wouldn’t, but that would surely be my first emotional response to such savagery.

If anyone I loved was violated by a rapist, I would wish evil upon the perpetrator.

I would not want to compound the crime by killing the baby thrust into this world by an act of violence. Some readers may object, because it was not my body that was violated nor my body that has to carry the child of my rapist for nine months.

I understand your objections. I totally get it. A number of factors have influenced my shift on this position over the years. I have heard women speak who were the product of rape. Their message is simple: I’m glad I am alive. I’m glad my birth mother let me live.

I met a woman who was raped. She spoke very openly at a pro life meeting I attended about her situation. She gave birth to a mulit-racial son, her rapist’s son, and is glad she did, even though parenting him hasn’t always been easy.

She told me that surveys of women who have been raped, and who give birth to their rapist’s child are always glad they let the child live, whether they kept it or adopted him/her out.

On the other hand, most women who abort their rapist’s child regret compounding violence with violence.

This leads to an extraordinary statement made by the Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri, Rep. Todd Akin:

“It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

Mr. Akin’s comment is one of the nuttiest things I have heard in a long time, right up their with “I am the candidate of hope and change.”

He has to go.

If Republicans win the Senate, they can gut Obamacare through the budget reconciliation process. Mr. Akin is running against the most vulnerable candidate for Senate on the Democratic side of the aisle, Claire McCaskill.

Politically, he jeopardizes Republican’s chances to re-take the Senate and undo Obamacare.

But politics isn’t the worst part of this issue. His comment is a knife in the back to any woman who has been raped. Its utter insensitivity is a verbal act of violence against women who were raped and gave birth to their rapist’s child.

Mitt Romney expresses the view of Republicans everywhere with his reaction that Akin’s words were:

“… insulting, inexcusable and, frankly, wrong.”

Todd Akin has to go, and he has to go fast. The Republican power structure is leaning on him hard to withdraw from the campaign.

His words are a stain on the Republican Party, his apology notwithstanding.

Even worse, he is a stain on the noble pro life movement.

10 Comments

  1. theathiestfreethinker on August 21, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    I’d like to see your sources about women who regret and are glad that they aborted or didn’t in rape cases. I not entirely sure what the purpose of the first part of your post was, was it to imply that women should have to keep the baby of their rapist? Or just that you think that in some cases keeping the baby can be the better option?



    • lburleso on August 21, 2012 at 3:33 pm

      The post seems to address the perpetual abortion caviat “except in cases of rape and incest”.

      Good post, Tom. It is a difficult position to take on first hearing, but once one makes the connection that an abortion does not help the mother at all, and that the child is not guilty, it makes total sense.



      • theathiestfreethinker on August 21, 2012 at 4:27 pm

        I’d say not having to carry your rapists baby and not being reminded of him everytime time you look in the mirror would help the mother.



    • quinersdiner on August 21, 2012 at 4:15 pm

      My point is that the baby has a fundamental right to life at the moment of conception, even if she comes into this world via a rape.



      • theathiestfreethinker on August 21, 2012 at 4:25 pm

        Why do they have a right to life at that stage? Surely the rights of a mother who can and is undeniably suffering must trump those of an embryo who’s suffering is at least in dispute?



        • quinersdiner on August 21, 2012 at 4:51 pm

          Human life begins at conception. Killing the mother’s daughter in the womb via human abortion compounds the act of violence, only in this case, a human being dies. I agree that these are very tough, tragic issues. I don’t say any of this casually, believe me. But human life is human life.



          • theathiestfreethinker on August 21, 2012 at 5:02 pm

            At conception it’s just a few cells with no neurons and therefore no ability to feel pain, it has no brain and if you believe that there is a soul at conception then I have some very tough questions for you. The potential for human life is not human life, I kill more human life when i scratch myself than when an abortion is performed at an early date.



          • quinersdiner on August 21, 2012 at 5:07 pm

            We’ll have to disagree on this point, my friend. Thanks for your commentary. I do appreciate it.



          • theathiestfreethinker on August 21, 2012 at 5:10 pm

            You’re welcome, thank you for the debate, always nice to have a reasonable discussion with someone.



  2. Bob on August 23, 2012 at 10:55 am

    For some folks, it’s easy to recommend killing as long as they’re not the one getting the ax. I’ll believe the pro-choice people are sincere when they swear that, if they found out today that they had been conceived as a result of rape, they would immediately hire someone to slice and dice them into little pieces and flush them down a drain — which is what they recommend doing to babies whose fathers are rapists. What kind of society condones punishing children for the sins of their fathers anyway?