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IN GOP Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock
Missouri might not be the only state this year where the Republican candidate’s statement about rape costs the party a Senate seat. In last nights Indiana Senate debate, Republican candidate Richard Mourdock was asked about his stance on abortion. Mourdock responded that he oppose abortion even in cases of rape because that can be something “God intended to happen.” From CBS News:
“I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God,” Mourdock said. “And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
Democrats immediately pounced on his comments, and Donnelly — who is also pro-life but who supports exceptions for rape and incest — released a statement questioning the notion that God would “intend for rape to happen.”
The statement from Mourdock alone is damaging and will likely turn off many women voters. What makes it even worse politically is that it perfectly feeds into the narrative that Democratic candidate Joe Donnelly has been using against Mourdock for months. The democratic attack against Mourdock is that he is too radically right wing. Even though the voters of Indiana lean Republican, Mourdock is simply too far outside the mainstream to support. This rape comment, which I can only assume is being integrated into a big ad buy as we speak, powerfully highlights this message.
Before these comments the Indiana Senate race was extremely close. An internal poll from Donnelly release early yesterday showed him with a two point lead. This comment could be the opening that allows Donnelly to secure victory.
27 Comments
According to David Dayen, Joe Donnelly is not all that different from Richard Mourdock. Donnelly is a Democrat, however … so there is that “good news” …
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/10/24/in-sen-mourdocks-democratic-opponent-also-anti-choice/
DW
Comment makes him sound like a “perp” or a voyeur. Sickening.
Aha – so that is the “good” alternative? Righty-ho then…
So god has control over IF a woman gets pregnant, but not HOW she gets pregnant? He only has control over victims and not criminals. God controlled the “good thing”, but had no control of the “bad thing”? The total disconnect from logic and reason makes religious fundamentalist the worst kind of politicians, Christians and human beings. They don’t even see the contradictions and hypocrisies in their twisted thought process. They only see what’s in their personal self-interest. God is a means to an end for them. They don’t give two shites about Christ or god.
I don’t think that’s what he said, reread his comment.
He said something God intended it to happen” meaning both the rape and the pregnancy.
You could also say God then intended for an abortion to happen, but I’m sure he’d say that would be silly, since he could’ve just prevented the rape, or the pregnancy.
I think what Mourdock intended to say is that all good things come from God, and all bad things happen because we are in a fallen world, but God is always there working through us to bring goodness out of evil.
From what I understand, Mr. Mourdock’s god doesn’t condone rape, but isn’t above taking advantage of the situation to create a life. Meanwhile, many people who want to have kids fuck and fuck and fuck and fuck, yet just can’t get pregnant without the help of scientists. That god sure is a kidder, isn’t she?
Then the rapes of his wife and daughters (even his sons, come to think of it) would be the intent of god, and Mourdock couldn’t bitch about it. The rapist and the third-term abortionist, too, would be intents of god, usless god is a basically useless squit.
Thanks for the response. I don’t understand how god is working through a raped woman to bring her goodness by allowing her to be raped and then rewarding her with her rapists child. Again, why would god intend for any woman to be raped? Why wouldn’t he simply encourage her to have sex without the use of contraception in order for her to have the gift of life?
Oh please. It’s Indiana. The Morlock will be Goopering up the CongressWhore orientation with Akin wearing his Koch Brothers’ wig in January.
These psalm singing, flag waving Christianists get off on social sadism.
This elevates male sperm to a privileged status that it simply does not warrant! :)
Down with Patriarchy! Next thing these same tools will be telling us God ordered them to rape us!
That’s the beauty of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, there to supply whatever rationalization you need to feel better about yourself and prove divine whatever notion flits through misfiring neurons. Rape and life are too complicated for me, I’m stuck on counting dancing angels on the head of a pin.
What’s the difference between American priests and pastors who impose their morality on Christian women and Afghani mullahs and imams who impose theirs on Muslim women?
The next time a man is raped and gets pregnant, remind me to ask him what his “religious” views are on abortion. Only at that point will his opinion be informed or relevant. Only a woman can be raped and get pregnant. Only a man can rape a woman and impregnate her. Perhaps rapists should be considered emissaries of god instead of criminals because they are men who give women god’s greatest gift.
Nice of God to be doing all that. I guess he doesn’t have anything else to do in his free time, what with all that incessant angel singing.
When men age, they tend very naturally to lose their ability to have an erection.
That is certainly as much God’s will as rapists impregnating women and girls, sometimes their own daughters or neices or sisters, etc., right? Indeed, more so, because the Bible prohibits incest, but does not prohibit aging into impotence.
So, all these men who are so willing for women and girls to endure God’s will should never have made Viagra the financial success it has been, right?
When Viagra lacks customers due to obedience to God’s obvious will as to aging men, get back to me.
Meanwhile, what God’s will is for me is between me and God; and nothing in the Bible makes it a matter for any legislature or, indeed for anyone but God and me, even my pastor.
Would like a reporter to ask Mourdock if it was God’s will that Osama took out the Twin Towers.
Only in America can shitweasels like this be viable candidates for high public office. Favored candidates, even.
P.S. Democratic politicians seem better at keeping stupid, patriarchial remarks out of their mouths, but Democrats have not been very good lately at action.
Reproductive choice is a woman’s Constitutional right, based in part on her right to make decisions about her own body and her right to privacy. ‘
Remind how the Hyde Amendment got to be the law of the land with cooperation from any Democrats. Remind me how many times Democrats have tried to repeal it.
Tell me how many times the D of J has gone to court over state laws that restrict women’s constitutional rights to choice. Where has the D Of J been when state laws limit access to the morning after pill or demand a woman allow insertion of a wand into her vagina before she can exercise her right to reproductive choice. What other constitutional right gets that kind of burden?
So, no, Democrats, political correction and a superior air as you snark opportunistically during your campaigns over the stupid remarks of Republicans doesn’t earn you the women’s vote. If you want to earn the women’s vote, do something a little more meaningful than taking cheap shots.
The difference: we’re stuck with the former.
We have 2 guys running for the Senate, one says he’s Pro-life in all cases, and the other says he’s Pro-life, except for cases of rape and incest.
Pro-life, except for cases of rape and incest sounds like the better option to a Pro-life supporter, but how would it work?
Would the woman just show up at a clinic and say she wants an abortion, because she was raped, or does she first have to file a police report first? . . . How much proof will she need to show? and to whom?
This seems like a legal solution that would be almost impossible to enforce.
Here’s a better solution:
1) Allow all women to control their bodies. They should be able to opt to end their pregnancy for any reason they want. Examples: They wanted a girl instead of a boy, or a boy instead of a girl. It’s summer and they want to look good in a bikini. The baby might have Downs syndrome, or any reason you can imagine.
2) The doctor preforming the termination of the woman’s pregnancy Must do everything medically possible to safe the life of the Baby. Now if the pregnancy is less than 13 weeks mostly likely the baby will die, but if it’s after 13 weeks the baby has a chance to survive, the later the term the better the survival rate.
3) These babies, many with medical conditions would then be cared for by the people and charities that say they are pro-life, and if they fail, by the State.
This may sound like a deal breaker, but it’s not because what will happen is woman who don’t want their babies will have early term abortions, or wait until late enough in the term so that the baby won’t have early termination side effects, like blindness, etc.
Mourdock’s comment is not startling — it is entirely consonant with the pro-life and Catholic Church positions (to name two).
Move along — nothing to see here.
Actually, Mourdoch makes an exception for abortion in the case of saving the mother’s life (a legitimate abortion?). But if he trusts god’s intentions for a rape-pregnancy on the one hand, why doesn’t he trust god’s good intentions for killing the mother? Second-guessing his own god.
Nice God the Republicans have there.
To Donnelly’s credit he DOES believe in exemptions for rape victims, so they ARE different on this particular issue.
Actually it isn’t or there would be NO exceptions. The Catholic Church has been known to allow girls as young as 12 die rather than permit an abortion.
Mind you the Catholic church is full of male @ssholes who have no problem thwarting “God’s will” when it comes to treatment for medical conditions like pneumonia or cancer(which can also be construed as “God’s will.)
And why stop at pregnancy.
Technically everything can be construed as God’s will. Why bother treating a gunshot victim or a car accident victim, after all it was “God’s will” that they were in the accident to begin with? Why bother treating cancer or bacterial diseases. God created bacterial life after all. Who’s to say it isn’t His will that people die of those diseases since he allowed them to contract them to begin with?
There is a big ol’ hole in the whole God’s will construct. It’s been utilized as a tool for authoritarians to beat others about the head with their moral superiority. Fortunately, I think we are hitting a point where they have over reached.
Trying to make sense of religion is a waste of time. Religion is basically believing in something one knows isn’t true or at least can’t be proven. That’s faith. And in the US, probably more than any other country on earth, one must have a religion to be elected. Got to believe in the unproven. That explains a lot.
Faith, on it’s own, isn’t a horrible thing. My belief that there is purpose in what happens to me has helped me cope on more than one occasion. That being said, I’m not foolish enough to suggest that my personal belief set is God’s own. I would never in a million years tell someone they needed to suffer because it was God’s will for them.
Then again, my God is a forgiving God so even if it were a “sin” to have an abortion, I find it well within the realm of reason that God has the power of forgiveness. He speaks about it through his Son in the New Testament. You know, that Christ guy that is supposed to be the foundation of Christianity.