In a debate Tuesday night for the Indiana Senate race, Mourdock (a Republican) was asked about abortion exceptions for rape and incest. He replied:
“I struggled with myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something God intended to happen.”
His statement has lit something of a firestorm (legit and exploited both), even with his quick correction post-debate that he didn't think that rape itself was something God intended.
A couple of thoughts of my own.
1. The idea of not granting a rape or incest exception is is a perfectly consistent and defensible position, if you grant the rights of "personhood" or humanity to a fetus (I don't, but many do). By law and by justice, we don't visit the crimes of the parent on the child. If you are staunchly anti-abortion, providing an escape clause for rape or incest makes no rational sense, since you are essentially saying it's okay to kill a baby if the father was a rapist.
(An exception or the life of the mother, yes, in that you must choose one life or another — though the direction for that choice is, itself, informative.)
2. Mourdock's thornier issue here was pulling God into the mix, but even here he's on hardly-radical grounds of parsing God's purpose and trying to reconsile the Problem of Evil — why an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God lets bad things (like rape) happen — or, put another way, if God knows all that will happen and can act and intervene according to His will, why does he enable a universe where that sort of thing occurs?
(And, yeah, that's one I struggle with, too. And I don't have any glib answers. Which is a big reason why I don't go around publicly attributing things, good or bad, to God's will.)
Mourdock runs into trouble here (at least one of the places he runs into trouble) because he tries to address just part of the equation. He's willing to say that a pregnancy from rape is something "God intended," but not that the rape itself is. And, yes, hand-wave, free will, all that, but that's just not a distinction that sits well (especially since I suspect a lot of women would consider no pregnancy from a rape to be a much greater "gift", if not a coincidentally nearby police officer or stray lightning bolt).
So, no, he didn't say that God intended rapes to occur, and it's not necessarily fair to suggest he thinks such a thing (let alone going down the road of "… so she must have deserved it") — but he opens the door to that interpretation by musing about a theological point that has engaged scholars for centuries and is hardly a topic that lends itself to easy or nuanced headline-based discussion.
Mind you, Mourdock would have been criticized anyway, either for his position on abortion exceptions or if he'd simply murmured about God's will, "Mysterious Ways", and all that — especially if he didn't follow on by saying "And here's how we're going to support the women and children who find themselves in this situation." Where he really erred was in trying to blend the two, mixing "God's plan" in with "rape" as a reason to restrict abortion, and playing directly into a set of issues (and expectations) where the GOP fringe has come across as anti-women, shame-based theocrats who are looking to incorporate A Handmaid's Tale into the party platform. That's beyond what Mourdock himself said, certainly — but not so far that his statements didn't resonate with those quite legimate concerns from the Left.
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So, no, he didn't say that God intended rapes to occur
Yes, he did. If he intended that pregnancy, and we're making the assumption that he exists and is all-powerful, then he intended for everything up to that moment to occur. The rape is part of his plan. Full stop.
That can certainly be inferred from what he said, but he's also directly denied that's what he believes. That may or may not be a coherent theological position, but it appears to be his.
You sum the whole thing up very admirably. Well-done.
@Doyce – Thanks, sir.
So he's trying to take both sides of this. I don't buy it for a second. He's saying this because what he actually believes causes a big mess in the news.
+Dave Hill
Thanks for this piece. I hadn't heard about the speech, but it was a pleasure reading your take on it. The following is my response.
1. The idea of not granting a rape or incest exception is a perfectly consistent and defensible position, if you grant the rights of "personhood" or humanity to a fetus (I don't, but many do). By law and by justice, we don't visit the crimes of the parent on the child. If you are staunchly anti-abortion, providing an escape clause for rape or incest makes no rational sense, since you are essentially saying it's okay to kill a baby if the father was a rapist.
Well said. I disagree with you and think there should be no exception for rape or incest, but I feel you understand my position perfectly.
(An exception for the life of the mother, yes, in that you must choose one life or another — though the direction for that choice is, itself, informative.)
Not so much a choice of mine as much as it is the doctor's to save as much life as possible. In this situation, I would ask the doctor to do everything to save both, plead with God that both would live, and pray that the doctor paid attention in school.
2. Mourdock's thornier issue here was pulling God into the mix, but even here he's on hardly-radical grounds of parsing God's purpose and trying to reconcile the Problem of Evil — why an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God lets bad things (like rape) happen — or, put another way, if God knows all that will happen and can act and intervene according to His will, why does he enable a universe where that sort of thing occurs?
(And, yeah, that's one I struggle with, too. And I don't have any glib answers. Which is a big reason why I don't go around publicly attributing things, good or bad, to God's will.)
Possible (hopefully not glib) answer: the problem is love. Inherent in love is the notion of free will–you cannot force someone to love you, or it stops being love. I think God gave us free will so that we could love him, but in giving us free will we have the ability to walk away, do our own thing, sin, etc.
Mourdock runs into trouble here (at least one of the places he runs into trouble) because he tries to address just part of the equation. He's willing to say that a pregnancy from rape is something "God intended," but not that the rape itself is. And, yes, hand-wave, free will, all that, but that's just not a distinction that sits well (especially since I suspect a lot of women would consider no pregnancy from a rape to be a much greater "gift", if not a coincidentally nearby police officer or stray lightning bolt).
I don't think free will is merely hand-waving from a theological perspective. I think God gave us free will to do what we want, but he also has his own will to do what he wants. He does not need to puppeteer us to accomplish his goals. He can do what he wants despite our actions, and he allows our actions because love requires free will. In other words, predestination and free will are a false dichotomy. We often use our free will for evil, and God often steps in to use our evil for good–kinda like Joseph sold in slavery to Egypt or Jesus nailed to a cross by Romans–God's intention to turn evil to good doesn't excuse or validate the evil.
So, no, he didn't say that God intended rapes to occur, and it's not necessarily fair to suggest he thinks such a thing (let alone going down the road of "… so she must have deserved it") — but he opens the door to that interpretation by musing about a theological point that has engaged scholars for centuries and is hardly a topic that lends itself to easy or nuanced headline-based discussion.
In today's internet-meme world, politicians don't have a chance of avoiding ridicule from either side. Be that as it may, Mourdock is responsible to be clear.
Mind you, Mourdock would have been criticized anyway, either for his position on abortion exceptions or if he'd simply murmured about God's will, "Mysterious Ways", and all that — especially if he didn't follow on by saying "And here's how we're going to support the women and children who find themselves in this situation." Where he really erred was in trying to blend the two, mixing "God's plan" in with "rape" as a reason to restrict abortion, and playing directly into a set of issues (and expectations) where the GOP fringe has come across as anti-women, shame-based theocrats who are looking to incorporate A Handmaid's Tale into the party platform. That's beyond what Mourdock himself said, certainly — but not so far that his statements didn't resonate with those quite legitimate concerns from the Left.
Personally, I wish abortion could be banned in this country through the Constitutional right to life, but more than that, I wish it could be made a non-issue through education, protection, and care of women (and men, for that matter). It would be best if rape and incest were eradicated, women made informed decisions about having children, and care was available for mothers in need.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer, +Chris Ruhs, even if I disagree with some of your points.
I think the question of "whose life to save" when there is not way to save either the mother or the unborn child is, by default, the mother. That's socially accepted, is part of medical training, and follows most religious traditions.
To me this can be informative of the question of abortion and the valuation of the lives involved (and the perceived impact of their ends). Not an absolute, truly, but informative.
I understand the arguments you make about free will, and have made them in my time. I don't find them satisfying at this point — at least not for purposes of argument — because they tend to assume some sort of ultimate positive outcome that I may believe in but which is both unprovable and is meaningless to those who don't share the same belief. Further, they tend to make it far too easy to use as an excuse — X has happened because of bad free will, God isn't intervening in X because of bad free will and God's love for us as independent actors, but God will somehow bring some good out of the bad free will so exercised. Not only does it beg the issue of things that occur without free will involved (e.g., fertilization from a rape, or non-fertilization between a couple that really want a child) which might be seen as evil, but it implies an understanding of God's will that's dodgy at best and open to error and abuse at worse.
I agree with your final point, save that I'd prefer abortion become obsolete because of the other conditions that you posit coming true. It seems to me that banning abortion before then is like banning prisons because we really want there to be no crime, and banning war because we really want everyone to live together in harmony.
I think your logic is correct, +Travis Cobb. Or, even more importantly, that it's God's will that a gunshot kills some people, cripples others, wounds some, misses the rest. God appears to not take responsibility for the cause (bacause, y'know, free will), but then lets physics and uncertainty get away with the rest … except when someone's prayer gets answered for some ineffable reason.
+Dave Hill
My take on God's will is that he is good and whatever he does is good, where good is defined by him and where were we to somehow see and know what he sees and knows, we would agree with his decisions. I don't presume for one moment that my sense of morality is more highly developed than his. Nor do I claim to know what God is doing or not doing at any given time, unless he tells me or makes it obvious.
I can understand how one might see that as dodgy, but only in proportion to our pretense of knowledge about what God is doing or why he's doing it, and only in proportion to our suspicion that God makes errors of judgement.
I understand that, +Chris Ruhs, and even believe it, as a matter of faith. But "It's God's will, think of it as a blessing, all will be well in the end" is cold comfort too often, to too many, even assuming they hold that same faith tenet.
Especially since it then circles around to "But that means this is all His plan, especially this suffering and His decision to let that rapist / killer / abuser / genocidal maniac do what they did, even if it was out of loving respect for their free will to make an awful decision no matter who was hurt by it."
And holding that as a matter of faith is one thing, and using it to try and comfort someone is another, but using it as the basis for public policy strikes me as only likely to cause problems, Mourdock's being the least of them.
+Dave Hill
But that means this is all His plan
That's only true if one believes everything that happens is part of God's plan. I think there is a difference between God's "decreed will" that which he has said will happen, and it shall come to pass, versus God's "moral will" that which God wants, but which does not always happen. God wills that none should perish, yet many do. God wills that people wouldn't sin, yet people do. This doesn't diminish God in any way, as he is fully capable of accomplishing his own ends despite what we do.
Omnipotence =! micromanaging
Would it be more comforting if we had a God who controlled every detail of every person's life? Would it be better if there was no choice so that there would be no sin at the cost of no love? I don't think so. God is love–free will, and the risk it involves to us and him, is necessary for love to exist.
It's similar in many ways to big government versus free markets and personal liberty. We have a God who wants us to have liberty–to be free for freedom's sake.
Again, +Chris Ruhs, I understand the argument. But this is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God. It makes no sense to me that there is a difference between His "decreed will" and his "moral will". To refer to what God wants vs what God lets happen is, by definition, meaningless, because "His Will Be Done." (Can God make a decree so big He won't move it?)
The Free Will discussion also falls apart insofar as Free Will doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's a result of a lot of external factors. I am not a determinist, and I don't believe that we're no more than a pre-ordained set of chemical reactions that thinks it has a persistent consciousness … but the flip side to that is that I don't believe we're not completely independent of the world's influences, either. And if those come from (and are pre-known) by God, then saying that Free Will means some sort of Divine Prime Directive of Non-Interference doesn't let God off the hook for the decisions that are made.
It's more honest (if less satisfying) to simply say that we don't understand how it all works, but we think it all works out completely well in the end. But, again, that's cold comfort to the victim of a rape, or an assault, or the other "Free Will" evils (let alone Acts of God "evils") that occur, and hardly the basis for setting public policy.
+Dave Hill
Yeah, I'm not interested in using my beliefs to set public policy. I'm just responding to deep questions most people have about God. How can God allow evil to happen?
If he didn't, I suppose we would complain that God didn't give us free will, and that we're all just puppets in his play. Of course, as puppets in his play, we wouldn't be allowed to make such complaints.
Or our making such complaints would be part of the puppetry. Perhaps God is a self-loathing puppet-master, like a creepy, homicidal ventriloquist who can only argue with himself through his dummies ….
No, I don't believe that, but it would make a fun story premise.
I raise the issue of public policy because (to circle waaaaaaay back to the post topic), that was a key part of what got Mourdock into trouble — justifying not allowing abortion in case of rape, not so much on his evaluation of the intrinsic worth of an unborn child's life regardless of the circumstances of its conception, but because, as a comfort, such a child should be considered a gift of God. That's pretty to think, but not a sound basis, IMO, for setting a public policy that impacts those who may disagree with his hopefulness.
+Dave Hill
There are often large differences between what we think we believe, what we act on, and what we find acceptable in politics.
Agreed. And sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it's not.