By now you have heard of Richard Mourdock, the Indiana Republican Senate candidate who said in a debate:
“I just struggled with it myself for a long time but I came to realize: Life is that gift from God that I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
The backlash from these comments have been swift and harsh. Mourdock was quick to distance himself from his comments. He stated that his comments were used to politically advantage his opponent. The problem with this whole story is not necessarily about abortion, but about rape. Did Mourdock mean that rape is intended to happen or that life is intended to happen?
At a dinner for GOP leaders Mourdock said:
“What I said last night I didn’t mean obviously to be mistaken but it became a news story,” he told the crowd. “For whatever reason, it seemed to further identify me in the public’s mind. And if that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is.”
Okay, stop right there. Did he just apologize for the controversy or his comments? Much like Todd Akin, the Missouri Senate GOP candidate who said “legitimate rape” rarely leads to pregnancies and the female body “shut that whole thing down”, is he minimizing his comments? . After the debate, Mourdock issued a brief statement and said:
“God creates life, and that was my point. God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that He does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick.”
Let it be said, rape is horrible. Rape is a crime. Rape is about evil power and control. God deplores rape. I can’t even believe I have to type those words to clarify what Christians should believe about the wrongness of rape. It’s troubling that a politician running for office either has such awful views on rape or has trouble articulating his policy clearly on a sensitive issue.
The CNN Belief blog has perhaps the most moving theological quote from a Catholic scholar:
Father Tom Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, said he found Mourdock’s comments troubling from a Catholic perspective because “God does not want rape to happen.” “Someone getting pregnant through rape simply means biology continues to function,” Reese said. “That doesn’t mean God wills it.
In 2001 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops revised their “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services”. Directive 36 states:
A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault. If after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization.
Even within the most pro-life religious communities, such as the Catholic Church, there is provision for opportunities to stop a pregnancy resulting from rape.
In the end, regardless of what you believe about abortion, we can all agree that such insensitive or poorly informed remarks do nothing to comfort those who are raped. We must treat such topics with the up-most compassion, understanding, and grace. We cannot continue to let right to life or freedom of health care issues be surrounded by such insensitivity. Let’s remember we are not talking about intangible political policy but real people with real problems.
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