Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Politics and Religion
The Child Isn’t The One That Needs Killing

The Child Isn’t The One That Needs Killing

Last updated on: February 9, 2017 at 12:20 am by Rebecca Hamilton

The Child Isn’t The One That Needs Killing 2017-02-09T00:20:02-07:00 Rebecca Hamilton

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Child Isn’t The One That Needs Killing. Rob Roy produced by MGM

We are at a stalemate on the issue of abortion. For forty long years we’ve yelled at one another across the cultural divide. If vitriol was virtue, a good number of us could warp off to heaven like a convoy of Elijahs right now.

Nothing revs up the combatants in this on-going war faster than combining the words “rape” and “abortion” in one sentence. That’s like sounding the bell for a group of race horses lined up at the starting gate.

The foot-in-mouth comments of a Missouri politician brought all this to the fore Monday. Here is what he said:

Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill, justified his opposition to abortion rights even in case of rape with a claim that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy.
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

His comments are so absurd they would be funny if their impact wasn’t tragic. Morally callous biological nonsense coming out of the mouth of a pro-life politician makes pro life people sound like moral ingrates and idiots. His bizarre statement will be bandied about as proof of many of the prejudices that are used to destroy the pro-life movement’s credibility in public debate.

People we might otherwise convert to our cause will be persuaded that we are too heartless for them to listen to us. Every time someone like this exhibits such indifference to women, he makes it harder for the rest of us to convert the culture.

I’ve been fighting the battle to achieve justice for rape victims most of my adult life. I was one of the six founders of the original YWCA Rape Crisis Center here in Oklahoma. I’ve lost count of the number of pieces of legislation I’ve authored to either try to help rape victims or lock up their assailants. Along with the Oklahoma Coalition on Domestic Violence I helped put together the Statewide Day of Prayer for an End to Violence Against Women, the first such event that I know of in the country.

I can not contemplate the sheer indifference to the suffering of other people that rape represents. It wounds me when I try.

Despite all this, I have been hammered repeatedly by legal abortion advocates because I won’t kill a baby that is conceived in rape. They have gone so far as to claim that I want women to be beaten and raped, that I hate women.

I believe that the leaders in these attacks know that they are lying. They are, in the parlance of our pro-life movement, truly “pro-abortion” in that their motivations are to promote abortion rather than to help women.

I have never answered them in kind. Even though some pro-life people have criticized me because I won’t fall in line and call pro-choice people names, I refuse to do it. I do not research their histories to try to find ways to attack them. I never answer their ugliness with more ugliness.

I let them have the low road.

I’ve been on both sides of the abortion wars and I know that there are good and sincere people who feel pushed into a pro-choice position simply because they can’t see any other way to help women who are faced with terrible situations. These are the people we have to convert if we want to change the face of our society.

We can’t change the culture by high-five-ing one-another. We’ve got to change minds and hearts. We must convert those who are genuinely pro-choice rather than pro-abortion. We need to do missionary work among those good people who think abortion should be legal because of their concern for the welfare of women. We can not do this without changing some of our tactics.

We need to try to put another face on our movement than that of social bully. We have far too many people who say they are pro-life but who are more interested in winning arguments and dominating discussions than in saving lives. If we want to build a pro-life culture, we need to stop yammering about what terrible people those on the other side of the debate are, and start speaking about the values we believe in.

We believe in the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death. We are working to build a culture that honors the value and dignity of every single person, no matter how young, old, sick or disabled. We are trying to teach the world the Sermon on the Mount.

That is a noble cause. We should advance it with noble means.

Our values are not about overpowering those who disagree with us with verbal nastiness. They are also not about enforcing some rigid pro-life political correctness that says we have to denounce those who disagree with us or be attacked by other pro-life people ourselves.

I will go a step further and say that we should never answer their unkindness with unkindness of our own. We need to stay on our great and glorious message of the sanctity of life for all human beings. That, and not name-calling and denouncing people, is what will win the day.

The question of abortion for rape victims is a case in point. We should never make unkind or dismissive statements about the victims of horrible crimes like rape.

Representative Akin is mistaken. Women do get pregnant from rape. And they suffer horribly. Rape is a monstrous, dehumanizing terror that frightens almost all women and can be a kind of psychological death for those who have to survive it. Rape is another of those mortal sins that, if unrepented, can send those who commit it to hell.

None of this affects the fact that it is wrong to kill a baby. From the moment of our conception, we are all unique and precious individuals, children of the living God. A baby is not a terror. A baby is a person.

I think there are a lot of good and compassionate people who honestly favor abortion in the case of rape because they care about the rape victim. I also believe that there are lot of equally good and compassionate people who oppose abortion in the case of rape because they care about the life of the baby.

If we are going to heal our culture and bring the abortion wars to a life-giving conclusion, we have to bring these two groups of good people together. We need to stop focusing on saving the baby OR the mother. We should focus instead on saving the baby AND the mother.

Rape victims need a lot of help recovering from what has been done to them. Above all things, they need Christians to accept them as whole, unblemished people who are worth as much as they were before the rape. If they become pregnant from a rape, they will need a great deal of support. They need our help. Most of all, they need our love.

I get weary of empty-headed politicians and their callous statements. It tires me dealing with them and their indifference to human suffering.

As for rapists, I won’t go so far as Rob Roy and say that they need killing. But I do believe the unspoken sub-text of the statement that the person who should be punished is the rapist. The woman who was raped is innocent. A baby conceived in rape is innocent. The guilt, shame and the full punishment should fall on the one who did this terrible thing, not them.

Violence Against Women

Previous Post

August 21, 2012

Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus

Next Post

August 23, 2012 Money Where Our Mouth Is: Five Things Pro Life People Can Do For Rape Victims

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 10 Commandments 2012 Election 2016 Election 2020 Election 2022 Election 2024 Election Abortion Addiction Adult Day Care Advent Africa AI Alcoholism Alex Pretti Renee Good America American Citizenship American Fascism Announcement Anti Semitism Anti-Semitism Apologetics Archbishop Coakley Argentina Armenian Genocide Ash Wednesday Ballot Box Salvation Biden Big Beautiful Bill Bishop Black Mass Blasphemy Boko Haram Book Review Brainwashing Breast Cancer Bribery Calling Evil Good calling good evil Cancer Canonize Caregiving Catholic Catholic Vote Cause for Sainthood Chaos child abuse Child Labor Child Rearing Child Sacrifice Christian Bashers Christian Leadership Christian Persecution Christian Solidarity Christianity Christmas clergy Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal Climate Coakley Common Good Communion Communism Computers concentration camps Conclave Confession Consecration to Our Lady Conversion Coptic Christians Coronavirus Corporatism Corruption COVID Crisis Pregnancy Centers Culture D Day Death Death Penalty Dementia Democracy Designer Baby Destruction of the Family Dictator Dignity of Work Divine Mercy Novena Divine Mercy Sunday Divorce Doubt Drug Addiction easter Ebola Economics Education Egg Harvesting El Salvador Elderly Epiphany Epstein Eternal Life eternal life Eucharist Eugenics Euthanizing Children Euthansia evangelization Excommunicate Biden Extraterrestrial Life Failed Clergy Faith False Gods Family Fascism Fatherhood Feast of the Assumption First Amendment Flood the Zone Following Christ forced conversion Forgiveness Fortnight4Freedom fourth amendment Fr James Altman Fr Stanley Rother free press Freedom Freedom of Conscience freedom of religion Freedom of Speech Freedom of Worship vs Religious Freedom Geek Stuff Gender Theory Genocide God the Father Good Friday Gossip GQP Greenland Grief Gun Control Gun Violence Hate Blogs Health Health Care Heart Attack Heaven Hell Herod HHS Mandate History of the Crusades Holy Father Holy Father' Holy Father's Tweets Holy Matrimony Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Holy Thursday Holy Week Home Homeschooling homosexual Hospice Human Dignity Human Rights human trafficking Humor ICE Idolatry Immaculate Conception Immigration Incest Infertility Inspiration Iran War ISIS Islam Islamic Brotherhood Israel JD Vance Jesus Jobs Jordan Judas Judicial and Legislative Murder Judicial Murder July 4 Just War Justice Kavanaugh Ketanji Jackson Brown Laity Latin Mass Leadership Lent Less of Me Lying Lying for Trump Mad King MAGA Magnifica humanitas Mama Marriage Marriage Protection Amendment Martyr Media Bias Medicaid Men and Abortion Mercy Military Dictatorship Misogyny Motherhood Movie Review Murder Music National Catholic Register Nazi Clergy Neo Nazis New Category New Evangelism New Evangelization News Headlines Nigeria No Kings Novena for the Persecuted Church Nuns Obama Oklahoma Oscar Romero Our Lady Our National Embarrassment Pakistan Palm Sunday Papal Conclave Papal G8 Pedophile piano political priests Political Whore Clergy Politics Polygamy Pope Francis Pope Francis Visit United States Pope Leo XIV Pope's Prayer Intentions Pornography Post Christian West Poverty Prayer Prayers for the Persecuted Church Pro Life Prophecy Prostitution Purgatory Putin Quack Medicine Racism Rape Religious Freedom Renee Good Republican Republican priests Rerum Novarum Retirement Risen Lord Roe v Wade Rosary Sacrament Sacred Heart Sacrilege Saints Salvation Same Sex Marriage Sanctity of Human Life Satan Save Our Democracy scandal Scripture Shroud of Turin Sisters Slavery Social Justice Social Security Solidarity Cross St Michael the Archangel stations of the cross Stop Late Term Abortion Stroke Suicide Supreme Court Surrogacy Surveillance State Synod Syria Taliban Tariffs Taxes Technology Thanksgiving The Ascension The Cross The Locust Class The Political Heresy The Resurrection The Tomb The Transfiguration The Trinity The War on Girls Tornado Trauma Trump Trump Coup Trump Destroying America Trump's Coup Trump's War on the Rule of Law Trumpism Ukraine Uncategorized USAID USCCB Vatican Vatican Reform Violence Against Women Violence in America Vocation Voting Rights Wages Walk for Life War Weight Loss White House Why Aren't You a Feminist Too? Woke Women Leaders Women's Rights Worker's Rights World Hunger World War I World War III World Youth Day Worship Writing Year of Faith

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 October 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 August 2016 May 2016 April 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Pentateuch" mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Prophetic writings Five books Ten scrolls Wisdom literature