:

Santorum: Baby Created in Rape Still a “Gift”

Robin Marty

by Robin Marty, Senior Political Reporter, RH Reality Check

January 23, 2012 - 9:14 am

Most candidates, when questioned on whether they could honestly force their family members to carry a pregnancy to term after a rape, will at the very least hem and haw a little over the issue.

But not former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.  He says the baby is still a gift, and he would counsel his daughters to believe the same.

Like this story? Your $10 tax-deductible contribution helps support our research, reporting, and analysis.

Follow Robin Marty on twitter: @robinmarty

  • mary-beth-hastings

    It’s fascinating to me that, fundamentally, those against abortion rights believe that they can just tell women or girls how they should feel about something, and that just makes any state action to enforce that belief ok. It’s like a rapist saying, “you should believe that me having sex with you is a gift.”

     

    If a woman doesn’t consent to sex, there’s nothing on earth that can make her feel like it’s fine.  If a woman doesn’t consent to a pregnancy, particularly one conceived in rape, there’s no value system or religious belief that can make that pregnancy feel less like a violation. But because opponents to abortion rights believe you should feel a certain way, they think they can make the government treat you as if you do.

  • ahunt

    Last time I checked…acceptance of a “gift” is not mandatory. Santorum will just have to excuse those women who reject a rapist’s generosity.

  • ahunt

    “this is her child”

     

    Uh no…this is NOT “her” child.  It is HER pregnancy, and to insist that a pregnancy resulting from rape confers maternal ownership of the result of rape is utterly vile.

  • lisac

    …is ‘compel.’  You want to compel your daughter to give birth, not counsel her.

  • crowepps

    Catholics believe suffering is a “gift”.  They believe that the way to “follow Christ” is emulate his suffering, that to be without suffering is to be without Christ, and so they put in place conditions that will promote suffering and knowingly inflict it on everyone around them.  For their own good.

  • cmarie

    horrible to think that any parent would counsel their daughters that way… as if the rape wouldn’t be traumatic enough.  Where is these girls’ mother when he’s saying this?!  I’m generally anti abortion myself (I know, not a popular opinion here) but I honestly can’t think of anyone I even know who would say this about a rape victim.  Crowepps, I know you don’t like Catholics but it’s just not true that most believe suffering is a gift.  Most of them also don’t believe a rape victim should be subjected to pregnancy against her will.  However, if you took the vast majority of Roman Catholics in the U.S out of your comment and just focused on Santorum… it sounds like you would be exactly right.

  • crowepps

    Most of the Catholic laity that I have known are wonderful, kind people who live ordinary lives and ignore the excesses of the fanatics in the Church, and most of the ordinary local priests and nuns seem to exist in actual reality and don’t urge others to suffer unnecessarily.

    The official theology about ‘mortification’ and ‘redemptive suffering’, however, and the support among the heirarchy for putting into practice extremist versions of it like those promoted by Opus Dei and the Sisters of Charity, strike me as excessive, and the idea that infants born with genetic diseases who endure constant pain and suffering must be kept alive as long as possible so their lives can be an inspiration as ‘victim souls’ is just — sick.  I don’t think God wants ‘victims’, and I for sure don’t think He deliberately creates them so He can gloat over them.

    http://www.opusdei.org/art.php?w=32&p=9316

  • cmarie

    right “extremist” Catholics may very well think suffering is a gift.  There are extremists in pretty much every religion… but like I  said most don’t think that at all.

  • crowepps

    Unfortunately, right now the extremists are in charge of the Vatican, the US Council of Bishops, and all too many schools and hospitals.

  • damiana-raven

    Although I am militantly pro-choice, I find it somewhat more respectable for people to oppose ALL voluntary abortion than to make exceptions for rape/incest. Why? Because making exceptions shows less concern about human life than about how it was conceived. You’ll magnanimously grant someone your permission and blessing to kill as long as the sex they had was horrible and traumatizing, but if they enjoyed the freedom and pleasure of it then they should “take responsibility.” Nice way to show what you really care about.